It Is A Good Idea To Peak Into The Future With The Videos Below To Understand Why Better Education Than What We Currently Have Is Absolutely Vital For The Future Existence Of Our Children.

THE WORLD OF DISINFORMATION: "A lie told often enough becomes the truth" (V.I. Lenin). The shell game: as an example, there are several tests, some easy that produce high scores and some more difficult but realistic about what needs to be achieved. So the education district publicizes the "high scoring test" about "how well we are doing". Misdirection: "Excellence for all children", or "World-class education for all children" while the great majority are so poorly educated that they will not be employable without the parents spending $20-30 thousand additional for training that the public school did not do.

Five to ten year "plans" or "strategic plans" are published that are simply outlines with modest objectives and without substance. The goals are generally missed after the first year for lack of proper operations planning and management expertise. A multi-year plan is not practical, because conditions can change. A one year operating plan should include specific measurable number objectives that ensure increasing educational performance on the state, district and individual school level. Such objectives must become more than half of the performance objectives of state boards, elected district boards and all superintendents at minimum, relating to their territories, and be a major part of their performance evaluation. Without that one does not get personal commitment to the job.

The idea is to avoid any news about ACT or SAT scores, and call bad scores good since "the public doesn't know anyway", repeat news that sounds good but will not improve the poor ACT or SAT performance, such as a new school for $14 million instead of restoring it for $5 million, or buying iPads for students without a plan about how to use it exactly, or asking for more money "to save the children", when they already spend more money per student than the best performers in the world.

The local newspapers do not inform the public about the poor school performance in some school districts and a few states. Tennessee is an example of that. According to a Knoxville News Sentinel story in January 2012, "Knox Co. Schools earned a solid "B" in achievement grades the latest State Report Card issued by the Tennessee Dept. of Education. The district received a "B" in all four categories, reading, math, science, and social studies. In doing so, it matched or beat the grades given to the state as a whole, which was given a C, B, C, and B respectively. Our state report card results show that our improvement efforts are resulting in steady academic progress - said Dr. Jim McIntyre, Superintendent of the Knox County Schools. True statement except for "steady academic progress". Just look at the charts. The fact is that our public education produces only 11-14% of 9th graders "ready to learn a job or go to college" in Tennessee or Knox County, Tennessee respectively after leaving high school. The real results are not a solid B, but an F minus.

These "good" results are based on Tennessee's own tests (TCAPs) that are weak and are promised to become much tougher under the American Diploma Project by 2015. Considering history, there is no reason yet to believe in that happening by 2015. In 2008, the TCAPs scored Tennessee students at 87%, a very good grade it appeared. But the national NAEP test scored Tennessee students on the same subject and same grade level at 21%! This is how Tennessee and its districts misrepresent to the public in press releases and in presentations the quality of education they provide for our tax dollars. TCAP results do not measure the knowledge necessary for job or college success, like the impartial national ACT scores do. This news about TCAP "B" grade performance in January 2012 does go into the newspapers and media. But the ACT report showing that 86-89% cannot even learn a job after high school, does not.

All the above shows a planned, willful and purposeful misrepresentation of the truth, to create an impression that the school district is doing well, when in fact it is doing very poorly according to ACT's impartial job training and college readiness figures. It is therefore a lie to the public who actually pay for this poor education through their hard-earned tax dollars.

We either have to close virtually all money-wasting low-performing public schools and go to charter schools, private schools, home schooling, keeping only public schools who develop more than 50% of the students from 9th grade who can be trained for a job or college after leaving high school and not 11-14% like we do in Tennessee, or make some very important changes outlined below and cut the wasteful spending of public schools drastically. Please read End Them, Don't Mend Them in the Weekly Standard, and give it some serious thought. We are wasting money on most of our public schools.

What?! Give public tax dollars to private schools?! Yes, consider it seriously for families with family income under a certain limit, whose child is assigned to attend a poorly performing (less than 22 average ACT high school and similar definition for a primary school) public school. The more important question under such conditions is "Do I want my child to attend a school so that he/she becomes employable or not?".

