Knox County's Magnet Schools

[Cathy McCaughan]

Today's newspaper has a lengthy article about the magnet schools in Knox County. The article has excellent quotes by a very popular School Matters member. Read the whole thing. Pay close attention to the numbers. Can we improve our magnet school program? Should we?

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

[Lisa Starbuck]

I think the question is why do suburban parents not want to send their children to magnet schools? Is it because the programs aren't attractive enough? Is it because the schools are too far away from where they live? Is it because they think the neighborhood is too bad? Some other reason, or a combination of the ones listed above?

If I were a parent, I would probably send my child to Austin East only if they were very interested in performing arts to the exclusion of everything else because the academic performance of the school is so poor and they don't have the academic rigor and competition of other schools. It's like a chicken or egg problem - which comes first, the academic classes or the students who desire them?

[Vic Spencer]

Lisa my friend, I think we keep beating around the bush to find a solution. For me the major problem is the fact that our education system including the state Dept of Education and the Boards of Education allowed our kids to be dumbed down over decades, for various feelgood reasons, that some psychologists introduced at various times, and allowed what really counts, academic achievement go to hell in a handbasket. Not one of these people within the Boards of Education stood up and spoke up about the incredible stupidity that drove our children's academic achievement to where it is today - in the toilet. As a result, the number of scientists and engineers we used to graduate fell at record rates. Those are the folks, with graduate degrees, who develop products so that people buy them worldwide. We used to be leaders, but not any more, because the primary and secondary schools were deliberately allowed to get dumbed down by some incredibly stupid people over several decades now.

The solution is not a magic bullet like a Magnet school, Charter school, or an IB school. The problem is, I found after some 750 discussions with teachers, students and parents, that no one understands what education is, no one clearly understands the dangerous situation we are in economically, and having sunk to being 34th in math in the world, our own Board and others are still focusing on domestic issues, domestic comparisons, with a great celebration about Jim McIntyre coming (same as with his predecessors, who did nothing about the sliding academics). If you are in the service business, you have to sell your services, in this case explain the benefits of the Magnet school idea to the public. Not once, but every two weeks. That is how you create "recognition" and then "preference" in behavioral psychology within your target market. The school system is a service business, that failed to modernize itself and its management style like the railroad industry. Except that THEY ARE GIVEN THE MONEY, they do not have to make the money, which make all government organizations incredibly inefficient. If they are listening now, you have not promoted well enough the magnet school idea, because you do not understand yet how the service business works. You don't understand yet how your enterprize works. You do not have monthly performance indicators to keep an eye on in each school, and you don't know where the money flows -- or worse, you are keeping it a secret from those who gave you the money. Us, the public.

What you need to do is get back to some old standards. You do not need a fancy name that you think might attract thousands creating a miracle. There is no miracle. You dumbed all the children down, by creating tests so weak that they create an 87% result for the state, when a properly rigrous test in the very same subject scores our kids at 21%. And not one of you stood up and yelled "Stop this stupid downhill train and reverse it!!". NOT ONE BOARD MEMBER STOOD UP TO THIS DAY. I am ashamed of you all. After many letters now the TN Dept of Education sees how stupid a move they made with TCAP, now they want to increase the high school curriculum post haste from one math course, to a few more, and have the kids take two science courses instead of one, so that they can smart up their dumbed down TCAP test and look better.

There is just one problem that these people are missing. YOU HAVE A MATH PROBLEM AND ENGLISH PROBLEM IN PRIMARY SCHOOL!!! You have been pumping kids deficient in math in to the high schools. You have to raise that pronto such that kids take Algebra 1 and Plane Geometry in grade 8! Then you have to catch up to those who passed us, a lot of countries!! That means that you have to make sure that kids take Algebra 2, Trigonometry, Solid Geometry, Intro Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, AND English Composition. If you do that, then we will graduate again enough kids to go to college, even to the best, and be able to get a graduate degree in any science or engineering major, or whatever they want. YOU PEOPLE WHO DUMBED DOWN THE SYSTEM OVER DECADES TO DATE USING OUR HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS, THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO! THAT IS THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO DO!

