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16 June 2005
New Chron education reporter quotes Anne Linehan
Anne Linehan is quoted in an education article by new Chronicle columnist reporter Jennifer Radcliffe today:
Anne Linehan, a mother of three in Spring, said she tries hard to make sure they read and study history during the summer. She was surprised to learn about the "summer slide" statistics for math skills.
"I work with my kids a lot," she said. "I didn't think about the math."
Here's hoping Radcliffe will boost the Chronicle's education coverage, which has seen its share of journalistic mishaps courtesy of reporter Jason Spencer. We wish her well.
UPDATE: I got the job right in the title (reporter!) and wrong in the body (not columnist). That's proof I should not be allowed to touch a keyboard until the Starbucks Red Eye has kicked in fully!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/16/05 07:41 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)
14 January 2006
When editors make reporters look bad
From today's Chronicle corrections:
•More than half of the Houston Independent School District's teachers would have received bonuses last school year if the merit pay system adopted this week had been in place. Because of an editing error, a story on Page B1 in Friday's editions of the Chronicle incorrectly stated the percentage of teachers in HISD's West and South regions who would have earned bonus pay.
Here's the story the correction references and here are the relevant paragraphs:
Almost one-third of the teachers at schools in HISD's West Region would have received a bonus, which is the highest percentage among the school district's five regions.
Just one in every five teachers in the South Region would have earned a bonus if the new system had been in place, based on 2005 scores.
Rumor has it the Chron has a new assistant city editor...Jason Spencer.
PREVIOUSLY: Brain drain at the Houston Chronicle? (cont'd)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/14/06 03:38 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
11 March 2007
Jason Spencer still doesn't like Terry Abbott
Speaking of HISD, on the Chronicle's School Zone blog, Jason Spencer takes on one of his favorite targets: HISD spokesman Terry Abbott.
Spencer doesn't like Abbott's aggressive style. He doesn't like that Abbott sends out press releases suggesting positive stories. He doesn't like that Abbott provides tips for other school districts on how to get good news stories on-air or in print.
It's quite an unusual post, to say the least. We certainly don't see the Chronicle getting too worked up about the aggressive PR machine that runs Mayor White's City Hall. Nor have we seen much fretting about HPD's portrayal of bad crime stats as "only bad if one lives in a hot spot." And we certainly don't see the Chron wringing its hands over Metro's PR efforts -- heck, sometimes it seems as though the Chron's editorial board is in charge of Metro's PR efforts!
Then Spencer posts this comment:
I expect a certain amount of spin in press releases. But I have a problem with HISD's press office when the folks there refuse to hand over information that is clearly public in a timely manner. This newspaper had to get lawyers involved to find out how much money individual teachers were paid under HISD's bonus system, for instance.
And our lawyers are currently fighting the HISD administration's refusal to give us access to school board meeting agenda information as soon as it is prepared. Without this information, we can't do our jobs properly. For instance, the policy proposal that was the subject of Abbott's e-mail press release from last Sunday was made available to school board members no later than the Friday before. But the press office makes us wait until Monday to see the official proposal. That way, we're forced to either hold the story and get beaten by our TV news competitors, who are willing to regurgitate the press release, or report on the issue without all the facts.
I'm fine with spin. It's obstructionism and delay tactics that I have a problem with.
Would the Chronicle please -- please! -- put Spencer in charge of overseeing all Metro stories?? That way, Tom Bazan won't have to wait MONTHS to get his TXPIA requests filled. Shoot, Spencer's crying about having to wait a couple of days; I'll bet Tom Bazan wishes he only had to wait a couple of days to get his requests filled!
The weird part of Spencer's post is when he complains that Abbott sent out a press release last weekend. KHOU-11 posted the information to its website on Sunday, but the Chron (apparently) was forced to wait until Monday to print a story because HISD didn't release the official proposal until then. And Spencer didn't want just to reprint a press release (something that hasn't been a problem for the Chronicle in the past).
The irony is that Spencer has gotten himself all worked up over an HISD proposal that he calls "marginally newsworthy." Well, if it's so marginally newsworthy, then what's the problem? Why does he care what other news outlets are doing?
Because Abbott is good at what he does, I guess. And Spencer has had a beef with HISD for quite a while now.
Meanwhile the systemic problems that plague this district don't get nearly the attention HISD gets. Let's see Jason Spencer throw some real resources and outrage in North Forest ISD's direction! HISD has been working for several years now to improve the education it provides its students. The same can definitely not be said for North Forest ISD.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ Jason Spencer still doesn't like Terry Abbott"> 03/11/07 03:35 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
12 August 2005
Dr. Saavedra = Al Capone?
What else is one to think after reading the first paragraph of Jason Spencer's story today:
The Houston Independent School District and a former charter school manager have agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit and silence a former employee who's been one of the district's most tenacious critics.
It sounds as if Dr. Saavedra was left to clean up yet another mess that he inherited. I will say I am not sure Spencer's characterization of the Margaret Stroud case is accurate:
A tip from Spuck earlier this year led to a Houston Chronicle investigation into consulting contracts awarded to the son of Chief School Administrator Margaret Stroud, who later resigned and agreed to repay the $63,000 given to her son.
The Chronicle may have received the tip from Spuck and passed it on to HISD, but HISD conducted the investigation -- a fairly aggressive investigation -- that resulted in Stroud's resigning and agreeing to pay back money. I think Spencer takes some liberties there by suggesting a Chronicle investigation led to Stroud's resignation.
Also, this whistleblower had a habit of filing voluminous open records requests (that probably brought HISD to a halt) and passed them on to the media. Part of the agreement is that she'll knock that off now. Along that line, Sedosi has a take that made me laugh:
So the well is now dry for Channel 13 and Jason Spencer....
You can understand their depression over this fact. This does clear up a little about the negative tone that the Com.'s HISD coverage has had of late, as it seems that all the stories were stemming from a single (biased) source.
Adios, Ms. Spuck.
It will be curious to see how the Com.'s education coverage will be affected by this. I'm wondering if they will revert to quoting press releases and chopping up AP articles like the D.C. bureau and the Austin bureau?
Spencer had a terrific story in the paper earlier this week, so we know he can do it.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/12/05 07:13 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
27 July 2005
HISD is not using bond money for new headquarters
Here's a correction in today's Chronicle:
A story on Page B1 of Tuesday's City & State section incorrectly reported the source of the money that is paying for the Houston Independent School District's new headquarters building. The building is being paid for with proceeds from the sale of HISD's existing headquarters building.
Let's check out yesterday's story to find out what it said the source of money was for the new headquarters:
Houston voters gave HISD permission to borrow $808.6 million in 2002 to build 32 new schools and renovate 28 others. The bond program also includes money for the district's new headquarters at U.S. 290 and Loop 610, new playgrounds for 125 elementary schools and air conditioning for 47 middle and high school gyms.
Oh my goodness! Yesterday the Chron reports that bond money is paying for HISD's new headquarters and today, in a little teeny box, the Chron says...ooops, sorry.
Watch out for unhappy letters to the editor, screaming about HISD's misuse of bond money.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Let's see, an education story that got basic facts wrong in a way likely to generate public criticism of HISD? Who might have done such a story for the Chronicle? Ah, yes, Jason Spencer was the author. I'll have to confer with Anne, but I suspect she left that out this time due to fear of repetitive stress typing injuries caused by identifying his blunders over so many blog posts.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 07/27/05 06:12 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
13 May 2005
Roseanne Rosannadanna-Litella
You knew it was coming:
HISD holds off on plan for less math and science:
After hearing critics, Saavedra says a panel will look into proposed change for high schools.
Shall we guess how those critics got started? Plus the headline is wrong. There is no plan for less math or science; a middle school student would have to take a high school-level class in order for the credit to count. HISD can't just willy-nilly change a requirement like that, because the state of Texas sets those requirements.