The autocratic style of a bloated Central Management has been a problem for teachers for years. In 2001 a Texas consulting firm, MJLM, was retained to ascertain that the Knox County, Tennessee Central Management is not bloated but normal in size, compared to 6-7 other school districts of similar size. In subsequent years two Board of Education members and even a publisher in an article stated several times that "two" consultant reports confirmed that the Central Management staffing is normal, but could not identify the consultant reports or supply its appropriate pages. We managed to get a copy of the 2001 MJLM report in 2010 and spoke to MJLM. In 2010, James McIntyre, superintendent, issued a memo to a county commission member using the 2001 MJLM report as proof/supporting evidence, that Central Management staffing was at a normal level in 2010. Compared to the Central Management size supported by the American Association of School Administrators and other management publications on the same subjects for school districts, the superintendent's own published figures are more than three times normal size. Compensation databases indicate that the real staffing level of central Management is far larger beyond the superintendent's published numbers.

Knox County, Tennessee is the only large school district in Tennessee that does not have a single charter school disapproving all prior applicants. However, in 2010 the Board (chair: Indya Kincannon) and the superintendent (James McIntyre) approved a charter school, the Knoxville Charter Academy who was backed by the Iris Foundation. When googling the Iris Foundation, one finds that it is fully controlled by the Islamic Gulen Movement of Turkey. The googling presents a highly suspect and undesirable history with multiple posts (e.g., example). If it took us not more than 15 minutes to find this out through Google, why couldn't the superintendent and the Board chair do the same before they approved it? Now that this poor decision has been made public, this charter school may not open, because the original Board decision cannot be defended. This is what extremely bad decisions look like, along with the consistently poor academic results and the misrepresentation of real performance to the public.

In April, 2010 a person, Steve Dobson, identified some potential abuse of our tax dollars within our school district's Central Management organization. More than half of the IT Department employees are former teachers who are not IT qualified, yet they appear to make at least 50% more money than the IT qualified employees in the same positions. We are in a recession and many teachers were laid off, with little impact on Central Management. The postings at schoolmatters.knoxnews.com web site are self explanatory, unless the school district uses its influence and has it deleted. This is a Web site associated with the local newspaper, who always say only positive things about local education performance, when in fact it is poor.

The above and all the symptoms cited below are evidence of total lack of management training and incredibly bad management knowhow both within Boards of Education, among superintendents and within Central Management organizations. It is therefore vital to establish the suggested organizational framework within laws and policies on the state level for every single school district, or the needed improvement will not happen regardless of how much money is poured into a dysfunctional education organization. That in turn will destroy our economy and we will become like Mexico.

Recognizing "confidence men"
in education fund raising

The typical confidence man (con man) is one who gains the trust, or "confidence", of his victims in order to manipulate the targeted individual for donations of money, based on a lie or information that misrepresents the truth, or mixes some insignificant truth with misleading claims. For example Tennessee Report Card TCAP results show B or C for performance. The test is weak and used for elementary school only. Yet the students cannot read or do even basic math. The NAEP is the national test for elementary school student but those results show poor performance. The confidence men talk only about the TCAP results. The Tennessee Report Card also shows the ACT test results at the end of high school. They show that 79% of the graduates with regular diplomas are not even ready to be trained for a job. No profession is immune. We have seen former ministers of churches, lawyers, school superintendents, and others in this confidence man role. School systems are not immune, because parents are willing to do anything to "save our children" from failure and to provide them with a "world class education" and the necessity of "investing in our children's education" - as confidence men promise. The choice of tests in making such claims is important. Some are so easy that the grade they provide is high, but the child is very far from becoming ready to learn a job. They fool the public. The only state test that is the proper "strength" or "rigor" is Florida's state test. When any people ask for supporting votes or more money by claiming to "save our children", with "World class education", "Excellence for all children", so please "invest in our children's education", while the school district doesn't even have an ACT score goal they are committed to reach - an alarm should go off. Support those people who tell you the real truth and the schools that produce good results.

Confidence men also use statements that impress you and mean nothing - but they need more money to implement those "great" things. The key question to ask is "How much will what you are telling me increase the average county ACT score? May I see a written statement about that from the superintendent?"

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE:

The increased education spending over the years did not increase the ACT score achieved, showing that our children are leaving high schools with decreasing knowledge to be able to learn a job. At the same time between 1995 and 2010, although students increased only 4%, the Knox County Tennessee school district increased the number of administrators by 94%, and that is based on the numbers that the school district published about themselves.

