With orders from oil man and then-mayor, Bill Haslam, a group of Knoxville businessmen in 2008 flew to Boston to illegally hire corporate mole, Jim McIntyre, as superintendent of Knox County Schools. The board vote was 5-4 at that time to hire, and ever since teachers have been fighting an uphill war to maintain their dignity as the Knoxville community has fought to maintain humane public schools. This past summer the board voted 5-4 to renew McIntyre's contract, but in the fall election, one of McIntyre's stooges lost his seat on the board of education. With the writing on the wall from a fed-up County Commission, McIntyre has apparently decided to take a year's pay and head back to Broad's training camp for further orders. Happy New Year, Knox County!
Since being hired over more qualified candidates for the position of Knox County superintendent, Jim McIntyre has distinguished himself as a loyal stooge of Eli Broad's corporate efficiency training camp, where he learned undemocratic practices that he has brought to his public responsibilities in East Tennessee.
Last fall he illegally put the KCS on the hook for almost a hundred thousand dollars to pay a Broad trainee to practice her austerity lessons in Knoxville.
(WBIR - KNOXVILLE) - At its regular meeting Monday evening, the Knox
County Commission retroactively rejected a controversial grant
agreement with the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems.
The
embattled grant agreement laid out the terms of employment for a Broad
Center fellow, Christy Hendler, as she worked for KCS during the 2014-15
school year.
The Broad Center is, essentially, a training program
for people with executive leadership experience aspiring to become
school district superintendents and other leaders within large education
systems.
Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre is himself a Broad graduate.
McIntyre
accepted the grant agreement for Hendler's employment back in
September, without seeking the approval of the KC Board of Education or
Knox County Commission.
In April, county Law Director Bud
Armstrong informed Board of Education members McIntyre had no authority
to do that, since the grant has a matching fund requirement, among other
reasons.
In
the arrangement, the Broad Center agreed to give KCS a grant totaling
up to $29,700, to be put toward Hendler's salary. In exchange, the
district would foot the rest of her salary, plus pay benefits.
The
baseline salary for a Broad fellow, according to the Broad Academy, is
$90,000. The Broad grant would pay for up to $29,700 of that.
With
McIntyre's unauthorized acceptance of the grant agreement, Hendler has
been working as the district's director of planning and improvement. Her
time with the school system as a Broad fellow is set to end at the end
of July.
That means KCS - and therefore taxpayers - have been
footing the bill this whole time for not only the difference ($90k
salary - $29.7k grant = $60,300 taxpayer responsibility), but also for
the cost of benefits. The district estimates that at about $27,000,
putting taxpayers on the hook for a total of $87,300.
However,
because McIntyre accepted the grant agreement back in September, both
the Knox County Board of Education and the County Commission had to vote
to retroactively approve the grant agreement.
In a 5-4 decision late this spring, the BOE narrowly approved the agreement.
On Monday evening, however, Knox County commissioners returned a surprise vote.
At
their work session last Monday, a majority of commissioners indicated
they would be in favor of approving the agreement, recommending its
approval 7 to 3, with one commissioner opting to pass.
Within a week, six commissioners had changed their mind.
Nine voted against approving the agreement. Commissioner Amy Broyles was not present.
Chairman
Brad Anders, who voted "yes" at the work session but then voted "no"
Monday night, said "there was more study and questions raised over the
week," and agreed it was quite a change.
"The thing that I used as a measure," he said, was that McIntyre's approval "was improperly done and you can't condone that."
Commissioner Sam McKenzie was the lone "yes," though he explained himself prior to the vote.
"The
water's over the dam...these funds are pretty much spent," McKenzie
told his fellow commissioners, urging fiscal responsibility. "We're
basically turning down $30,000...the money's been spent, so we're going
to have to take out - at this point - $30,000 out of a potential
teacher's assistant or potential, I don't know, across-the-street hire
or, you know, toilet paper or something. That money has to come from
somewhere to pay this money because it's pretty much been spent."
"This,
to me, is just the clean-up," McKenzie continued. "If folks want to
make a point, I think there are better places to make a point than us
paying $30,000."