On a KNTH-1070 newsbreak yesterday afternoon, I heard the announcer say that HISD has proposed lowering math and science requirements to two years, which isn't true! Ack! This is the problem with a lone megaphone in town. Those misleading or incorrect headlines and stories get passed around to other media outlets and then the "facts" become gospel.
Of course, this is the second time that Jason Spencer's reporting has caused HISD to postpone (or entirely change) proposed reforms.
At this point I have to agree with one of our commenters, Bill F:
Am I the only one who has the image of Rosanna Rosannadana stuck in his head every time Jason Spencer works himself into a tizzy in a story with less than half the facts?
I would only add that Spencer appears to be Roseanne Rosannadanna with a bit of Emily Litella thrown in, for good measure.
UPDATE: Just so we get our Gilda Radner characters straight, Bill F thinks (upon further reflection) that maybe it should be more Emily Litella than Roseanne Rosannadanna. We'll let readers decide for themselves. =)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/13/05 10:09 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
18 July 2005
A Wrap-Up story that doesn't wrap it up
Last week we posted on Spring Branch ISD's fight to prevent the city of Houston from condemning a piece of land in front of an elementary school to create a new turn lane. Both the Chronicle and KTRK-13 ran stories previewing SBISD officials going before city council to protest the land grab, but then we couldn't find any stories after that.
Today in the Chronicle's Wrap Up section, Jason Spencer writes this:
IT turns out that the folks at the Spring Branch Independent School District never saw the memo.
If they had noticed the Oct. 15, 2004, letter explaining that the city of Houston wanted 200 square feet of Valley Oaks Elementary School property for a routine sidewalk improvement, not a right-turn lane, the unhappy school board members might not have marched down to City Hall last week. They also might not have issued a news release a day earlier, describing the city's decision to claim the land through eminent domain as a "dangerous land grab" endangering children's lives.
But it turns out the letter probably went unnoticed because it was addressed to then-Associate Superintendent Mike Maloney. That's the same Mike Maloney who had resigned four days earlier in the face of a criminal charge accusing him of lying on his job application by claiming to have a master's degree from a California university that doesn't exist.
[snip]
While acknowledging the school district's role in the misunderstanding, Kellner and Kosmoski said city officials share the blame.
"The mayor's office would not return our phone calls," Kellner said. "They could have straightened this out with us a week ago."
Huh?
Is Spencer telling us that the condemnation is for a sidewalk and not a turn lane? Or is Spencer telling us that the city originally said it was for a sidewalk but now the city's constructing a turn lane?
Did Spencer interview Susan Kellner to get a more complete picture of what is going on and what Spring Branch ISD's position is? Did Spencer try to interview any city officials to clear up what the city of Houston is really doing, and to find out why the city refused to communicate with Spring Branch ISD officials?
We need a follow-up story to the wrap-up story.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 07/18/05 07:17 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)
20 March 2005
Correcting some errors in Jason Spencer's story
Yesterday I was dismissive of a Jason Spencer story about the lower TAKS test scores at some HISD schools. What Spencer led the reader to believe is that schools with lower scores are the same schools being investigated for TAKS cheating.
Since Spencer doesn't have the best track record of reporting on HISD lately, I wasn't going to take his word as gospel.
And as it turns out, there were some errors in the story. The AP has picked up the Chronicle's story and now it is running in numerous outlets (KTRK, KPRC, KHOU, DMN). HISD spokesman Terry Abbott sent an email to the AP noting a couple of errors with Spencer's story:
Posted by Anne Linehan @ Jason Spencer's story"> 03/20/05 08:24 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
18 May 2005
HISD honors teachers of the year
Hang on to your hats -- Jason Spencer has written a positive story about HISD:
A Westside High School math teacher who decorates his doorway with shaved hair and an Anderson Elementary teacher whose proudest moment of 2005 came when a kindergartner with cerebral palsy learned to write her own name were named HISD's teachers of the year Tuesday night.
Westside's Nobuo Cedric French and Anderson's Monica Ramirez each received a $5,000 check and other gifts for being the best of the Houston Independent School District's 13,000 educators.
It's a very nice story, and congratulations to HISD's teachers of the year.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/18/05 06:04 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
18 February 2005
Wanted: a policy of clear and transparent corrections
Following up on this tortuous clarification post from last night, I see that the Chronicle's Jason Spencer has written a story about HISD employees submitting proposals to take over management of three underperforming HISD high schools. It appears to be in response to yesterday's KPRC-2 story. In an eight paragraph story, here is paragraph seven:
Saavedra blamed a front-page Houston Chronicle article that said he wanted to bring in outsiders to fix the schools for throwing parents into a panic.
Just for the record, I emailed Jason Spencer and the Chronicle's reader representative, James T. Campbell, yesterday when I saw that Saavedra had issued a clarification and had criticized the Chronicle's coverage. In my email, I asked for any insight regarding the superintendent's criticism, in case there were other facts, from the Chronicle's point of view, that we should take into consideration.
I have yet to receive a response from either of them.
I noted yesterday that a paragraph in Spencer's original story had been changed in the online verson, from what was in Wednesday's paper. Today I went back and looked at the rest of Spencer's original Wednesday story, and I found another change. Here's what the first paragraph said, in the print newspaper version:
The Houston schools chief announced Tuesday he wants outsiders to take control of the city's three lowest-performing high schools to accomplish what the school system hasn't been able to do on its own.
Here is what the online story now says:
The Houston schools chief announced Tuesday he would consider giving outsiders control of the city's three lowest-performing high schools to accomplish what the school system hasn't been able to do on its own.
Some professional journalists have shown a tendency to be dismissive of blogs for not following their standards of "journalism." This is a perfect example of where professional journalists could take a lesson from bloggers, since responsible bloggers aim for clear and transparent corrections and clarifications.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/18/05 12:35 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
24 November 2004
Who's really supporting Cy-Fair ISD bond initiative?
Cy-Fair ISD is taking a $700 million bond initiative to the voters and the Chronicle's Jason Spencer has uncovered a bit more to the story:
A political action committee, or PAC, calling itself Citizens for Cy-Fair ISD Bonds plans to spend more than $60,000 on the campaign, touting "local support" for the referendum, which begins early voting today. But what the ads don't say is that almost all the money behind the ads is coming from companies that stand to make millions if the proposal passes.
Among the biggest contributors are four architectural firms that have a history of doing business with the district, which stretches across 186 square miles in northwest Harris County.
And apparently this is par for the course:
"Potentially, it means a lot of work for a lot of companies," said Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America based in Alexandria, Va.
Construction firms spending money to promote bond packages isn't unusual, he said. In 2002, for example, when the Houston Independent School District asked voters for $808 million to build new schools, Atlanta-based Heery International gave $15,000 to the PAC that successfully advocated for the bond package. Heery is now managing construction projects worth nearly $200 million in bond money.
Records show the four architectural firms have already won plenty of school contracts, collectively billing Cy-Fair ISD $7.2 million last school year for design work related to a $470.5 million bond package approved by voters in 2001.
Good for Spencer, getting this information out in the open. He's the same reporter who unmasked the HISD superintendent candidates.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/24/04 01:14 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
11 November 2004
One superintendent candidate is out
Jason Spencer has a follow-up story in the Chronicle today, noting that the list of HISD superintendent candidates is now down to three:
Pittsburgh schools Superintendent John Thompson is no longer a candidate for the Houston Independent School District's top job, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.
It was unclear whether Thompson withdrew his name from consideration or simply did not make the cut for a second interview with HISD trustees.
"He didn't give me a reason," said Pittsburgh Public Schools spokeswoman Pat Crawford.
Thompson was a candidate for the Washington, D.C., superintendency in July but reportedly bowed out of the competition because officials there released his name to the media.
Thompson also had tried to interview secretly for the Houston job.