A bloated central management in any organization ALWAYS creates failure regardless of the money pumped into it, because a bloated Central Management has to become self-protective. Money is power and power in the absence of laws controlling proper operating management ratios, creates corruption and/or job security for unneeded overhead people. Good Ole' Boys' networks get formed quickly and expanded by hiring friends and relatives without regard to qualifications for the job. At a recent presentation organized by the school system to tell the public how great a job they are doing, one individual associated with Central Management made a speech focusing on Central Management not being bloated and is being staffed correctly. Even the school district's own published figures show them bloated, and the real staffing figures for central management are far larger than what they present. The false statements by individuals in leadership positions to save the status quo at any cost is not a characteristic of a well run, professional organization that creates good results. The results are bad. The chart below shows how bad our student-to-administrator ratios are in every county around us, with Knox County, Tennessee being by far the worst, based on the figures that they provided to the local newspaper (Knoxville News Sentinel) by the school district. The reference presented below for normal ratios is an impeccable source, far above anyone in expertise in any school district.

• EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION: CONCEPTS AND PRACTICES, 5th Edition is what we used, the best-selling, most comprehensive and respected graduate school text on the market, discusses all topics covered by other educational administration texts, and MORE: culture, change, curriculum, human resources administration, diversity, effective teaching strategies, and supervision of instruction. Drs. Lunenburg and Ornstein include more exciting pedagogical features than any other text, and topics are covered in a direct and easy-to-understand manner, with an excellent blend of theory and practice.
• Dr. Fred C. Lunenburg is Professor and Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Research and Doctoral Studies in Educational Leadership at Sam Houston University. Prior to moving to university teaching, he served as a high school principal and superintendent of schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He has authored or co-authored 18 books, most recently, THE PRINCIPALSHIP (with Beverly Irby), published by Wadsworth in 2006.
• Dr. Allan C. Ornstein is Professor of Administration and Instructional Leadership at St. John's University in New York. He received his Ed.D. from New York University and is author of more than 55 books and 2,000 articles and research papers. Prior to teaching at St. John's, he was a professor of Education at Loyola University in Chicago.

From the "EFFICIENCY RATIOS" area of the book, pages 306, 307 and 308 in the 5th Edition:

"Just because large school districts have more hierarchical layers at the central office, and their organizational charts are taller and more difficult to understand, does not mean that they have better or worse manager-student ratios or are more or less efficient in running the schools within the district. For example, in a survey of fifty-one school districts with 50,000 or more students, the manager (supervisor, administrator) ratio at the central office averaged one manager per 569 students and the median was 578. The ranges were as high or as efficient as one manager per 1650 students and as low as low or inefficient as one manager per 161 students." (ref 160, Allan C. Ornstein, "Administrator/student Ratios in Large School Districts", Phi Delta Kappan, 70 (1989):806-808.)

"Eleven school districts out of fifty-one had one central administrator per 750 students. The researcher concluded that school districts should aim for one central manager per 1200 or more students. Only six of the fifty-one surveyed school districts achieved this level of efficiency (Los Angeles 1343:1, Indianapolis 1401:1, Mesa, AZ 1446:1, West Jordon, UT 1512:1, Clark County, NV 1539:1, Granite, UT 1650:1).
Nationwide the average is one district administrator for 954 students and for principals and assistant principals the combined ratio is 1 to 370 students, but for teachers the ratio is 1 to 16 students." (Ref: News and Notes: Survey Round Up, "Thrust For Educational Leadership", 29 (1998): 4; Projections of Education Statistics to 2011, table 32, p.80.)

"...The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) argues that central administrators represent 1.0 percent of total district staff and 4.5% of of the total budget of public school districts nationwide. All principals and assistant principals add another 2.4% to staff and 5.6% of the budget, whereas instructional services comprise 70%." (Ref. Nancy Protheroe, "The Blob Revisited", School Administrator, 55 (1998): 26-29.

..."the percentage of overhead for central and school site administration has changed very little over the years, by about 10%" (e.g. from 1.0% to 1.1%) (Ref. Allan Odden and Sarah Archibald, "Reallocating Resources" 2001, Richard Rothstein, "Where Is The Money Going?" 1997).

In the above graph a normal organization may have 1200 students for every administrator. A bloated organization would have less than 1200 students per administrator. The smaller the number of students per administrator (supervisor, manager, director, assistant superintendent and superintendent) in Central Management, the more bloated and less efficient the Central Management organization is. All county examples above are bloated. Knox County, TN is the most bloated of all in central management.