Commissioner Charles Busler said he understood
McKenzie's point, but said, "the money was spent before it was approved,
and that should bother us to no end....I mean, how could we look at the
people that voted us in office and say, 'Oh, they went ahead and spent
it, so it's spent anyway, so we're not going to do anything about it.'?"
In
the pre-vote deliberations, Commissioner Randy Smith asked McIntyre:
"Do you feel this is a wise spending of taxpayers' money?"
McIntyre told the commission he does think Hendler's salary has been worth the cost.
"She's
been able to work with our operational areas to identify key
performance indicators, to ensure that they're as efficient and
effective as they can be," he told the commission. "She has been leading
and facilitating some of the work around, 'How do we make sure that all
the student assessments that we do are either required by the federal
government or are valuable to inform instruction for our teachers?' And
so, yes, I believe it's been-- it is a good investment of resources, and
it's been valuable to our school system to have access to the skills
and abilities that she's brought to the table."
Several commissioners mentioned getting several dozen emails from constituents, urging them to reject the grant agreement.
McKenzie,
however, cautioned, "We represent 500,000 people. Thirty people sending
me an email does not mean we're doing the people's business. That does
not mean that. No way does that mean that. ...Listen, but don't say that
that's indicative or representative of all the people, because it's
not."
Armstrong told commissioners what a "no" vote would mean.
"If
it's not approved by this body, then the grant is rejected," Armstrong
said. "Then the Board of Education will have to then contact the
grantor, and then they'll have to work out something with the grantor
and see where it goes from there. There's not a clear-cut answer yes or
no."
Bob Thomas, KCS assistant superintendent of administrative
services, confirmed to the commission the Broad Center grant has been
received and already spent on Hendler's salary.
Asked if the
$29,700 will have to be paid back to the Broad Center, Armstrong said
those are issues "that I will have to address with the school board and
the legalities of where it leaves them."
After the overwhelming,
near-majority rejection of the grant agreement, McIntyre said he'll now
wait and see what the county law director and BOE decide to do.
"Some
of the commissioners indicated one of the possibilities: We might have
to send the money back, and I don't know. We'll have to figure that out,
and I'll defer to the law director's office and to the school board to
sort all that out," he told WBIR. "This is, you know, $30,000. We have a
$430 million budget, and so, you know, this is a relatively modest set
of resources in the big picture of our overall budget."
McIntyre acknowledged this was a grant agreement approval process with flaws.
"At
times there are things that come through the process that don't get
handled properly. We try to rectify those and correct those and make
sure that they're handled properly in the end, and this was really what
this was about," McIntyre said. "It was about, 'How do we address the
deficiencies in this process? How do we make sure we get it right?'"
Asked
if the district will keep Hendler on as a regular employee after the
end of July, McIntyre said, "that's really a separate decision from the
grant agreement or from the grant itself, and we'll certainly evaluate
that as we do with all employees, moving forward."
With an anonymous gift (is that a Broad smell or Gates?) and RttT money, UTK and Knox County Schools have been churning out corporate-trained school administrators since 2011. Jim McIntyre, KCS Broad-trained Superintendent, needs to place these new and inexperienced administrators in order to satisfy the oligarch who is funding the "leadership academy." Here is pic of Tennessee's oil executive governor with McIntyre and one of the "academy's graduating classes.
What do you do to make room for the newbies funded by the oligarchs? If you are a professional a-hole like Jim McIntyre, you pick the top-notch experienced educator (23 years) and humane leader to demote and shove back into the classroom, even when that person has topped out on the state evaluation plan. Level 5. The local news in Knoxville won't cover the story, so we had to find where it was printed: in a local shoppers' guide (click story to enlarge):
Many thanks to Mike Donila from Screams from the Porch for this fact sheet on McIntyre and TN superintendents (that's McIntryre below with his gold-stamped Broad Center plaque just behind him--ah, symbolism):
Superintendent Jim McIntyre
FACT: McIntyre is in charge of the county’s more than $400 million educational budget, its 89 schools and a 7,500-person workforce that includes 4,800 teachers.
FACT: Of the state’s 15 largest school districts, 13 superintendents spent between seven and 33 years as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal.
FACT: Only two superintendents who oversee the state’s largest school districts have fewer than seven years’ experience. Jim spent one year in a school, and Dorsey Hopson, a long-time attorney, who took over one of the state’s most troublesome school districts – Memphis-Shelby County – has no classroom experience.