Don't know if Thompson's problem is that he wanted to stay incognito, but this is a big job for a whole list of reasons, and candidates should not expect to fly under the radar, even though HISD tried its best to make that happen.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/11/04 02:42 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
03 October 2005
HISD's (expensive) press office helps Chronicle reporting
It was a slow week for Chronicle Wrap-ups, so Jason Spencer had to dig deep to find this one that revives a tired Chronicle complaint -- HISD spends too much money on its press office.
Metro/State columnist Rick Casey tried this awhile back, when he criticized HISD for paying chief spokesman Terry Abbott what Casey thought was an exorbitant salary. Casey didn't disclose how much the Chronicle pays HIM to write his drivel, nor did Casey provide any balance by noting how much, for example, Metro's spokesman is paid. I pointed out back then that Abbott earns every penny of his salary just fending off the Chronicle.
So today Spencer notes that the $363,000 HISD press office put out a press release touting the HISD board's decision to save taxpayers $330,000 by cancelling the elections of unopposed HISD trustees:
Three of the five school board elections previously scheduled for November are now canceled because incumbents Dianne Johnson, Harvin Moore and Greg Meyers are unopposed. HISD won't have to spend money on ballots and poll workers in areas represented by those trustees.
Now, that's the kind of creative, positive thinking HISD expects from its $363,000-a-year press operation, whose stated mission is to "quickly and accurately respond to media inquiries and generate positive publicity about the great programs and people at HISD."
The news isn't so much that the district is canceling three elections. It's that HISD now has an extra $330,000 to spend on something else.
Cute.
Out of curiosity, I emailed Spencer asking if he had attended the board meeting last week when this decision was made. He replied that he hadn't attended the meeting -- he was out of town attending a family member's funeral. While I am sorry for Spencer's loss, isn't it a teensy bit ironic that he used HISD's (expensive) press office -- here's the HISD press release -- to write a wrap-up story that slams HISD's (expensive) press office?
Or how about this story Spencer wrote over the weekend about HISD leasing Douglass Elementary to KIPP charter schools for (primarily) evacuee schoolchildren. You see, the HISD board made the decision at last week's board meeting...the one Spencer couldn't attend. But his byline is on the story. So, he had to have used HISD's (expensive) press office to gather up all the information for the story.
We also know what else HISD's (expensive) press office is good for -- fulfilling open records requests. Media outlets and whistleblowers often file open-ended public information requests -- a necessary part of government transparency -- and who do you think helps compile all that information?
So, instead of berating HISD for its (expensive) press office, Jeff Cohen should be thanking HISD and Dr. Saavedra for saving him money he would otherwise have to spend on more education reporters. And in this age of Chronicle layoffs, that's very generous of HISD!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/03/05 11:50 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
26 May 2005
HISD students beat national average on Stanford 10 test
HISD received some good news with the results of the Stanford 10 test:
More than 165,000 HISD students in grades 1 through 11 took the Stanford 10 test or its Spanish-language equivalent, the Aprenda, and they did better nearly across the board than most students around the country.
[snip]
HISD students not in Special Education at five grade levels-third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, seventh grade, and eleventh grade-beat that national average midrange ranking of 50 in all subject areas tested on the Stanford. In addition, first- and second-graders at HISD beat the national average in all but one of the subjects, and HISD eighth- and tenth-graders beat the national average in most subjects.
On average, HISD grade levels improved or at least held steady in their overall scores on the Stanford test this year compared to last year. For example, in reading, the scores for HISD students across six grade levels improved, while two grades held steady. In math, four grade levels improved their scores, while four grade levels held steady. More HISD grade levels made progress this year on their Stanford scores than declined.
For Spanish-speaking students at HISD, the news is even better: HISD’s scores on the Spanish-language Aprenda soared far above the national average in most cases.
I have said before that HISD is one of the nation's better large urban districts. That's not to say HISD doesn't have challenges; we are all well aware of HISD's shortcomings, but this is an outstanding achievement for HISD teachers, students and parents.
And I sincerely hope Jason Spencer can find the good in this news. It would be nice to end the school year on an upbeat note.
UPDATE: Here's Jason Spencer's story. It's not quite as negative as I was expecting, but he does seek to compare the Stanford results to TAKS results. Whatever.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/26/05 08:21 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
19 March 2005
Ho-hum: Chron runs another HISD-is-bad story
You'll have to pardon me for not getting too worked up over this Chronicle headline: Test scores fall sharply at scrutinized schools.
First, the story is by Jason Spencer. Second, it's in the Chronicle. Third, HISD superintendent Abe Saavedra has already offered strong reform ideas to improve HISD schools, and has taken steps to investigate and prevent cheating. Fourth, the Chronicle continues to run stories on a non-controversy, which undoubtedly makes Dr. Saavedra's efforts to bring change to HISD nearly impossible. Fifth, the TAKS test was harder this year.
Plus, we've seen the Chronicle hyperventilate before, only to find out later that the Chronicle wasn't giving us all available information; and when we DID get the rest of the information, it pretty much decimated the Chronicle's point.
When it comes to those entities -- and people -- that haven't attained the Chronicle's "most favored status" (like Metro has), I think the Chronicle has cried wolf too many times to be taken seriously. That's a big loss for Houston-area residents who only have one major newspaper to rely on.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/19/05 09:58 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
26 April 2005
Chron sees glass one third empty
Chronicle headline this morning:
Two-thirds of HISD fifth-graders pass tougher math TAKS test
Oh, sorry. That wasn't it at all:
Third of 5th-graders here fail math exam
(online headline has been changed: Third of 5th-graders fail harder-to-pass math test)
Well, the Chronicle is nothing if not predictable. (Too bad we can't get some of this "skeptical" press for Metro)
Jason Spencer has written a very odd story, and not just because of the headline:
A third of Houston's fifth-graders failed the state's math exam, the school district announced Monday, meaning 4,500 students face the threat of summer school, and perhaps another year in elementary school, if they don't manage to pass by August.
This is the first year that fifth-graders are required to pass the math and reading portions of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam in order to move on to the sixth-grade.
Those who haven't passed both subjects after the third try in June can still be promoted if their parent, teacher and principal unanimously agree that promotion is in the child's best interest.
Even fewer Houston Independent School District fifth-graders — 62 percent — passed the reading exam on the first try, according to results released last month
Wait. Does one-third of Houston's fifth graders equal 4,500? That seems like a very low number. Is it Houston's fifth graders, or HISD's fifth graders? Because -- and this may come as a surprise to Spencer -- there is a difference.
Spring Branch ISD, Cy-Fair ISD, "the largest recognized school district in Texas," Aldine ISD, North Forest ISD, Alief ISD, Galena Park ISD, Sheldon ISD and Spring ISD all have schools in Houston.
That appears to be some sloppy reporting.
And if the two-thirds of HISD students who did pass the test see the paper this morning, what do you suppose they are thinking? Since we know that 80% of HISD's students are classified as low-income, a two-thirds passing rate on a math test with a tougher standard is not the end of the world. Let's celebrate the students who did pass! Plus, there will now be special tutoring and two more chances to take the test for those who didn't pass.
What is really incredible about Spencer's story is that HISD's news about the 18 new executive principals announced to facilitate improved instruction and learning in HISD, is added to the end of the story almost as an afterthought. Why? It should be bigger news than that, since it is the next step in Dr. Saavedra's reorganization plan -- a reorganization plan that aims to improve the test scores Spencer is reporting negatively.
Would you like to know who those new executive principals are? You can visit KTRK-13's story I linked to yesterday, or you can read HISD's press release, because the Chronicle won't tell you.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/26/05 11:05 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
13 November 2004
Saavedra is HISD superintendent finalist
In what clearly is not a stunning development, the HISD board has announced its finalist for superintendent:
The Houston Independent School District's board named interim Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra as the person it wants to succeed Kaye Stripling as superintendent of the nation's seventh-largest school district.
Saavedra emerged from a field of 22 candidates as the sole finalist today after an interview. He was one of four semifinalists. The board plans to vote on Stripling's successor Dec. 9.