A HINT: you have to explain to all kids, all teachers, all parents what education is. You have to explain to all students, parents and teachers why a high school education is vital to their future. And you have to turn on all the kids about the fantastic, exciting new jobs coming, making lots of money - if they work hard. Or unemployment if they do not. And parents, you have to know that if your child is not an A student and he complains about the teacher, the chances are your child did not do his work. Parents! Be realistic. How many of you could teach the needed math and science courses to your child? Not many. You need the teachers for your child's successful future. Starting a fight with a teacher because your child is in trouble, may not be the best move you ever made. Think man!

These discussions I am suggesting for the motivation of the students could be done in 30 minute open discussion in every class once a week. A few teachers are doing it, but it needs to be done by all teachers, who deliver the same ideas. That is not being done, it is simple, and would be virtually free. And while you are at it, you could also have discussions with them about how useful it can be to have a disappointment, to fail at something, you can learn from it and try again and again until you win! No one set a rule that you have to win on the first try or you are a failure. That is what toughness is.

The Knoxville FOCUS is allowing me to publish a few articles, that will benefit city parents and kids especially. www.knoxfocus.com . My first article was published this week about primary school related things. The next one, if I am allowed will be very exciting. I understand technology and where it is going and what kinds of jobs it will create very well. It will be a peek into the future. No nonsense facts with backup. Read it with great care, because it is happening and it will happen. Then we will get back to high school and some other useful topics.

To conclude, magnet or IB or charter is not the important thing. Making sure that the students are motivated to take math and science core courses is the vitally important thing. High schools already offer these courses. Properly promoting the specific areas of education is vitally important from grade one. Simple friendly inexpensive group discussions will do. You could get speakers in to help, but all teachers should learn enough to be able to do it well. I would be happy to help with that, and my articles in the Knoxville Focus, and on my Web site knoxedu.com, will help. I will be putting all such materials up there. Jim McIntyre, you are not restricted by any law to promote beyond the new curriculum what additional courses the students should take. If they take only what the curriculum defined, that fine, and they will get a diploma. More will be ready for college, but not enough of them will be ready to win internationally. If you manage to increase by great numbers the kids who go beyond it with the courses I am mentioning, you will ensure their future success by being competitive with the international leaders.

You and Karen told me that what I had on my Web site you all discovered long before I did. Therefore I should focus on parents only. My follow up question will always be: 1. How long have you known this, and 2. What did you do about it. If anyone cares to challenge me again this way, please start with the last question.

I am mad as hell about this purposeful dumbing down of our kids. None of you who were around on our School Board MORE THAN A YEAR AGO ever stood up and took a hard stand on this situation. When you see my next article you will see why the urgency, whether you knew it or not. If you knew it and did nothing but whisper, you don't deserve to be where you are. YOU MUST STOP THIS EXISTING DOWNTREND, AND REVERSE IT AGGRESSIVELY. YOU CAN DO MANY THINGS FIRST AND SHOW A SOUND REVERSAL BEFORE WE HEAR A PLEA FOR ADDITIONAL TAX DOLLARS, ESPECIALLY AFTER WHAT HAPPENED.

[Lisa Starbuck]

Vic, I don't disagree that we have a major problem with academic achievement, but I don't think that it was a deliberate decision to make Tennessee children dumb. It was a combination of legislation, lifestyles, social changes, etc. that caused this situation. Pointing fingers about who is responsible is not very productive. It took a long time to get here, and it will take a while to climb out. There are some very good steps being taken at the state level with the TN Diploma Project that is increasing the academic rigor and making Tennessee's tests on par with the national assessments. That is a giant step in the right direction.

I do think most of our educators, school board, Dr. McIntyre, the chamber, etc. want to see the schools improve. I think the parents and the community are the least well-informed about the sorry state of our schools and I agree with the effort to educate and inform.

What I think is still missing is a plan to get some action out of the parents and the community. I think many in education are jaded because they have seen too many flavor-of-the-month programs come and go.

I think we have to get buy-in from the parents and the community - that is the key to improving. I believe community schools is the right vehicle to get us there.

P.S. I see you're back to your old bolding habits again, Vic. It is much more effective when you use bolding only for emphasis, in my opinion. ;-) I'll be looking forward to your articles in the Knoxville Focus - it is important that we get the word out to folks who don't read online.