FACT: About 20 years ago, Jim taught only one school-year at Vincent Gray Alternative High School, a private academy in East St Louis, Ill that touts class sizes of eight to 10 students “who live on the margins of poverty,” and graduates an average of 20 students per year, according to its website.. . .
FACT: Jim taught English, anatomy and physical education. He said he took the job as part of an endeavor similar to “a domestic Peace Corps kind of thing.”
FACT: After the school year, Jim returned home to Boston. He built on his education, earning a master’s degree in urban affairs at Boston University, and a doctorate in public policy at the University of Massachusetts.
FACT: In 1997, Jim joined the Boston Public Schools’ finance office in 1997 where he worked as an intern, according to one of his letters of recommendation written by John McDonough, then-BPS chief financial officer and the systems’ current superintendent. Jim was quickly promoted to budget director and deputy chief financial officer where he helmed a school district of roughly 56,000 students, 9,000 employees and budget of more than $800 million,according to his resume. . .
FACT: In 2006, Jim took over as BPS chief operating officer.
FACT: Knox County hired in him the spring of 2008 in a 5-4 vote. Initially 40 people applied for the job. The final candidates were Jim, Brian Bingelli, an assistant superintendent in Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools, and Bob Thomas, a Knox County assistant superintendent. Bignelli had 22 years’ experience as a teacher and principal, including eight in the classroom, according to his resume. Thomas had 12 years as a teacher and principal, including nine in the classroom.
FACT: Jim earns an annual salary of $222,800 and an $800-a-month travel allowance. He started in early July 2008. The board has since then renewed his contract, which runs through 2016. The board will talk about extending his contract another year on Monday.
SEMI-FACT: The board does whatever Jim tells it to do.
FACT: Graduation rates have increased during Jim’s tenure, from 79.3 percent in 2008 to 87.8 percent in 2013 – though they declined slightly from the all-time high of 90.2 percent in 2012.
FACT: Test scores aren’t as rosy as some folks paint them to be.
FACT: This information is not new.
FACT: No one has actually reported it in detail.
A look at classroom experience for top 10 districts:
It's obvious that Jim McIntyre is about to become the latest in a long line of discredited and corrupt Broad trainees that have been planted in central offices around the U. S. to do the bidding of plutocrat, Eli Broad. When you lose the News-Sentinel, you're a goner in Knoxville. From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:
Leaders of the area Public Building Authority are accusing the Knox County Schools chief and school board members of misleading the public about the state of security systems in at least two schools and putting taxpayers at financial risk.
School officials Saturday, however, disputed PBA members’ assertions.
At a meeting Tuesday, PBA’s board of directors asked attorney Morris Kizer to draft a statement notifying Knox County Commission, Mayor Tim Burchett and the public that the school system’s statements about the state of security systems at the two schools were at best misleading and at worst untrue.
The move comes amid growing concerns over school security systems that began when PBA discovered all manner of woes with systems installed at Hardin Valley Academy and Powell Middle School.
PBA’s 2008 discovery led to an independent audit in 2011 that revealed unsafe wiring, codes violations, fire wall intrusions, missing motion detectors and non-working cameras, among other things. PBA sued the firm responsible, Professional Security Consultants & Design.
The News Sentinel obtained the audit by Stansell Electric last month and reported on a personal relationship between PSCD’s owner and Schools Security Chief Steve Griffin, who has since been placed on leave and is under probe. In the wake of the newspaper’s reporting, Schools Superintendent Dr. Jim McIntyre and Board Chairwoman Karen Carson held a news conference Feb. 2 assuring parents that although PSCD did not deliver the “quantity and quality” of equipment and installation services promised, all systems — fire protection, burglar alarms and video monitoring — were “functioning properly.”
McIntyre has repeatedly said the school system’s new security monitoring firm had “identified deficiencies” in all schools and made repairs.
However, the Knox County Law Department last week confirmed to the PBA that no repairs have been made at Hardin Valley or Powell Middle aside from fire wall intrusions that PBA ordered fixed in 2008.