Those quality candidates HISD brought in sure gave Saavedra a run for it. Look, Saavedra may indeed be the best person for the job, but conducting a less than half-hearted search doesn't benefit the students and parents of HISD. Saavedra should have been made to fight for the job, to rise to the level of the challenge. Instead the outcome was almost predetermined with some board members making it clear that Saavedra was their first choice.
This is an AP story, but it's pretty much taken straight from the HISD press release, quotes and all. I would assume that Jason Spencer of the Chronicle will have an actual story in tomorrow's paper.
UPDATE: The link at the top of this post now takes you to the Chronicle-authored story, not the AP press release story.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/13/04 06:04 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
24 May 2005
Former HISD dropouts get back on track and graduate
Jason Spencer has written a nice story (it's true!) about HISD's success with students who had previously dropped out:
A 21-year-old mother living in one of Houston's poorest neighborhoods, Claudia Betancourt wasn't thinking about school when she heard a knock at the door last August.
Jobless and unsure of her future, Betancourt cracked the door to see Houston Independent School District Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra and about 20 volunteers waiting.
"The next thing you know, I looked up and my whole street was blocked," Betancourt said.
What would it take, they asked, to get her back in school and off HISD's dropout list?
Promises were made, and by day's end Betancourt was in the Furr High School nurse's office getting the immunization she needed to go back to school.
"One of my teachers helped me get a job at Fiesta," she said. Others lined up daytime childcare for her two young children.
This weekend, Betancourt and 47 other former dropouts coaxed back to school through HISD's Reach out to Dropouts program will get their diplomas. Most of the 291 returning students completed the school year that ends Thursday, Saavedra said.
"Some did, indeed, drop out again. But others stayed," he said. "I can't think of a day when I've been more proud to be superintendent."
Spencer's article also mentions the story of Emmanuel Miranda, who was included in the post I ran over the weekend.
It's wonderful to read a story like this. We don't need bad news all the time; good news is good for the soul!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/24/05 02:47 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)
11 September 2005
Chron: HISD is better than average!
I read today's Jason Spencer story in the Chronicle about the challenges school districts, and specifically HISD, are facing to educate Katrina-displaced students, and I was stunned.
He got it! Or maybe his editors got it...or maybe both!
As urban school systems go, Houston is considered better than average.
Last school year, more than 60 percent of HISD's students in grades three, five and nine scored above the national average on the Stanford Achievement Test. Fewer than one-third of the New Orleans Public Schools students in those grades beat the national average on the similar Iowa Test of Basic Skills during 2003-04.
"Those that ended up in Houston are lucky," said Robert Stockwell, who left a job as HISD's chief academic officer last year and now holds the same position in Baton Rouge. "They are in a system that is well prepared to help students be successful."
Specifically, Houston's reading program for elementary school students is far ahead of practices in New Orleans, Stockwell said.
"Houston is probably at a much higher level of organization and expectations than what would be expected in New Orleans," he said. "Reading, for many pockets of the city, was a major issue."
Wow! That's terrific!
I'll encourage you to read the entire story -- it's worth it. What HISD has done in less than a week, IS amazing, in spite of these educational experts whining that HISD isn't focused on lengthening its summer lunch program.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/11/05 09:28 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
19 September 2005
The backlash against school bond elections
Yesterday Jason Spencer wrote an interesting story exploring the changing landscape for school district bond elections. The recent Spring ISD referendum, where the district was handed a stinging defeat, is apparently indicative of a growing homeowner fatigue with school districts constantly asking for more money. School districts are always crying about the need for more money to fund new buildings due to ever-increasing numbers of students, but often included in these referendums are plans for fancy stadiums and buildings and proposed expenditures for luxury items, such as laptop computers.
The story is presented fairly I think. The pro-ISD side complains about conservative voters who are more concerned about property taxes than children (one woman says that Spring ISD voters were lashing out because the Legislature failed to deliver property tax relief which sounds right to me), and the pro-property owners side says that school districts aren't managing wisely the money they have now. Property owners want school districts to fund the essentials first and the luxuries last, if at all.
If this backlash is surprising to school districts, then they should get connected with reality. Those of us who have listened to Edd Hendee's and Dan Patrick's shows on KSEV-700 know that some school district superintendents lobbied against a property tax cap that was (sort of) up for consideration in the last Legislative session. So it shouldn't be surprising that property owners who can't get relief in the Legislature, will decide to go right to the source -- school districts.
The question is, are school districts listening?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/19/05 11:07 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
06 March 2005
Chronicle: Employees were FIRED! No, wait...take that back
Yesterday, the Chronicle ran a story headlined, "Fired workers blast Aramark."
Today on page A2, in a little box, midpage, is this correction:
Four Houston Independent School District cafeteria managers have received letters from their supervisors notifying them that they are being recommended for termination, but HISD has not made a final determination regarding their employment status. A story on Page B1 of Saturday's City & State section reported that the letters said the workers "will be fired," and the headline asserted the workers already had been fired.
If you go to the online story now, the headline reads, "HISD cafeteria workers blast Aramark."
This is developing into quite a pattern -- the Chronicle blasts HISD and then we find some information or facts the reporter didn't include. Sometimes we get a correction or clarification, and sometimes we don't. At least this time we got a fairly straightforward correction. HISD spokesman Terry Abbott forwarded us the statement he gave to the Chronicle, prior to Saturday's story:
HISD has NOT moved to terminate these employees.
These allegations have never been made to HISD. However, now that they have been made to the Chronicle, we will review the allegations even though they have not been made to HISD.
However, ARAMARK strongly denies that anything inappropriate was done in this process. ARAMARK describes the process as simple verification of data.
It is not unusual at all -- in fact it is expected in every organization -- that efforts will be made to insure that data is complete.
Abbott's first point was that HISD has not fired the employees. The Chronicle's first word in the headline was, "Fired." Wow.
And Jason Spencer writes this:
On Friday, the women decided to come forward after receiving letters from their supervisors notifying them that they will be fired.
As we can see from Abbott's statement, HISD officials were not aware of what happened and found out about it from the Chronicle. Spencer doesn't make that clear in the story; he just writes "the women decided to come forward." Here is what Abbott told blogHOUSTON:
These workers are on paid leave while HISD reviews this matter. The letters the story references are letters from supervisors, not HISD administrators who make final recommendations on termination of employees. Any move to terminate these employees would come from the general manager of operations, and no such move has been made.
The suspicious side of me wonders why the four employees went to the local newspaper before they took their concerns to HISD officials.
My intent here is not to defend Aramark or HISD. I have serious concerns about the government coughing up $69 million for breakfast, lunch and after-school snacks, as I've said before. I think it's important, though, to point out another example of poor Chronicle journalism.
I really don't know what to make of the Chronicle's apparent predisposition to judge HISD guilty in spite of the facts. That doesn't strike me as an ideal state for professional journalists.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/06/05 04:59 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
06 February 2005
The Chronicle needs an education expert
Yesterday's Chronicle story about parents who are upset that HISD is closing some schools with low-enrollment numbers, and today's Chronicle editorial applauding HISD superintendent Abe Saavedra's plan to reduce testing, highlight a big problem with old media, especially newspapers: a lack of expertise -- in this case, expertise in public education. (blogHOUSTON has mentioned this problem of expertise before.)
Yesterday Jason Spencer missed an opportunity to explore, in greater depth, how the school closings will be handled. Instead, he found a few parents and highlighted their complaints. Here's my favorite:
"It's ridiculous," said 74-year-old Vera Sharp, who lives less than a block from the school her granddaughter attends. "It's ridiculous for poor folks, especially working women."
Even though the school Douglass students would attend, Dodson Elementary, is just a mile away, it is on the other side of Interstate 45, said Geraldine Stafford, who has four grandchildren at Douglass.
"That means I would have to walk them across the freeway," she said.