[Vic Spencer]

Lisa, we have and had intelligent people running for Board positions all along. We certainly have intelligent people in all central organizations. I also believe that the governor would not appoint other than intelligent people to the Department of Education. Is this a fair assumption? I think it is.

I am sure that we are not the first to find out that we are and have been lowering the primary and secondary school education standards. Both Karen and Jim M told me that they knew about every problem I discovered for a long time. I believe that because it must have become obvious at least 10-15 years ago that we are sliding down compared to other states and other nations internationally. Is THAT a fair assumption?

If it is then there were several, perhaps many people in the education management community who knew about the education standard sliding down. It is not possible that such news stayed with only one person. Fair comment?

Therefore no one, not one person within these organizations had the guts to stand up and say something to stop the sliding - TO THIS VERY DAY.

Furthermore, the sliding down was not turned around as it could have been. Fair comment?

Therefore a decision was made at some levels to continue to lower the standard with TCAP and in other states as well, and also to lower the curriculum requirements for graduation. The decision was not made saying "Let's make our children dumber.". It was probably made like "Lets make the tests easier so that we can qualify for more federal money". Is that a fair statement? I mean that decision WAS made.

I cannot believe for a moment that among all those intelligent people it occurred to no one that such a move would create children with lower qualifications in science and math. That is an impossibility. Therefore it was a purposeful act, and as all things, I am sure it was discussed to death before the decision was made.

It may not be a nice and politically correct way to say this, but in view of this deed, I think it is very fair to say that our children were dumbed down, not accidentally, but with the full knowledge that these decisions will lower their education achieved.

The Chamber was not involved in this. McIntyre was not involved in this. Most of the current Board probably was not involved in this, except for not standing up when they found out about this situation, since by Karen's own comment to me and by McIntyre also, they have known about this problem for a long time before I did.

I believe that everyone now wants to see the situation improve. It would be political suicide not to say so. I do believe however, that for a long period, before this issue arose with as much ferver as it does today, not one management type stood up and said that "ladies and gentlemen, we have had a problem with our education system for several years, i WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH, AND i WILL PRESENT A PLAN TO TURN IT AROUND WITH MEASURABLE EVIDENCE TO THAT FACT MONTHLY, NOT JUST AT YEAR END.

Lisa, apart from political correctness at this late a date, where am I wrong?

The public will find out. They always do. What I think was bad strategy and a bit dishonest is to think that some day we will recover and until that day no one will find out about what we did not do. There is a word for that. I believe it is "not being totally honest with the public while they are paying our salaries, bills, expenses year after year" or "hoodwinking". It is not right in my opinion. It is not ethical behavior, since the subject of ethics was a hot one lately. Does anyone wish to dispute that? Now anyone please tell me if I am wrong since English is not my first language, and I want to use the right words for this situation.

[Karen Carson]

Vic,
You state, "Both Karen and Jim M told me that they knew about every problem I discovered for a long time." ". To set the record straight, I stated that for the past two years (beginning after my second year on the Board) I have been aware of the problems with the reporting of competency in TCAPS and it's poor representation to national standards. You continue to state, " Therefore no one, not one person within these organizations had the guts to stand up and say something to stop the sliding - TO THIS VERY DAY." which is simply not true. What did we do? We brought this up in a number of our very public board meetings and workshops, we supported and promoted changes at that state level to increase rigor and truth in advertising about TN accomplishments and proficiency, we demanded measurable goals that demonstrated appropriate positive movement for our students, we presented many of the vey same charts you have published here at our public board meetings, we hired a superintendent who has been directed to lead this system to the changes that need to happen, we voted to require a 4th year of math before the state did, we actively participated at the state and national levels to bring our curriculum standards to a place that is appropriate for a student graduating in today's world/work force, we have supported partnerships with the business community to give us more concurrent and useful data... You may not agree with our progress, or how things are going but it is most certainly inaccurate to state that no one on the Board has spoken or brought this to the public's attention. You should also note that I did not say "me or I", I said we because these issues have been discussed by the full board and KCS administrative staff publicly on many, many occasions over the past two years. It is all a matter of public record. All the meetings are on video archive.