Last year when it came budget time, Slick Jim McIntyre did his best to get an extra $35 million to fund a bonus pay plan for teachers based on test scores. Even though there are research studies that show these plans have a demonstrated track record of failure, that isn't stopping McIntyre from going back to well to try again. To help their losing cause this year, Gov. Haslam has put a member of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce on the case, and with the help of other non-educators and non-researcher, they have conducted a survey designed to provide "data" to make their case. (SM is now trying to a copy of that survey.)
The other priority item for Eli Broad's Supt. McIntyre is "technology," which means building the capacity for online high-stakes national tests that will be part of the national standards known as the Common Core. Are Knoxville parents supportive of public schools? Yes. Do they want to waste money for the benefit of profiteers and schemers who are draining money from public schools? No. Do they believe in good research and frown on attempts at manipulation. You bet.
In 2012 the county’s public schools asked for $35 million more in the county’s annual budget, but received a $7 million increase in funding, and it appears that there may be a similar request in the 2013-14 budget proposal.
“Last year there was a huge demand by the school system for its budget and we wanted to ask what do people really feel about public education,” said Jennifer Evans, vice president of public policy at the Knoxville Chamber, which has a history of endorsing higher public spending on schools.
The survey showed that 80 percent of respondents believe that students should have electronic access to course material, the same level of support for increased teacher pay. “If that requires additional funding, can that be covered by property tax or some other ways?” Evans said.
The survey results also showed that nearly half of those polled believe academic standards are too low, but two-thirds agree that their neighborhood school is effective.
Randy Boyd, founder and president of Radio Systems of Knoxville, funded the survey with five other individuals to have data to back the sentiments of Knox County voters regarding education.
“I hope that everybody involved in the decision going forward might have better information to make those decisions,” Boyd said.
“Being a business person, I like data, and I felt there was a lack of data on the discussions.”
Boyd is a known supporter of education. He’s an adviser on higher education to Gov. Bill Haslam and in 2012 he was part of a group that gave $42,000 to the Chamber for advertisements supporting an $35 million for Knox County schools.
The survey represents a different tack: to provide hard figures on public sentiments about schools through the years. The data will be updated annually and questions may be added, he said.
“You need to have hard data to make a decision,” Boyd said, “not just opinion or how many people called you last night.”
Boyd agreed that those most zealous voices on an issue can often drown out sentiments from the bulk of a population.. . . .
The zealous voices are back, Mr. Boyd--and there are more of them and they are louder than ever.
If there is another thing that Knoxville does not need and can't afford (besides Lane Kiffin) is a string of corporate welfare charter reform schools that will benefit Wall Street hedge fund investors and philanthrocapitalists like Eli Broad, while draining millions from public schools. This was issued this morning:
KCS issues charter school request for proposals
The Knox County Schools is accepting charter school proposals for the 2014-2015 school year to cultivate strong school capacity to provide high quality academic instruction. Proposals will be entertained both for new charter schools as well as potential conversions of existing schools to charters.
Applicants interested in conversion of an existing school to a charter school, or any non-traditional charter school structure should contact the Knox County Board of Education office to consult with the Charter School Review Chair before beginning the process on February 1, 2013. Applications for new, traditional charter schools must offer an innovative, compelling and evidence-based plan for a high quality charter school, and demonstrate that the plan was collaboratively developed by a diverse and expert design team.
Any group or individual planning to submit a charter school proposal to the Knox County Schools must first submit a Letter of Intent and evidence of community outreach no later than February 1, 2013 (which is 60 days before the completed application is due to the Knox County Schools on April 1, 2013). Potential applicants who do not submit a Letter of Intent and evidence of community outreach by the February deadline will not be considered during the 2013 application cycle.
Complete details and timelines are available in the charter school Request for Proposal document located on the Knox County Schools website, www.knoxschools.org.
Despite a summer smackdown on a planned budget increase for teacher bonus pay based on test scores, and despite the Vanderbilt study that demonstrated that perf pay is a divisive waste of time and money, Eli Broad's poodle superintendent, Jim McIntyre, forges on. The question Knox County taxpayers should be asking: Which legitimate programs are being neglected to fund this bonus pay plan with a demonstrated track record of failure in Nashville, Chicago, and New York? When will Knoxville voters demand the Board get a superintendent with children's interest in mind, rather than kowtowing to the oligarchs who want to control public education across the country?
