Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake City School Board member Michael Clara

Clara: Educators’ pessimism doesn’t help students
BY MICHAEL CLARA
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 14, 2013 01:01AM

In recent days, many oppositional voices have been raised over Utah’s new school grading system. Mine was not one of them.

As a local school board member, one of my statutory responsibilities is to “use progress-based assessments as part of a plan to identify schools, teachers, and students that need remediation and determine the type and amount of federal, state, and local resources to implement remediation” (53A-3-402, Utah Code).

It is within that context that I welcome any system of measurement that will tell me the health of the schools within my purview.

I echo the words of Winston Churchill when he said “I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.” Let me herein give the “lion’s roar” about the state of education in my community.

The only two elementary schools within the Salt Lake City School District receiving an F letter grade are in District 2, which I represent. I take full responsibility for those failing grades.

I extend my sincere apologies to my neighbors, parents, teachers and students for the grade their school received. I say to them that this failing grade is not a reflection of their failure; it is rather a reflection of the poor leadership at the top pinnacle of this school district.

On Sept. 3, the day that this new system made its debut, school board members received a frenzied, enthusiastic email from the school district media relations specialist, Jason Olson, stating in part, “Dr. Withers is speaking on behalf of the district … in a press conference …. many of his comments are being tweeted out … I expect the superintendent’s comments will receive attention from most media outlets.”

One would have expected the superintendent’s comments to be about the resources we were going to deploy into these so-called “failing schools” in an effort to raise student achievement. Instead of addressing that part of this equation, Superintendent McKell Withers was investing his time and energy into garnering “attention from most media outlets” in an effort to “kill the messengers” and divert attention from the fact that his lack of leadership over the years has placed my neighborhood schools in the situation they now find themselves in.

In the school board meeting later that evening we received more of the same rhetoric from him. Not one single word on what we were going to change in order to help our low-performing schools achieve success.

As I listened to his spoken and written words over the past two weeks, I was taken aback by his “once a failing school, always a failing school” type attitude and his tone that a child’s “demography determines destiny.” How do we expect the schools in our district to see improvement with that type of ideology at the helm?

These are the issues we are not to discuss in school board meetings. We are, instead, told to engage in “happy talk”; everyone must accentuate the positive, even if it has to be made up. This same culture dictates that the bureaucracy never takes responsibility for failures, because “the problem is always out there.”

I can unabashedly commit to my neighbors that, contrary to the prevailing educational climate, I will assume my leadership role more assertively and with greater dedication as a guardian of educational excellence and equity of our neighborhood schools. Together, we can put pessimists like Superintendent Withers to shame and see this year’s F-rated school become a D-rated school next year, and C-rated school the following year, all the way to an A+ school.

J. Michael Clara represents District 2 on the Salt Lake City School Board.

Link to Tribune Commentary

TEXT OF LETTER I SENT TO THE SUPERINTENDENT: 

1 September 2013

DELIVERED VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
Mr. McKell Withers, Superintendent
Salt Lake City School District
440 East 100 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84111-1891

Re: School Grades and Accountability Website

Dear Dr. Withers,

I wanted to expressed my opposition to the current tone and format of the proposed School Grades and Accountability link on the school district’s web site, that you referenced in your August 30, 2013- Weekly Board Memorandum.

As a member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education, I am opposed to school district resources being used to express personal political views. I would remind you that both of us have taken an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the Unites States and the State of Utah.

The new grading system has the force of law because it is the law, it was passed by the Utah House of Representatives and the Utah Senate and signed by the Governor of the state of Utah. I believe the district is exceeding its authority when it attempts to belittle and dismiss the new law as the creation of “some in the Utah legislature…”

The Utah State School Board Association’s, Board Member Code of Ethics, #2 states:

I will uphold and enforce all laws, state board rules and regulations and court orders pertaining to schools.

Desired change should be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures.