[Vic Spencer]

Karen, your and Jim's comments also covered the international test results that I posted extensively to show how far we fell behind. I discovered the TCAP problem only after Jim published his thoughts about the TN Report Card. My major issue was our poor international standing combined with a poor TN standing within the USA, whereas Dr. McIntyre's old command was in the number 1 state based on the ACT. Indya expressed interest and read a book about the Alberta Canada system, however, no interest was expressed by anyone else, and it was I who made a comment a few weeks ago at a Board meeting for the second time, that we are focusing entirely within the USA, not where the main competition is and that we need to focus globally on the main competitors as we act locally. To which all of you nodded. I certainly was unaware of anything you have mentioned here although I asked both you and Jim about what have we done, but I appreciate you telling me now, and it is good to know that some people did something. I have no reason to doubt what you are saying here and will look forward to seeing Dr. McIntyre's operating plan and results to turn this situation around. I will certainly use any comments you made here to give you and the Board fair credit of those actions which I was unaware of before.

TCAP or not, our competition and higher standards are to be mapped from overseas, and in my opinion we need to aim at them and not just meet the new curriculum requirements, which do not rise to that level. I just looked at the 2008 ACT results. In 2007 we were 38th. In 2008 we were 40th unless I made a mistake. But that's TN and not Knox County. In any case very far from our real competitors. Jim came from the best school system in the nation. Hopefully you all will give him a completely free hand with all budget items and budgeted expenses, not the way I saw the board whenever I attended spending enormous amount of time approving such items. Believe me I appreciate how difficult his job must be without the management tools like the databank that the Board should have budgeted years ago at about 0.5-1% of your annual expenses.

[Vic Spencer]

Karen, I made the following change in a future article per your comment to me above to be fair:

"It was our state Departments of Education, and our Boards of Education who decided to set the requirements lower and lower. And we paid so much money, our own tax money for it, that it will choke you. This year we are paying the Knox County School system $370,000,000, and this has been done for about four decades, in every school system in the nation. Not as bad as in Tennessee, but they all dumbed our children down. And they want more money! I am not against more money if they suddenly start increasing our scholastic results. Not promising it. Delivering it. Not one of them stood up during past years to say “Hey!!! Something is not right here! We are going down, and other countries are passing us as if we were standing still!!”. You have no idea how angry this makes me. To be fair, Karen Carson, past chair person of the Knox County Board of education told me on 3/17/09 that she and the Board complained to the Tennessee Department of Education numerous times about the huge disparity about the state tests (TCAP) and how they evaluated elementary school children in Tennessee scoring an 87%, while a national test in the same subject, same grade level scored Tennessee children at 21%. No doubt that her action contributed to Tennessee changing their curriculum and test rigor post haste in 2009. But so far, the big problem, the level of students graduating in some 33 countries from high school have passed us, and this change in Tennessee is not solving that problem. Our ambition seems to be to look better against other US states only, while we are clobbered internationally. However, it is a very good step in the right direction."

If I could get such a prompt response to the ADA$ figures per school as I (and perhaps all of you) requested numerous times for 8 months, it would be fantastic.

[Lisa Starbuck]

Vic, as I stated earlier, I think it is the general public that needs to be made aware of the seriousness of this problem - that the educators already know it and have tried - maybe not hard enough - to inform people. But I think you have a combination of people not wanting to know and also the difficulty of getting people's attention because of all the issues going on in their daily lives. As I have learned from my community advocacy, it is very difficult to engage people, especially for a difficult problem. Don't mean to sound like an apologist, but I can empathize.

[Debi]

I think a lot of people just want to know what they can do individually to help. A short, sweet directive that isn't overwhelming & beyond a comfort zone is likely the one most likely to get done by the majority of residents. What's that 20/80 rule, 20% of the people do 80% of the work?

[Vic Spencer]

Lisa, I could be wrong about my approach. Time will tell. I am angry about what happened, and what was done to this country. I am angry that I discovered it only by accident 8 months ago and not 15 years ago. I am angry that no one had the balls to jump up and yell at the top of their lungs "STOP THIS DAMAGING NONSENSE.". I think we probably agree about all this and we all want to correct this situation, and I am a very insensitive person when I see such damage. I do not see results as I am used to seeing results during my career, and I know that my expectation is set wrong perhaps for a Board of Education or KCS. I do not mean to be hurtful as I am sometimes, but I can see and feel what's going to happen to our kids, because of what some of us have not done for decades to fix a problem. I don't have a need to be liked, and I am just hoping that if I have some ideas that work, and I do, the school system will run with it. I do not need credit for anything, I just want to see this huge problem solved. Wait until you read my next article in the focus. The great majority of us do not see what is about to happen. If I do not get that across then I presented it wrong, or I was wrong. My references I am presenting are correct, so maybe my presentation is wrong. But you all will see an interrelationship that is coming from multiple technologies that I understand very well. I will get back to the high school topic after this upcoming story.