The latest stealth attack by corporate stooge, Supt. Jim McIntyre, comes in the form a brazen attempt to put himself in charge of deciding which public schools in Knoxville will be converted into corporate welfare charter schools. From the RFP, p. 4:
Conversion of existing schools to charters may be initiated through reorganization decisions made by the Director of Schools (reconstitutions, etc.), through charter decisions by the Board of Education, or through consideration of charter petitions by 75% of faculty and/or 75% of families at the school to be potentially converted.
And who gave McIntyre the authority to institute the constitutionally-challenged Parent Trigger? Where is the Board of Education?
Thanks to diligent public school advocates in Knoxville, this scam has been uncovered and the corporate tabloid, the Knoxville News Sentinel has been called to task. From Knox Views:
Buried in yesterday's KNS is this article reporting that the Knox County School System has issued a Request for Proposals seeking charter school applications for both new and "converted" charter schools.
According to the article:
"We want to make sure if a charter school applicant puts forth a proposal for a charter school that … it isn't a boilerplate from another application they did in Ohio or Indiana," McIntyre said. "But that it's an application and a proposal that is very specific to meeting the educational needs of students in Knox County."
Which is curious, because the RFP (found here) looks almost exactly like the one used by the Nashville school system, which appears to be in the process of outsourcing public education over there.
Anyway, why don't the charter school goals and requirements stated in the RFP already apply to public schools?
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Tue, 2012/07/17 - 1:47pm.
Sent to KNS publisher Patrick Birmingham, editor Jack McElroy, editorial page editor Scott Barker, local editior John North, education reporter Lydia McCoy:
Knowing that other Tennessee school districts are now issuing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from charter school applicants, I have been expecting an action of this sort from Knox County Schools (KCS), too.
It was no surprise to me, then, to note your newspaper’s story on the subject last Saturday.
It was no surprise to me, either, that I once again had numerous objections to the utter and complete lack of curiosity on this compelling topic harbored by your newspaper and demonstrated by your account of this latest development in so-called “education reform” underway in Tennessee and across the nation.
That KNS gave this important story the innocuous headline "District changes charter school application process" foretold the shallow and inadequate report that was to follow. The KNS article failed to define for readers what is meant by a "request for proposal (RFP) process," i.e., that it is an active solicitation on the part of KCS, in this case for charter school applicants.
As to soliciting applications for new charter schools, the KNS article failed to report who serves on this Charter School Review Committee, how they came to serve there, how and/or when the composition of the Committee might be altered in the future, or by what impetus the Committee might be altered.
The KNS article failed to report that the RFP solicits proposals to convert existing schools to charters, too (pdf page 4 in the RFP).
As to soliciting applications to convert our existing schools into charters, the KNS article also failed to report that the RFP allows the Director of Schools to make decisions on such conversion applications independent of the school board (also pdf page 4, same).
The KNS article also failed to report that the just approved written policy guiding the formation of charter schools applies only to “newly created” charter schools, not to such conversion applications. Neither did the KNS article link that limited written policy.
The KNS article failed to report any details whatsoever as to how, in the absence of any written policy, the Director of Schools might go about exercising all by his lonesome this new power to convert our existing schools to charters.
This KNS article also passed on an excellent opportunity to spell out for readers which for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs) already deliver services to existing Tennessee charter schools, as is allowable under state law.
Jack et al, I am someone who has always declined to seek news from our broadcast media, primarily because of their propensity to reduce complicated issues into three-sentences-and-a-sound-bite and leave me scrambling to find the answers to other of my questions on the Internet.
In the past, I have therefore relied heavily on the Knoxville News-Sentinel to give me a more complete understanding of complicated issues, and to offer me convenient links to the source documents on which your reports rely.
On the compelling issue of so-called “education reform” efforts underway regionally and nationally, though—so rife with opportunity for private profiteering--you folks flat aren’t giving me the information I need.
And the only reason I know you’re not is because I seem to already have more information than you do.
Unless you’re just sitting on information?
So I have to ask you straight out: Is the KNS reporting I’m reading on this topic inept or is it insidious?
The Broad Agenda for Tennessee public schools was crippled last evening when Knox County Commissioners rejected the McIntyre school budget increase to fund a meritless performance pay plan for teachers.