Please. Even the most clueless school district isn't going to expect students to walk across a freeway! Buses would obviously be provided in that case. It's elementary school children we are talking about here.
And what does Spencer provide to balance that?
HISD officials said they will consider other ways to get students to Dodson.
Spencer should have encouraged HISD officials to explain their gameplan for the transition. Or he could have looked at what other school districts have done when faced with school closures. There's nothing wrong with highlighting community concerns, but why not explore the answers, too?
And then there's today's editorial. The editors praise Saavedra for trying to lessen the time spent teaching standardized testing (as we did), but they don't offer much in the way of how it can be accomplished, except for this:
As one teacher noted, a teacher can take a class lagging far behind and bring it up a full grade level or two in one term, but the students still will not test at grade level. Hardworking, talented teachers such as that deserve recognition and reward that might not be indicated by their students' standardized test scores.
The plan for education success is not a mystery and I've said it repeatedly here (so repeatedly that readers are probably tired of reading it): a school needs well-trained teachers, teaching a solid curriculum, who have good classroom discipline and who are backed by strong support staff. That combination will generally produce students who can pass standardized tests, without wasted time trying to "teach to the test." Cut out the excess fluff, increase the time spent actually teaching, and make that teaching focus on basics.
The fact that this is left unexpressed by the editors leads me to believe they are not well-versed in what successful education requires.
My point here is this: Chronicle reporters and Chronicle editors are not education experts, and that's okay, IF they have access to an education expert who can help guide them in answering questions and understanding the ins and outs of education. I write often about public education because I am passionate about good public education. However, I am far from an education expert. What I do have is access to someone I trust, who IS an education expert, and readers can decide for themselves if the opinions I offer reflect an education expertise worth considering. The Chronicle needs to find at least one education expert (NOT a theorist!) who has experience successfully teaching students, who is familiar with school and school district administrations (and their politics), and who understands the particulars of school funding; and use that person to produce better information for readers. As the one major daily newspaper in town, I think the Chronicle has that responsibility.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/06/05 11:46 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
11 October 2005
HISD to raise tax rate; will fund pay raise and performance bonus
Jason Spencer reports that HISD is raising its tax rate:
Houston school taxes are going up because of rising property values and a 2-cent rate increase that is expected to win school board approval on Wednesday.
The bill for the owner of the average Houston Independent School District home with a taxable value of $117,740 would be $1,907, or $147 more than last year.
HISD officials warned residents of the rate increase in 2002 when voters gave the school district permission to borrow $808 million to build 45 new schools and renovate or repair 120 others. The new tax rate — $1.62 per $100 assessed value — remains the lowest among Harris County school districts.
Trustee Kevin Hoffman said while this tax rate generates an adequate amount of money for the school district, HISD must find more income next year, either by raising taxes or through increased state funding.
[snip]
Trustees could reduce the property tax rate and still bring in as much money as last year because of a $3 billion increase in property values.
This year's $1.36 billion budget is about $40 million more than a year ago, with most of the extra money going toward a 3 percent pay raise and a performance-based bonus plan for teachers.
It doesn't appear that HISD is trying to fund $1.5 million press boxes or laptops for all students (talk about a boondoggle!) like Spring ISD was trying to do, so that's encouraging. Most homeowners (I think) don't mind paying more to help fund schools when the money is spent wisely -- not frivolously.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/11/05 07:58 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (9)
14 May 2005
Is opinion valued more than news?
Yesterday Rick Casey wrote a column questioning HISD priorities, since Casey discovered that HISD spokesman Terry Abbott makes a nice salary:
[...]Terry Abbott is very aggressive in his efforts to project a positive image of the school district. The board and the few administrators above him (only seven in the huge district earn more) apparently believe he earns his $149,000 annual salary.
Second, when a school district pays its public relations chief a salary nearly 50 percent higher than that of its best-paid high school principal ($103,000), it's reasonable for taxpayers to think that image is valued more than education.
Of course, the Chronicle and Jason Spencer make sure that Abbott earns every penny of his salary.
But let's turn that question around: what is Rick Casey's salary? Does he make more than Chronicle reporters? And if so, does that mean the Chronicle values opinion more than news?
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Perhaps Rick Casey would like to share his salary with us. I realize he's in not in the public sector, but I bring it up because I suspect that the money he makes as Jeff Cohen's featured metro/state assassin of Chron "bad guys" probably dwarfs that of Washington Post reporter Dan Morgan, whose work Casey ripped off without proper attribution once. Does that mean the Chronicle values attacks on "bad buys" more than quality journalism?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/14/05 11:17 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
02 November 2006
Good, hyperlocal reporting from the Chron
The Chronicle's Helen Eriksen reports that supporters of Katy ISD's latest (and bigger) bond initiative include a new group made up mainly of two developers:
Supporters of a school construction bond measure in the Katy Independent School District are gearing up for a last-minute push before Tuesday's general election to get the $269.5 million initiative passed.
Critics, however, are rallying resistance against the measure.
The latest developments include the emergence of a new pro-bond group heavily backed by master-planned-community developers and a complaint of an alleged ethics violation to the Texas Ethics Commission.
If the bond passes it will finance three elementary and two junior high schools over the next three years to accommodate a mounting student population. It would also pay for a ninth-grade center, renovation projects at more than a dozen district campuses and buy land to build eight new schools.
[snip]
The bond debate has recently turned toward a new pro-bond political action committee, Partners for Progress Inc., which was launched in July.
Campaign-finance reports filed Oct. 10 show Partners had amassed $65,040 in donations primarily from two land developers, including $50,000 from Cinco Ranch developer Newland Communities and $15,000 from Houston-based Trendmaker Homes.
The Oct. 30 report does not show additional donations to the PAC but shows $29,826 in expenditures.
The story is reminiscent of one the Chron's Jason Spencer did almost two years ago, shining a light on who was supporting a Cy-Fair ISD bond measure.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/02/06 08:42 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
23 August 2009
Chron's caucasian think tank* lauds Houston's "aggressive news corps"
The Chronicle's Caucasian Think Tank* had this laugher on the weekend editorial page:
Some advice to the incoming superintendent to prevent future heartburn: Houston has an aggressive news corps, and reporters will not settle for basing their stories simply on a superintendent's statements or district news releases.
Aggressive news corps?
They must be talking about the various TV investigative reporters, or maybeTexas Watchdog, and surely not their colleagues at 801 Texas Avenue.
Indeed, recent Chronicle "aggression" has resulted in embarrassment for the newspaper, and past Chronicle aggression with regard to HISD produced plenty of embarrassing errors from (then) reporter Jason Spencer. So maybe it's just as well for the Chronicle to leave that aggressive, watchdog stuff to others.
* Cory Crow's nickname for the Chronicle editorial board.
Photo of Terry Grier courtesy of the San Diego Unified School District.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/23/09 08:59 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
06 November 2005
Chron won't tell you why teachers unions oppose merit pay programs
The Chronicle's editorial board dislikes Gov. Perry's decision to order a teacher merit pay program that "will use $10 million in discretionary federal funds to reward teachers who succeed in economically disadvantaged schools."
Here's the paragraph that gives away which side the idealists are on:
Teacher union leaders have consistently opposed bonus pay plans linked to tests scores because the criteria for receiving bonuses can be easily manipulated by school principals to reward favorites and punish mavericks. Simply assigning advanced students to particular instructors can rig the system in their favor.
Eh, no. That's their EXCUSE, but it's not the reason. Two paragraphs down, the true reason is hinted at:
Alief school board President Sarah Winkler expressed similar sentiments to the Chronicle's Jason Spencer: "I think we need to get everyone's salary up to an equitable level before we start giving rewards here and there."
Of course, all unions strive for equitable pay. It helps maintain their power.