The coincidence of our education standards sliding down for decades, and what you will be coming when other nations are better prepared educationally presents enormous danger for us, never before seen, in my opinion. I wish I was wrong in what I found out.

Could I do better than Karen or most people on the Board or Jim McIntyre? Absolutely not. I do not have McIntyre's experience in education nor come close in his management span experience. I had only 350 people with 3 levels of management in a different, more responsive environment. I would not be a good fit for this kind of organization. But I could help perhaps significantly, if you all can forgive my style that did work well for me in a different environment. Sfter my articles are published and if the Focus does not mind, I will publish them here for you all as well.

I see incredible danger for us as a nation based on what I see developing. I was always good at seeing technological intersections into the future that had great opportunities, and great dangers. But never like this one coming up. Education will be incredibly vital to survival, the ball was dropped, and I agree that there is no use in blaming anyone or any group, as I am sitting here typing and tired. I hope that you all can understand that I was born elsewhere, have seen many bad things and by the grace of God I am here, in what always was my favorite country. And I feel helpless tonight to help it out of this dilemma. I do not think the general public will be the problem if we tell them the truth. They have always risen to the occasion. I am more worried about organizations that deliver education. They are used to status quo too long. It is a very hard task for Jim M or anyone to change that. So its time for a prayer and go to bed.

[Vic Spencer]

If I may add one observation. During the first four months of my 8 months of discovery of this challenge, I believed that parents must be motivated so that they can influence the children. Exactly as some of you feel today. But after talking to about 150 parents and kids, I changed my mind and this is why.
Our primary target for motivation would be the bottom third of performers. We are investing a lot of money there. I found that most parents are single parents with low income, many problems and I was also sad to find out that some in this category just plain do not care, they are so overwhelmed. Counting on getting through to these parents who do not go to any school meetings, will simply not work.
But ALL kids are captive audience in our schools for 6-7 hours a day. That is certainly more than the parents have. So any motivation of the kids is better planned through the school system itself, although we do need to get through to parents as well as we can. Therefore the leading campaign for motivating kids needs to be delivered through the school with a well coordinated message about a few key subjects, in a simple 30 minute discussion each week in all classes. Some topics will need many discussions, others will need only a few. As they get closer to high school and into high school, the discussions could get more sophisticated, but I would let the students guide it with their questions. Open interaction.
I found that the top 30-50% of student parents know there is a problem, but they do not know why today's high school kids, not all but too many, cannot communicate in English well and simply cannot do very easy math in their head like the parents could.The situation is disastrous, and I blame the education system itself more than the parents. The teaching of academic subjects, including English and math is not a parental responsibility, it is a school system responsibility for which we all pay many millions of dollars each year. If the school system disagrees, then give parents the opportunity to get a voucher that they can use to register their children in any public school, or a private school if they wish to supplement the school expenses. Allow the customer to chose. It works wonders, and watch all the schools getting the message real fast. To have a service provider system of any service including education, where you must send your child to a specific school, does not motivate any school in that system to make a better effort delivering quality education. Some do and some don't. I am afraid that if we want to see quality to improve and customer service improve, then the customer needs to have the ability to select the service provider.
Some schools may fail or close you say? Maybe they should. Some kids will not learn you say? You already know that you do have students on the bottom end who simply do not want to work, do not want to learn, because fun is more important. Maybe they need to learn what that will get them first and grow up more, but just spending the money to recycle such kids in the education system takes money away from those who could do better.
Therefore we will have much greater impact if we deliver the "Gospel" to the kids in school, than if we focus only on parents. Especially where help is needed the most. Does this make sense to you all?

[Debi]

I agree on letting parents decide where to send the kids & schools that fail, fail. It's about the students not the building they are in. Competition does work, our nation has proven this for over 200 yrs.