It is within that context, that I believe that the launching of a link on the school district’s web page, in order to express opposition to the law, in the guise of “information to parents”, is unethical and I would strongly urge you to reconsider the tone and content of the proposed link.

I am not by any means stating that we should not oppose laws that we feel are unjust or could be improved upon. I am merely stating that I believe we do a disservice to the parents in our district by hijacking an informational web page in order to peddle our own political points of view.  There are other venues and forums where those oppositional voices can be expressed, this is not and should not be one of them.

As to the format of the proposed link, I find it to be the least user friendly one could imagine. I would expect more from an institution of education. As to content, it is poorly written, there are misspellings. i.e. comprehensive, required, legislature etc…

It is peppered with innuendos and assumptions, any useful information to parents is buried in the triviality of putting down the legislature and the new grading system. The link as written is repetitive, confusing, and provides little information for parents to understand the new school grading system.

If launched in its current form, I predict that it will only serve to confuse parents because is speaks more of what the new school grading system does not do and then sends parents on a wild goose chase throughout the internet.

I would instead, recommend the site bullet point the “highlights” of the elements contained in the new grading system. I offer the following example of a tone and substance that I believe will better resonate with parents in our district:

What Other Information is Available?
As we often tell parents, an academic grade is based on multiple measures taken over time and the letter grade is a “snap shot” of those measures. If you would like to better understand what the grade of your children’s school means for your child, you can find additional information at the following locations:

• Visit the website of your children’s school and review the School Improvement Plan

• Contact the school principal, teacher and/or School Community Council

• Attend parent teacher conferences and/or back to school night

These are ways in which you can better understand what assessed proficiency and growth mean, as well as, get information about other measures, such as: student engagement, school climate, progression toward graduation, concurrent enrollment, additional content areas of performance and growth not included in the elements of the new grading system.

 What Are We Doing To Address School Grades?
As a school district, we are committed to working with the principal, faculty and community to provide the best educational opportunities possible to insure every Salt Lake City School District student is receiving an education that prepares them for advancement and college or career readiness. We will be reviewing the individual school grade, with the principal at each school, and working with the administration, faculty and community to insure the School Improvement Plans are sufficiently addressing any areas identified to be addressed with more focus.

In the interest of time and space, I share that small example of the tone and content that I would recommend you use if your intent is to truly help parents navigate the new grading system.

In closing, you have done nothing more than given the response that the Senate President predicted when he said: “those who are opposed to reform” will have trouble with this.

Might I suggest, that instead of using these 11th hour tactics to oppose the new law, we put our time and energy into embracing it. I seriously doubt that the school grades will reveal anything about our schools that we don’t already know. We can then work with the legislature in the coming legislative sessions to fine tune this system.

I much prefer to take responsibility for the assigned grade and put our time and energy into working with ours schools to provide them the resources needed in order to achieve student success.

Based on your past practice, I harbor no illusion whatsoever, that you will take my point of view seriously. I have therefore in the interest of transparency, taken the liberty of sending a copy of this letter to the leadership of the Utah legislature and the two daily local newspapers.

Shalom,

J. Michael Clára

Board Member, District 2

Enclosures (2)

cc: Senator Niederhauser, Senate President
Representative Lockhart, Speaker of the House
Ray Parker, Salt Lake Tribune
Benjamin Woods, Deseret News

PDF LINK TO LETTER

PDK Link to McKell Memo

Education Task Force (Photo not with original story)

By Benjamin Wood, Deseret News
Published: Friday, Aug. 30 2013 4:17 p.m. MDT

SALT LAKE CITY — A significant portion of the agenda at last week’s meeting of the Education Task Force was given to Salt Lake City School Board member Michael Clara and his oft-repeated criticisms of his school board colleagues.

Clara accused the Salt Lake City School District of neglecting the needs of west-side schools and failing to address the graduation rate of at-risk and minority students.