Here is the real problem with teachers unions and the real reason they oppose merit pay programs:
Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer from Forbes Magazine have been studying the rise of teacher unions for the last two decades and believe that the problem lies in the unions' huge monopolistic clout. Economically, the function of a union is to monopolize the labor supply to increase wages. Public education represents another monopoly such that every parent must pay for the schools (in the form of taxes) whether or not they use or want the service. The NEA and AFT also represent the only unions teachers may choose to join. Therefore, the teacher unions are a monopoly on top of a monopoly on top of another monopoly. Or put more elegantly by Brimelow and Spencer, the NEA and AFT represents a "near-monopoly supplier to a government-enforced monopoly consumer."
The results are catastrophic. While per-pupil spending and union activism have significantly risen over the last 30 years, teaching quality has seriously declined. Dr. Myron Lieberman from the Education Policy Institute asks, "How do the NEA and AFT raise the costs while lowering the levels of student achievement?"
[snip]
An even more destructive stance by the teacher unions is their view on teacher compensation. The NEA and AFT alliance insists upon a single-salary structure, which means all teachers get paid the same regardless of the subject they teach or their ability. This causes a barrier in attracting qualified math and science teachers, who can earn more in other professions. The teacher unions adamantly oppose the obvious solution of paying math and science teachers more money. Instead, they use the dearth of math and science teachers as a reason to increase pay for all teachers.
These unions also oppose awarding exceptional teachers with pay increases. Raises are solely based on seniority. This causes a socialistic culture that refuses to award success or punish failure. The teacher unions' opposition to "merit pay" causes an overall decline in teaching quality and student achievement.
The major trouble is unions are strongly against any competition in their market. They value job security and benefits above children, parents and teaching quality. The NEA and AFT's opposition to home schooling, school choice and charter schools is all based on their desire to maintain their monopoly. Even though teacher unions are the biggest setback to improving American education, their unambiguous solution is always to increase spending.
And each spending increase is accompanied by an increase in mandatory dues to local, state and national teacher unions. Most estimates place the annual dues between $400 and $500 per teacher.
The last paragraph is the key: every time an equitable (read: across-the-board) pay increase is achieved, union dues go up, which equals more union power. Merit pay can't be turned into a union raise, which is why teachers unions oppose merit pay programs.
RELATED: Why Merit Pay Will Improve Teaching (Steven Malanga, City-Journal)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/06/05 08:03 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
14 April 2005
HISD accepts proposals to reform schools; teachers union frets
Today is the deadline to submit proposals to reform three HISD high schools, and Jason Spencer is on the case for the Chronicle. (I have already checked -- the story appears to be accurate.) Unfortunately, the story provides a disturbing look at the mindset of those who consistently oppose ANY school reform:
"My community has made it quite clear that they are not interested in outsourcing the schools and I intend on representing the will of my community," said trustee Kevin Hoffman, whose northeast Houston district includes Kashmere.
Trustee Arthur Gaines, who represents the Yates community, said HISD should fix the schools on its own. "We have strong supervisors and good resources."
[snip]
A deal with KIPP and YES would likely have a hard time winning the support of teachers, said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers.
"KIPP has a great program, but I can tell you right now they would run smack into a lot of legal problems with things that they require of their teachers," Fallon said. "They work a longer day. They get paid more. They are there because they buy into the program. They know what they're getting into when they hire on."
What's missing? Not one word of concern about improving the education of students. Trustee Kevin Hoffman is worried about his community's outsourcing concerns, Trustee Arthur Gaines thinks HISD is perfectly fine to run the three schools, and teachers union president Gayle Fallon, well, she's worried about the teachers.
Here's some irony for you: all those "smart growth" fans (Chronicle included) like to wax poetic about people returning to the city instead of fleeing to the 'burbs. A big factor in that flight is good schools and when HISD tries to improve three schools that are faced with state takeover, the public education power elite stomp their feet and say NO! And of course, the Chronicle played its own part in making this whole thing very difficult for HISD.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/14/05 03:47 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
17 February 2005
A clarification regarding underperforming high schools (with an update)
KPRC-2 has a story up that says HISD superintendent Abe Saavedra is clarifying his plans for seeking help to improve three underperforming high schools:
[...]the superintendent clarified Thursday that the district has no definite plans to bring in outside contractors as a way of improving three underperforming schools.
[snip]
Saavedra insisted Thursday that the Houston Chronicle improperly reported his plans for Yates, Sam Houston and Kashmere high schools.
The superintendent clarified that what he said during his speech was that the district is currently taking proposals from teachers and administrators already in place at the schools, as well as nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
I wrote about the possibility of HISD bringing in some outside help for those schools, and I relied on the Chronicle's editorial. Here is what that editorial said:
Saavedra's boldest proposal is to replace the management of three academically low-performing Houston high schools with outside "reform providers" to raise academic standards and revamp management.
However, the Chronicle's news story by Jason Spencer more accurately (now that I look at it) characterizes what Saavedra said, I think:
Saavedra said he is open to offers from nonprofit and for-profit groups, and HISD employees. That could include universities, school reform companies such as New York City-based Edison Schools, or local nonprofits, such as the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) or Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams), both of which have a presence in HISD.
The editorial uses the words "outside reform providers" which does not clearly convey that HISD is open to proposals from inside HISD as well as from outside non-profit and for-profit groups. And since I didn't do my homework by reading Spencer's story, I also placed an emphasis on outside groups. Sorry about that, folks.
UPDATE: My clarification needs clarifying. You see, Jason Spencer's story wasn't accurate either. In Wednesday's paper, Spencer's story is the Big Headline Story on the front page. See where I bolded "and HISD employees" in the quote above? His original story in the paper doesn't have that. He did not say that HISD employees were being allowed to offer proposals, like I gave him credit for. But instead of doing a correction that one might expect out of a professional media outfit, the Chronicle decided to just add those three words to the online story. You know, a little airbrushing. Then in the online Corrections section is this:
•A story on Page A1 Thursday about the Houston Independent School District's plan to seek new management for Yates, Kashmere and Sam Houston high schools should have stated that HISD employees will be allowed to submit takeover proposals.
And the Chronicle couldn't even get the stupid "clarification" right, because the story ran in Wednesday's paper, not today's.
For an example of what a responsible correction looks like, here's what the Washington Post does. That paper notes the correction at the top of the story, and the story and the correction stay together. No hiding, no obfuscating.
So, my clarification stands front and center. We don't have a "Corrections" section where we hide our oopses. And my clarification isn't even right because of the way the Chronicle likes to hide its mistakes.
I don't think that's the mark of a paper in its "ideal state."
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/17/05 06:17 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
19 August 2006
The education system we have is of our own making
The Chronicle has a new education blog called "School Zone" with multiple contributors, including Jason Spencer and Jennifer Radcliffe. Currently the two top posts are about parental involvement in schools (written by Ericka Mellon), and the excuses schools give when they don't meet state standards (written by Spencer). Here's a bit from Mellon's post:
So, my first question is, do you think parents are crucial to improving schools, or do you think educators blame parents when poor teaching is really the culprit?
And question two: If you think parents are crucial to bettering schools, how do you get them involved? (I'll offer one suggestion: Free pizza.)
And from Spencer's post:
Around this time every year we hear the same excuse from school principals who have learned their campuses didn't make the grade under the state or federal accountability systems.
The explanation is usually something along the lines of: "Our whole school came up short because four Hispanic third-graders failed the math test." Or maybe: "We're a great school, but we're rated unacceptable because two low-income students couldn't pass the reading exam."
[snip]
Just think if your own kid tried using this logic on you to explain why he failed an exam. How would you react if your son said he scored a failing grade of 69 on a 100-question exam because of one question? Wouldn't you ask about the other 30 questions he missed?
Two interesting posts that are not completely unrelated.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/19/06 08:46 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)
30 May 2005
A breaking news editorial?
Two days ago, the Chronicle reported, very fairly I thought, about the decision of HISD administrator Margaret Stroud to retire after the results of an HISD investigation into her son's employment with the district. She will repay the salary he was paid and the investigation has been forwarded to the DA for any further consideration.