THE LOW STUDENT-TO-ADMIN RATIOS SHOW A MAJOR SPENDING INEFFICIENCY THAT RUNS IN PARALLEL WITH LOW ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE. LET'S SEE WHAT ACT TESTS AND REPORTS SHOW ABOUT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT.

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Return on Investment, ROI: Why Don't We Measure Educational Achievement (ACT Score) Achieved Per Dollar Spent?

The ACT Readiness Brief says that: "Results of a new ACT study provide empirical evidence that, whether planning to enter college or workforce training programs after graduation, high school students need to be educated to a comparable level of readiness in reading and mathematics. Graduates need this level of readiness if they are to succeed in college-level courses without remediation and to enter workforce training programs ready to learn job-specific skills."

This simply means that the figures that ACT presents as college readiness percentage, of those who have a regular high school diploma, is also an indication of what percentage of students are ready to be trained for a job. Job requirements have increased over the years because of the impact of software and robotic technology, that has been and will continue replacing low end jobs. At the same time, we also graduated students from our high schools with less and less knowledge, especially in reading and basic math.

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We are producing the same percentage of engineers from our population as Kenya! This is one of many bad outcomes of our poor but expensive education:

COUNTRY	TTL UNI DEGREES	ENG. DEGREES	ENG.DEGREE % TTL	POPULATION
China	567,839	219,563	38.7%	1,330,000,000
Taiwan	117,430	26,587	22.6%	22,921,000
Germany	178,618	36,319	20.3%	82,370,000
Japan	542,314	104,478	19.3%	127,288,000
France	275,316	34,293	12.4%	64,058,000
Ireland	18,669	2,014	10.8%	4,156,000
UK	274,440	20,280	7.4%	60,944,000
Kenya	15,620	740	4.7%	37,954,000
US	1,253,121	59,536	4.7%	303,825,000

Possible Positive Development In Tennessee

• Objectives are specified in NAEP (trusted national test) for grammar schools for the 2014-2015 and 2019-2020 school years.
• Objectives are specified in ACT Career And College Readiness percentage of regular diplomas (trusted national test) for high schools for the 2014-2015 and 2019-2020 school years.

• Objectives need to be established for the state in both of the above areas for every single school year starting with 2013-2014.
• Objectives need to be established for every school district. Date not provided yet from the state school board as of June 18, 2013.
• Measurable monthly education objectives need to be established in each school to notice and correct problems in achievement quickly and to meet the annual objective of the district. Status unknown as of June 18, 2013. Without this step the district delivery of objectives becomes uncontrolled and uncertain.

Elected District School Board Outlook

Elected boards of education have only a high school diploma requirement and their experience level is absent as a voting majority to understand the problems present in our education system and to successfully interview, select, hire and guide a superintendent to improve ACT achievement. Electing superintendents locally would not improve the quality of superintendents and would easily create more conflict between the board and the elected superintendent.

The elected boards of education do not inform the public about the truth about performance, and the public is not aware of the true performance levels. We are not aware that the public's contribution through the elected board of education ever contributed to increasing ACT performance or to reduce discipline problems, a major impediment to teachers.

It would be helpful if the state maintained a pool of superintendents in and out of state, tracking their performance about increasing educational performance and teacher morale and ensuring management training for them (in state superintendents only). Since school districts vary in size and therefore in level of problems to be managed successfully, it could be a more successful approach for the state to appoint superintendents based on their precise record of success in similar size school districts, to appoint them as new superintendents to districts that are falling short on performance.

Management problems and their solutions are not recognized by people who may be very good in their profession, but do not have management training and experience at the size of the organization (number of employees and annual budget size) they are about to manage. Also teaching experience is important in the small school districts that have less than 1000 employees, but the management training and years of management success becomes more and more important as a school district's employees increase from about 50 employees to 5000 where teaching experience may not be so important.

We believe that the suggested management link of superintendents to the state education management system would be more efficient, bypassing the elected board system.

It may be a good idea to consider hiring new superintendents from top management within successful service industries into medium to large school districts, if the superintendent supply is not there. At the high expense level of such districts, higher compensation for such business experience could be well justified.

Vic Spencer
Farragut, TN
http://www.usaedustat.com
vicspencer@gmail.com

Copyright(c) 2008-2013 V. Spencer
This is a work in progress.