For months now the Broad Machine, steered in Knoxville by Supt. Jim McIntyre, has been on a non-stop PR campaign to waste public dollars on a tried-and-failed merit pay plan. Despite unerring support by the TN Business Roundtable, the local Chamber of Commerce, the local corporate media (print and non-print), and untold millions in behind-the-scenes funding of astroturf groups pretending to be education advocates, the $35 million dollar plan did not even make it to the floor for a vote at last evening's County Commission meeting.
Numerous commissioners and the mayor all went on record stating that they had been contacted by hundreds of teachers who were against the budget but feared for their jobs by saying so. Although KNS spun the story to make it look like "school employees" were speaking in favor of the plan prior to the meeting, 90% of those speaking were from the Support our Schools astroturf group and their Chamber of Commerce cronies. The few legitimate school employees (maybe 5) who spoke in favor were either "dead ended" principals looking for a Central Office slot or well-meaning but naive classroom teachers who fell for the constant bullying from McIntyre's board to "be seen" or else.
Time will tell as to how McIntyre proceeds from here. As the KCS budget HAS been funded well in excess of "maintainence of effort" for FY2013, any threat of additional teacher layoffs, pay freezes, or program cuts will obviously be seen as unnecessary - and disingenuous and manipulative on McIntyre's part. As for PerfPay, McIntyre set that as policy in August 2011 on the assumption that it WOULD be funded. Now that it is NOT funded, who knows what will happen?
It has been discovered through some good detective work by local bloggers that one of McIntyre's local Broad Residents, Nokia Townes (formerly of Wachovia Bank) purchased the "APEX" perfpay plan last summer from Battelle for Kids, Inc. How many school board members knew this??
In a letter to school employees today, McIntyre does not mention the crushing defeat of the de-funded perfpay scheme. Instead, he claims victory for the $7 million increase that Commissioners did approve, mainly for parrot learning direct instruction programs for Knoxville's poorest children (do follow the link if you don't know what this brand of bare-knuckled mind scrubbing is about).
Perhaps Broad will find a new home for his loyal stooge, one where the citizenry doesn't mind having its schools run an ancient oligarch three time zones away.
Despite well-funded astroturf groups, the support of the Chamber of Commerce and the State Business Roundtable, and the unceasing positive spin by local corporate media, Eli Broad's Jim McIntyre's budget plan in Knoxville is in trouble.
Today teachers will be held after school to hear new scare tactics and threats about what will happen if McIntyre does not get his $35 million for a merit pay [sic] plan that has a proven record of failure.
Sent to me by a Knoxville teacher, this is McIntyre's recent letter to teachers, his "colleagues." Bolds are those of the teacher who sent this, whose name must remain anonymous for fear of losing his/her job:
Dear Colleagues,
Recently,
the Knox County Board of Education overwhelmingly approved an ambitious
FY13 Budget for the Knox County Schools. This bold fiscal plan includes
a $35 million structural increase to our budget over natural revenue
growth which will allow us to invest in specific educational initiatives
that we know from research and experience will lead to greater student
achievement and success.
RESEARCH? McIntyre has
NEVER produced a single shred of scientific, peer-reviewed “research” to
support his agenda, yet he keeps saying “research”. What does he
ACTUALLY mean? He has a Ph.D. He SHOULD know what “research”
is.
The School Board’s budget will soon be
considered by the Knox County Commission for funding, and as we move
into this important dialogue, I want to make sure that all our educators
have the facts about this budget. In particular, I want you to know
that this budget was developed with support for teachers as a
significant priority.
No, it was not. And to say
so at a time when this budget proposal is facing such a large amount of
pushback simply reflects an attempt on McIntyre’s part to “re-brand”
this money grab in an attempt to belatedly achieve teacher buy-in. Now
watch what he does in this NEXT paragraph:
This
budget preserves more than 100 teaching positions that were in danger of
being eliminated as funding for the Education Jobs Bill ended. The FY13
Budget also includes both step increases and an approximately 2% pay
raise for all teachers , which was funded with both
state and local funds, including about $2 million in local revenue.