At this point I want to add that it is not uncommon in public education circles for a situation like this to be hushed up, with the offender either being promoted or retired -- with a handsome severance package. That did not happen in this case. Stroud is retiring and will make restitution.
Today a Chronicle editorial blames Dr. Saavedra for being too lenient:
Despite documented wrongdoing, Saavedra allowed Stroud the course of retiring with no penalty other than returning the money her son had been paid. That is a generous response to "critical lapses of judgment" that undermined the district's integrity and directed tax dollars to an unqualified family member. Saavedra noted that HISD's findings will be turned over to the Harris County district attorney's office for review.
I would be curious to know what the Chronicle's editorial board thinks Dr. Saavedra should have done. Stroud's retiring and repaying the money. The investigation's findings are being forwarded to the DA. Dr. Saavedra doesn't have the power to put her in jail, and I doubt seriously he has the power to punish her financially any more than the restitution.
What does the Chronicle think should have happened?
Also, I think the editorial writer makes quite a few assumptions that weren't reported in the story. The editorial is written so that readers think Stroud initiated the contracts, knew about the funding arrangements and approved everything. That's not what was reported in Jason Spencer's story, and in fact, the interpretation I took from Spencer's story is that Stroud's lack of oversight which led to this situation was one of the problems. Is this editorial breaking some news that Spencer didn't report?
And then the very last paragraph made me laugh-out-loud:
Houstonians must hope that Saavedra will soon be able to initiate solutions to festering HISD problems before they become front page headlines.
Actually that should be reworded a bit, because it's the front page headlines that have been known to lead to problems with HISD-initiated solutions.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/30/05 11:36 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
05 December 2004
HISD news
KHOU-11 is reporting that ChevronTexaco is donating $1 million toward HISD's high school dropout prevention efforts:
ChevronTexaco will help increase the number of Houston students graduating from high school with a $500,000 donation to HISD and a $500,000 donation to the Houston Area Urban League.
[snip]
The ChevronTexaco donation will support the HISD’s work to prevent kids from dropping out of school.
HISD launched its effort to focus public attention on the dropout issue, called “expectation: GRADUATION”, last May when it convened a citywide summit on graduation and dropouts.
And in today's Chronicle, Jason Spencer has the details of superintendent-to-be Abe Saavedra's contract:
But typical, by Houston Independent School District standards, means a base annual salary approaching $300,000, plus perks and a $25,000 performance bonus that could put the total package value somewhere near $400,000.
Such a contract would make Saavedra one of the nation's highest-paid school administrators, although others have taken sweeter deals. The new superintendent in Miami, for instance, was promised nearly a quarter-million dollars for a new house.
Luxurious deals usually come about when a handful of districts are bidding for the same candidate, said Robert Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. While that's not the case in Houston, Saavedra is still in a good bargaining position because the school board didn't name any other finalists.
Saavedra, an HISD administrator since 2001, knows trustees would be embarrassed to lose him and have to start another search, Houston said.
[snip]
Stripling's contract was stacked with extras that Saavedra also expects, Martinez said. HISD gave Stripling a $1,000 monthly car allowance, hired a personal assistant for her at a cost of nearly $10,000 a year, reimbursed her $19,000 annual retirement contribution and gave her $18,000 to offset the federal income tax she paid for all those perks. She charged an average of $1,000 a month on her district-issued credit card for meals, gasoline, a Houstonian Club membership and travel, according to records provided by HISD.
We covered the HISD superintendent "search" previously, and are not surprised that the school board's actions have placed Saavedra in a strong bargaining position.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/05/04 10:21 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
25 June 2005
HISD middle school seeks third straight national debate title
Here's a great story from Jason Spencer earlier this week about HISD's Lanier Middle School:
The march of shorts-wearing, briefcase-toting students to and from Lanier Middle School this time each year has become an annual rite of summer.
Inside the Montrose-area school that draws some of Houston's most academically gifted children, 45 students are putting the finishing touches on their speeches and debate arguments in the hopes of winning a third straight National Junior Forensic League title in San Antonio this weekend.
"These guys work so hard in the summer," debate coach Jim Henley said earlier this week in Lanier's auditorium. "They haven't lost since 2002. They've beaten every public and private school team."
[snip]
In the eight years he's led Lanier's speech and debate squad, Henley has turned the team into a powerhouse program that draws some of the best talent in the nation's seventh-largest school district.
"It is an advantage," Henley said. "Lanier is such a sought-after school."
Students will board two San Antonio-bound buses Thursday on their way to compete in debate events such as Lincoln-Douglas, public forum, cross examination and parliamentary debate. Speech competitors will interpret poetry, prose and other forms of literature.
Those are middle school students! That's terrific.
And on HISD's website is a story of debating success for a couple of Scarborough High School students:
Scarborough’s team became the only one from an HISD high school ever to have students ranked in the top four in individual forensic events at both the National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) Grand Nationals held May 28 and 29 in Milwaukee and the National Forensic League (NFL) Speech Tournament held June 12–17 in Philadelphia.
Chris Hunter, who will be a senior this fall, competed against more than 200 other students to win fourth place in dramatic interpretation at the NFL Speech Tournament, while classmate (and cousin) Seth Hunter was awarded fourth place in Milwaukee at the NCFL Grand Nationals. Seth also finished in the top 15 in poetry interpretation at the NFL competition.
Congratulations!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/25/05 11:54 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
16 February 2005
Saavedra's battle to fix what ails HISD
After a couple of days of exceedingly bad editorials, the Chronicle's editors appear to have regained their composure and written one for today that is not only good, but it's timely, too:
If Abe Saavedra makes good on the initiatives pledged in his State of the Schools speech Tuesday, the next 12 months will usher in dramatic changes in Texas' largest and the nation's seventh-largest school district. The challenge to the new superintendent will be to translate his words into action while correcting deficiencies and maintaining the support of the diverse communities whose children attend school in the Houston Independent School District.
The editors are on target. And so is Superintendent Saavedra. Yes, it will be a huge challenge for him to change the entrenched bureacracy at HISD and get everyone to focus on the needs of students instead, as evidenced by the latter part of the editorial:
Saavedra's boldest proposal is to replace the management of three academically low-performing Houston high schools with outside "reform providers" to raise academic standards and revamp management.
As reported by the Chronicle's Jason Spencer, the three high schools targeted are Sam Houston, Kashmere and Jack Yates. The latter two are tradition-filled institutions in the African-American community. Radical changes in school leadership are certain to be resisted by many members of that community.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman's district includes Yates High School, and his late father was a prominent alumnus. Other high-profile graduates include city of Houston Chief Administrative Officer Anthony Hall, state Rep. Al Edwards, actress Phylicia Allen Rashad and dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen.
Coleman said he would be "totally against" a move to bring in a for-profit group from outside the district to manage the school. He said the district had enough talent to solve problems in its schools.
And there you have it. It is frustrating beyond belief to see a reaction like that. How long does Rep. Coleman think it's acceptable to let the students in those schools get a sub-standard education, all so we don't bring in a for-profit group? Who the heck cares what the past was like? It's the now that counts! And the now isn't cutting it. Would Coleman rather have the state take over those schools? I doubt it, and neither does Saavedra.
The process of choosing a company to improve those schools should be made carefully and whatever company is brought in should be watched closely, but HISD has had many years to get it right with those three schools and hasn't done so. The students deserve much better.
RELATED: HISD can't fix 3 schools, Chronicle
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/16/05 07:07 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
06 November 2004
HISD top job candidates are secret no more
It looks like the Chronicle dug up the names of the superintendent candidates for HISD, and, according to the Chronicle's reporting, we now know why the names were so hush hush:
All three candidates trying to win interim HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra's job come from smaller school districts that don't want them anymore.