His comments drew concern from the Republican members of the task force, who suggested that inquiries and investigations be made into the operation of the school district and the training that school board members receive from the Utah School Boards Association.

But on Friday, Utah’s Democratic Party fired back at GOP lawmakers, accusing them of scapegoating teachers for the state’s achievement gap despite little support or leadership from the Legislature.

“Our schools are not failing our students. Our Republican leaders are failing our schools,” Matt Lyon, the Utah Democratic Party’s executive vice president, said in a prepared statement. “It is clear that what occurred at the Education Task Force meeting was a thinly veiled attempt to shift the conversation away from the real issues behind Utah’s frightening achievement gap — a lack of commitment by this state’s leaders to Utah students and to working constructively toward fixing these problems.”

Lyon continued by repeating a request made in January by the Utah Democratic Party that the state’s leaders work together to establish long-term leadership and solutions for public education. He said the state has five- and 10-year plans for curbs and gutters, roads and transportation, but has no concrete plan for the educational system.

“Utah Democrats called for these things in January and have been sounding the alarm on education for over a decade,” he said. “We need to stop the grandstanding and the scapegoating of our under-supported teachers and start actually solving the problem.”

During the task force meeting, Clara received encouragement from Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden, who represented Salt Lake City’s east side as a member of the City Council. He told Clara to continue pressing for change, saying the west side, particularly Rose Park, is routinely neglected by policymakers.

Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Salt Lake City, cautioned her colleagues to not reach any conclusions before the task force had a chance to hear from other members of Salt Lake’s school board.

“I accept what you’re saying as your opinion, but I don’t know if I accept it all as fact,” Moss told Clara.

Email: benwood@deseretnews.com, Twitter: @bjaminwood

Link to Article

Ran into some neighbors at orientation

Had a great time this morning at West High’s 9th grade orientation. We all met in the auditorium and then broke up into five groups and we rotated into various workshops.

Power Point Slide

I was particularity impressed with the fact  that the staff and administration was aware of the dropout rate of their freshmen and were not afraid to to embrace that ‘truth’.

Unlike the mindset and masking I see happening in the Echo Chamber (school board meetings).

This power point slide shows the reality of the matter. Needless to say, there is a gap between the numbers the school is showing and the inflated graduation numbers the Superintendent presented at recent school board meetings.

Survey Results

Taking a proactive stance on the issue, the school conducted a survey last year among the students in an effort to determine why they were ‘sluffing’.

It was refreshing to see this issue discussed openly and with a level of determination to retain 9th graders so that they become 10th graders.

Five Basics

These pictures are blurry, I took them with my phone. In this PowerPoint slide they list pointer to High School Success.

Five Basics of High School Success:

1. Decide to Graduate
2. Be Here
3. Be Prepared
4. Use Your Planner
5. Turn Everything Inn

They also gave each student the following documents titled:

PDF LINK: Secrets to School Success Checklist

PDF LINK: West High Where Attendance Counts

I realize that the students most at risk will not be inclined to follow the advice given on this day.

The local administration and teachers started a program this year that will address the crisis with 9th grade dropouts.

It is called 9th Grade Connects (I need to confirm that name). The program is headed up by Assistant Principal Gene Bonella. I recalled it being discusses several times last year in the School Community Council meetings (SCC).

The local administration has identified 100 incoming 9th graders that are most at risk of dropping out of school. These students will be required to check in with a particular teacher each day.  Any missed classes or school days are immediately looked into. Their academic progress will be closely monitored.

I commend the local administration, staff and SCC Chair Steve Asay, for their sensitivity to this issue.

In speaking to the them about this program, I could sense their deep commitment and determination to see these students succeed.

There were many good things that happen at orientation. As a policymaker, at this time, I am concerned about the high dropout rate of the students from my community.

I am always looking for those programs and methods that will help us graduate all students. I am always asking  if we are spending my neighbor’s tax dollars where we will get the highest return for our investment. In this case, the highest return is measured by more students completing 9th grade.