Suddenly,
the specter of “teacher layoffs” gets inserted into the message from
Central Office? Nothing motivates quite like fear for one’s economic
security, right? As for “Step Raises”, McIntyre and this budget have
NOTHING to do with those. They are CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED. You may
recall, however, that that did not stop McIntyre from disingenuously
attempting to unilaterally freeze them a couple of budget cycles ago.
The same goes for the “raise” from dollars that were appropriated by the
state legislature specifically FOR teacher compensation. This “raise”
was not McIntyre’s doing, and for him to attempt to tie it to his budget
proposal in an attempt to goad support from his underpaid teaching
staff is the HEIGHT of gall. Furthermore, McIntyre has REFUSED to raise
teacher pay AT ALL in the 4 years he has been here, and has NOT “locally
matched” the state increase, as Sherry from KCEA can verify.
The
structural increase to the budget would allow us to invest in several
important educational initiatives that are delineated in our strategic
plan, including: technology, more instructional time, supports for
teachers, strategic compensation for educators, interventions and
enrichment for students, magnet and community schools, and full-day
kindergarten. In addition, this budget would allow us to make
significant upgrades to our school facilities - thereby improving our
learning environments for children - without incurring additional debt.
I
DO support “increased instructional time”, as long as it is NOT used
for additional standardized testing. I support full-day kindergarten as
well. As for “Strategic Compensation”, we all know what a canard THAT
is. Interventions and Enrichments: Like what? Will they be research
based, or will they
(as I suspect) just be ued as a reason to send even MORE local money to
Pearson Education for MORE scripted, teach-to-the-test “curricula”?
Technology: We don’t need any more “machines that go ‘bing’”” until the
technology we DO have is actually implemented EFFECTIVELY and WITH
adequate infrastructure and support. Presently, the “infrastructure”
appears to consist of school library closets and a “Keystone Cops” crew
of “repair-persons” who place them in said closets.
Clearly
this is a budget designed to significantly enhance student learning and
success, but it is also designed to better support and compensate our
teachers. In fact, over the next five years, the School Board’s budget
includes more than $60 million in additional compensation for teachers.
From APEX performance-based compensation, to lead teacher stipends, to
extended pay for an extended school year, this budget will not only
advance
the academic achievement of our students, but it will also help us to
make progress in improving our competitive position by increasing our
overall compensation for teachers.
Bullshit. Oh,
but McIntyre proposes to actually PAY US for the days we work when the
school year is extended. What a friend of labor he is! Wait – APEX
proves he is NOT.
I would invite you review the details of the School Board’s budget on our website at (link...) and to attend upcoming budget meetings (also listed on our website) if you want to learn more.
If
you review this budget and feel, as I do, that it will make a
significant positive impact on student achievement and success, please
communicate that to others in our community who place a great deal of
credibility in your perspective as an
educator. In particular, Knox County Commissioners are actively seeking
input as they consider funding for the School Board’s budget. Your
insights may be helpful in their decision-making process.
McIntyre
HIMSELF does NOT “place a great deal of credibility in my perspective
as an educator”, as evidenced by the unilateral, fear-based, top-down,
arrogant, and punitive manner is which he has managed those working
beneath him since his arrival here. As teachers were told to appear “In
Alignment” with his policies before he even ANNOUNCED his policies, it
is clear that “educator input” is ONLY valued when it “aligns” with HIS
preconceived agendas.*
As always, I am
honored to be your Superintendent and your colleague, and I am
incredibly proud of the instructional work that you have done with our
children this year. Let’s invest more in our students, our staff, and
our schools… so that
we can achieve our ambitious goal of Excellence for All Children.
McIntyre
refers to us as “colleagues” and is “honored” to be our superintendent?
His past actions would seem to indicate that he views us as little more
than “human capital” associated with various budgetary line-items, the
cost of which must be reduced under the guise of various “strategic”
schemes. PLEASE.
The shenanigans going on this spring in Knoxville, TN, offer a powerful case study of corporate control of schools in action.
A few weeks before Eli Broad's East TN transplant, Jim McIntyre, delivered his State of the Schools speech in January of this year, a new grassroots astroturf group was formed to push the Broadie budget plan once it was presented by McIntyre.
