1. How Will You Improve the Inequities in School Resources?
1. How will you improve the inequities in school resources?
I’m not sure exactly which inequities you’re referring to. Generally, the 35 percent of specially-branded schools — magnet, charter, choice — have enrollments that come with greater home economic resources. And the state may provide additional funding because of school grade performance. But the overall school resources aren’t massively different. Any major differences are certainly contrary to the spirit and law of public education and represent a failure at the district level. We’ll address those aggressively. Every school will receive what it’s legally entitled to.
I think greater inequity arises for the kids who have more comprehensive needs but have broadly similar funding to kids who don’t.
I’m interested in binding schools together in high school learning communities. For instance, think of Lakeland High School as its own learning system. The elementary schools and middle schools and high school should be aligned into a learning system with an administrator that oversees the entire ecosystem and engages the community that high school system serves.
This is very similar to what Lake Wales did as a charter system. But we don’t need to do it through going charter. We can simply do it through a change in organizational focus.
2. Merit Pay or Performance-based Pay for teachers has been a hot topic for several years. How should we measure teacher performance and address teacher salaries?
No educational system in America has figured out how to fairly and effectively implement merit pay. Yet there are still state requirements to do it. I support in principle the District’s move away from using End of Year tests and moving toward a more non-test based evaluation format. Also, teacher pay should be the first priority in every budget.
3. What will you do to address district and state testing policies?
We will end district-mandated, optional “End-of-Year” tests. Then, we will build on the findings of the Citizens for Better Educational Leadership (CBEL) testing committee. A major element of those recommendations was a community testing committee modeled on a similar effort in St. Johns County. My incumbent opponent has recently agreed to this idea, which we with CBEL recommended months ago. That committee will work to set a testing policy that minimizes instructional disruption and matches assessment tools appropriately to the tests the state mandates.
4. How will you address the dropout rate, particularly with sub groups like the ESE and ESOL population?
The same way I will address every other issue: with a focus on the experience of those kids. They need a reason to keep coming to school. They need enthusiastic teachers who engage them; relief from pointless testing and assessment; physical activity; art and music. They need the same things every other kid needs.
5. Last week, an article was published reporting 5 middle schools in Polk County face being closed in the 2017-2018 school year because of their consecutive low grades, unless Polk County Public Schools comes up with a school improvement plan approved by the Florida State Board of Education. What suggestions do you have for the school improvement plans or should the district choose a different option to turn around the schools?
Start by understanding that each school is different, with different kids, faculties and needs. We also need to understand that the state system of grading and assessing these schools is designed to isolate and stigmatize them.
That said, the district’s approach seems to be to do more of the same punitive approach to the schools that the state demands. I would prefer, just like with the previous question, that we realize the kids at these five schools need exactly what kids at more “successful” schools need: someone to care about and focus on their experience. They need a reason to keep coming to school. They need enthusiastic teachers who engage them; relief from pointless testing and assessment; physical activity; art and music.
The teachers choosing to work in those schools, in the most challenging job in education deserve respect and support.
6. What strategies would you employ to improve teacher morale?
See answers to each of the previous questions. More than that, we need to stop the inherently hostile position the district has established with teachers in negotiating pay and benefits and performance standards. Recent examples include the repeated failed effort to deny masters degree pay to teachers. Part of that will require removing the current School Board Attorney, who is quite anti-teacher and anti-public in his behavior.
7. Do you believe the public should have input on the selection of the Superintendent?
Yes.
8. Florida legislators and County Commissioners now have term limits. Do you believe there should be term limits for School Board Members? Why, or why not?
I don’t generally believe in term limits. They tend to empower unelected staff and increase the distance between the public and the people who run the district on day-to-day basis. I can’t imagine any circumstance in which I would serve more than two terms anyway.
9. Several years ago, the Lake Wales community created a charter school system. Why do you think communities in our school district consider creating charter school systems and how should Polk County Public Schools respond to this issue?
Communities want to feel greater control over their schools and greater investment in their communities from Bartow. We can accomplish this by changing the service culture of the Bartow office and organizing ourselves into high school learning communities.
10. What uniquely qualifies you for the position to be on the school board?
I have an extensive record as a reporter, historian, education thinker and stakeholder, and community leader:
• Co-founded Citizens for Better Educational Leadership (CBEL) with Wendy Bradshaw. CBEL successfully led the effort to remove previous Superintendent Kathryn LeRoy and change the direction of the district. It has worked aggressively to simplify and reduce the Polk testing burden in all its forms.
• Covered Polk County as a government and investigative reporter/editor from 1999 to 2008 for The Ledger and The Tampa Tribune. Served as The Ledger’s Education editor from 2003-2006. Directed coverage of the creation of the Lake Wales Charter District. Won a New York Times Company award for a special section commemorating the career of legendary Lakeland High School English teacher Hazel Haley.
• Published dozens of essays since 2008 exploring difficult education issues — particularly assessment, segregation, the relationship between magnet/charter and traditional schools, and the classroom experience.
• Wrote Age of Barbarity: the Forgotten Fight for the Soul of Florida, about the fight for racial and moral justice in 1920s Florida. Won the Florida Historical Society’s Presidential Citation and the “Award of Courage” from the Putnam County African-American Cultural Arts Council.
• Married to Julie Townsend, executive director of the Lakeland Downtown Development Authority (LDDA). My three children — ages 25, 23, and 13 —have attended or will attend: Lime Street Elementary (now Phillip O’Brien); Rochelle School of the Arts; McKeel Academy; Crystal Lake Middle School; Harrison School for the Arts; Lakeland Montessori Schoolhouse and Montessori Middle School ; Lakeland High School; even homeschooling. As a parent, I can talk with firsthand knowledge about virtually every type of Polk school experience.
11. Briefly, in three to five words, what traits do you look for in a Superintendent of Schools?
Public leadership; community commitment; focused on how students, teachers, and the public experience education.
12. What do you think is the #1 biggest problem with the public education system today, and what are two specific things you would do as a school board member in Polk County to address this specific problem?
Our teacher shortage — and the general reluctance of people to enter the profession.
At the Polk County level, this is compounded by District Office’s culture of bureaucratic indifference to the experience of teachers, children, and schools; the absurd and malfunctioning testing/assessment system in Polk County; foolish and destructive state and federal mandates. We can make progress on all of these items without spending a dime.
We will demand a culture of school service; make testing much less disruptive; and refocus our organizational priority on schools and distinct communities.
13. Does the Polk County School District spend too much, just enough, or not enough money in administration? Are these funds well spent? If not, how can funds be better appropriated?
It’s not the spending; it’s the value. Again, I propose to reorient district leadership at the high school community/ecosystem level.
Currently, I think the Bartow administration does little or nothing helpful. I propose to turn Bartow into essentially our county’s back office — with responsibility for food service, busing, logistics, etc. I’d like to see operations and education decisions made closer to the school level.
14. What would you do to ensure adequate funding and promotion is available for arts education, as well as extra-curricular activities such as athletics and educational field experiences?
We’ll just have to prioritize it as integral to the Polk education experience. There are no magic stashes of money. We have to choose to make arts, extracurricular, and physical activity a core part of our educational priorities. We should pursue state and national grants where available. And we should work with local organizations like Play-it-Forward to promote and provided resources for arts and music education.