The group, Support Our Schools, is headed by Virginia Babb, who is one of three paid staffers for a corporate foundation in Knoxville known as Great Schools Partnership, which has a disproportionate number of Pilot Oil surrogates (including Governor Haslam) and a short list of other Business Roundtable corporate mainstays on its partner list:
AHB Foundation
Bill and Crissy Haslam
B&W Y-12
Choice Data
Clayton Family Foundation
Clayton Homes
Cornerstone Foundation
Covenant Health
Elgin Foundation
First Tennessee Foundation
Haslam Family Foundation
Home Federal
Jimmy and Dee Haslam
Knoxville News Sentinel
KUB
Steve & Mary Ellen Brewington
Pilot Oil
Pro2Serve
ProVision
Regal Entertainment
Rich Ray
Scripps Networks Interactive
Sherri Lee
Thompson Charitable Foundation
Tim Williams
The first public meeting of Support Our Corporations, er, Schools on January 11 was prominently covered, before and before and after by the Knoxville News-Sentinel, which is a Great Schools partner, too. Imagine that! In fact, the KN-S editor-in-chief, Jack McElroy, was in attendance on January 11.
Now the astroturf Support our Schools is flooding Knox County Commissioners with form letters in support of the Broad budget plan sent over from LA and delivered by McIntyre. The same astroturf group posted an op-ed on April 22 at, where else, the News-Sentinel, which enumerated all the potential beneficiaries of the requested budget increase.
However, the op-ed does not mention the fact that 27 of the 35 million dollars will go to pay for a bonus pay plan based on test scores, a plan that has a proven track record of failure in Chicago, NashvilleandNew York.
When will the real public start calling County Commission and the School Board?
Has the School Board been bought with Broad money, too?
Contact the County Commission and let them know that the McIntyre plan is unacceptable until the $27 million dollar pay for test scores plan is stripped out and replaced with budget items that have a proven research record of success, rather than demonstrated records of failure.
Knowing that other Tennessee school districts are now issuing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from charter school applicants, I have been expecting an action of this sort from Knox County Schools (KCS), too.
It was no surprise to me, then, to note your newspaper’s story on the subject last Saturday.
It was no surprise to me, either, that I once again had numerous objections to the utter and complete lack of curiosity on this compelling topic harbored by your newspaper and demonstrated by your account of this latest development in so-called “education reform” underway in Tennessee and across the nation.
That KNS gave this important story the innocuous headline "District changes charter school application process" foretold the shallow and inadequate report that was to follow.
The KNS article failed to define for readers what is meant by a "request for proposal (RFP) process," i.e., that it is an active solicitation on the part of KCS, in this case for charter school applicants.
As to soliciting applications for new charter schools, the KNS article failed to report who serves on this Charter School Review Committee, how they came to serve there, how and/or when the composition of the Committee might be altered in the future, or by what impetus the Committee might be altered.
The KNS article failed to report that the RFP solicits proposals to convert existing schools to charters, too (pdf page 4 in the RFP).
As to soliciting applications to convert our existing schools into charters, the KNS article also failed to report that the RFP allows the Director of Schools to make decisions on such conversion applications independent of the school board (also pdf page 4, same).
The KNS article also failed to report that the just approved written policy guiding the formation of charter schools applies only to “newly created” charter schools, not to such conversion applications. Neither did the KNS article link that limited written policy.
The KNS article failed to report any details whatsoever as to how, in the absence of any written policy, the Director of Schools might go about exercising all by his lonesome this new power to convert our existing schools to charters.
This KNS article also passed on an excellent opportunity to spell out for readers which for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs) already deliver services to existing Tennessee charter schools, as is allowable under state law.
Jack et al, I am someone who has always declined to seek news from our broadcast media, primarily because of their propensity to reduce complicated issues into three-sentences-and-a-sound-bite and leave me scrambling to find the answers to other of my questions on the Internet.
In the past, I have therefore relied heavily on the Knoxville News-Sentinel to give me a more complete understanding of complicated issues, and to offer me convenient links to the source documents on which your reports rely.
On the compelling issue of so-called “education reform” efforts underway regionally and nationally, though—so rife with opportunity for private profiteering--you folks flat aren’t giving me the information I need.
And the only reason I know you’re not is because I seem to already have more information than you do.
Unless you’re just sitting on information?
So I have to ask you straight out: Is the KNS reporting I’m reading on this topic inept or is it insidious?
Tamara Shepherd