On Thursday night, Houston Independent School District trustees interviewed Pittsburgh Superintendent John Thompson and former Tucson, Ariz., Superintendent Stan Paz. They were scheduled to meet with Bridgeport, Conn., Superintendent Sonia Díaz-Salcedo on Friday night.
She and Thompson are lame-duck superintendents who have been informed by their school boards that their contracts will not be renewed when they expire at the end of the school year. Paz was forced into early retirement this spring after losing the Tucson school board's support.
Here's a big thank you to the Chronicle reporter for persevering and getting this information. This is why these things should not be kept secret. Parents and community leaders have a right to know who is in the running for the superintendent's job.
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in school district circles. Underwhelming superintendents will often be able to find a job somewhere else without the new community fully knowing what went on at the old district. There's lots of privacy and secrecy and good ol' boys protecting one another. As a parent, it's very discouraging.
Next, the Chronicle points out something interesting:
Saavedra, who has run the 211,000-student district since former superintendent Kaye Stripling retired in June, is scheduled to interview for the permanent job today. Several trustees have said all along that the job is Saavedra's to lose. Those comments, and the relatively low $30,000 price they paid for the search for other candidates, have prompted questions about how serious the trustees are about considering other applicants.
That's what I was wondering. A big district like HISD, where Secretary of Education Rodney Paige came from, should be able to attract fine candidates. It seems pretty clear that the trustees consider this interview process a mere formality, before giving it to Saavedra. That doesn't serve HISD students well at all.
Then there's this:
All the candidate interviews are being conducted in secret and trustees have gone through great pains to protect the applicants' identities. They've hidden the candidates in various meeting rooms throughout the HISD headquarters building on Richmond to elude a reporter waiting outside. Four HISD police officers working overtime used their radios to make sure no one was looking when the candidates left,getting into different vehicles from the ones in which they had arrived.
All this was necessary, according to the consultants hired to conduct the superintendent search, to ensure the best candidates would agree to interview for the job. Trustees were required to sign confidentiality agreements, promising not to divulge names. The candidates don't want their current employers to know they are job hunting, according to the consultants from the Texas Association of School Boards.
But it is clear that the candidates' school boards won't be too upset if they leave.
HISD parents should be outraged that this has taken place. Their children deserve better. And kudos to Jason Spencer and the Chronicle for working this story.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/06/04 06:19 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
02 December 2005
HISD scores well among nation's urban school districts
I have said repeatedly that as far as large urban school districts go, HISD is one of the better ones in the U.S. Here's the proof:
Houston's fourth- and eighth-graders beat their counterparts in most other urban school districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, results released Thursday show.
The exam, also called the Nation's Report Card, tested students' math and reading skills last school year and compared Houston Independent School District results with other cities that volunteered to participate.
They were New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, San Diego, Charlotte, Atlanta, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Austin. Only Charlotte and Austin performed better than Houston overall.
"We're making progress but still have a lot of work to do to compete with every school district in the county," HISD Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said in a written statement.
State results released last month showed Texas' students beating the national average in every category except eighth-grade reading.
While Houston stacked up well against urban school districts, HISD still trails the overall national average, and the gaps between scores achieved by white students and minorities remain large.
In fourth-grade math, for example, only Atlanta and Washington had a larger gap between white and black students.
Yet compared with Hispanic and black students in other school districts, those in Houston performed well.
Those same black fourth-graders in HISD beat their counterparts at all 10 urban districts in reading and also topped the national average.
The fact is that large urban school districts face hurdles suburban districts often don't: majority minority student populations and all the associated challenges they bring with them. It is encouraging that HISD, under Dr. Saavedra's forward-thinking leadership, is getting creative to improve the education it provides its students. Dr. Saavedra has repeatedly admitted that HISD needs to improve, and it is no secret that student success tends to slide in the upper grades (in many school districts nationwide); but with a continued focus on changing that, HISD students will continue to make gains, and HISD should continue to improve in the Nation's Report Card.
Thanks to Jason Spencer for an informative story.
RELATED: Coverage from KHOU-11, KUHF-88.7
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/02/05 10:19 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
09 August 2005
On the road to academic health
Remember Gayle Fallon's sneering reaction to Dr. Saavedra's reform plans for three underachieving HISD high schools:
"They backed themselves into a corner on staffing and they don't know how to fix it," said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. She said she doubts Saavedra's offer will lure many good teachers out of their current jobs and into the struggling schools. "I will bet the superintendent lunch, at the restaurant of his choice, that he opens the year with primarily first-year teachers or vacant positions."
And:
Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, told trustees the bonus money will not attract better teachers. The union represents about half of HISD's 12,000 teachers.
"Folks, it's not an incentive," Fallon said. "So far, we haven't found a taker. ... We've gotten remarks like, 'You think I'm going to leave Lamar High School for $1,500 a year?' "
Today, Jason Spencer writes a very interesting follow-up story:
English teacher Myron Greenfield says he's never understood why his students at Houston's Davis High School regularly manage to meet state academic standards, while kids from the same types of neighborhoods at Sam Houston High School have fallen short three years in a row.
That, Greenfield said, is why he left Davis this summer after 16 years to be part of the reinvention of Sam Houston, a school where 90 percent of the students are Hispanics from poor families.
"When I started seeing all the stuff about Sam Houston going to hell in a handbasket, I kept saying to myself, 'These are the same demographics as Jeff Davis. Those kids can't be much different from the kids we have,' " Greenfield said recently during a break from a two-day teacher training seminar at Sam Houston.
Teachers from Yates and Kashmere high schools, the other two Houston Independent School District schools undergoing teaching staff overhauls this year, also took part in the training.
Nearly half of them are new to their schools, replacing teachers who were let go in an effort to bring fresh faces onto campuses.
"This is like a blood transfusion," Greenfield said. "What's cool is the mix of people they hired: young kids — like 23 years old — and some veterans."
Second-year Principal Aida Tello said she and her top assistants culled more than 60 new teachers from a stack of 500 applications. HISD is offering Sam Houston, Yates and Kashmere teachers bonuses of up to $3,000 a year if their students perform well on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the test that helps determine whether a school meets state standards.
"We wanted some experience, but we also wanted some young, moldable minds that are passionate about working with kids," she said while watching her teachers eat box lunches in the cafeteria. "Quite a few of them come from the same background as our students, and they feel like if they could do it, so could the kids. I come from the same background. That's why I'm so determined."
Lourdes Lopez, 22, said she had other job offers but chose to begin her teaching career at Sam Houston because she identifies with the students.
Best of luck to the staff and students of those three high schools.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/09/05 07:19 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)
26 April 2005
An editorial NOT in its ideal state
If today's Chronicle editorial on HISD's acceptance of bids to reform three underachieving high schools is an example of an editorial in its ideal state, then I want a new definition of ideal.
We all know the Chronicle torpedoed Dr. Saavedra's efforts at reform (unwittingly, of course -- the professional journalists at the Chronicle would never misreport the news on purpose) by using misleading, gigantic headlines to put the fear of privatization into every special interest group in Houston. And then the Chronicle strolls along -- tra la la -- reporting the outrage that its shoddy reporting inspired.
Today's editorial -- 10 days after the Chronicle's news story on the bids -- is the same regurgitated garbage:
After his initial announcement provoked protests from minority organizations, including LULAC and the NAACP, Saavedra promised their leaders that he would seek their approval before making major changes at the high schools. Houston Federation of Teachers President Gayle Fallon says, "If I ever had to give a superintendent advice, I would strongly suggest he keep his word on that one."
The difficulties that HISD is encountering should also send warnings to education reform groups that have proposed the so-called death penalties for chronically underachieving schools.
No kidding. Those warnings would be not to invite Jason Spencer to any press conferences!
Here's what the educational experts/editorial board members think is the answer for HISD:
Citizens pay hefty property taxes to fund top-flight district educators and have approved bond issues to build a decent education system. Privatization might work for certain school functions, including food service, but when it comes to school management, it's a copout to hire a private educational firm to solve district problems.
Saavedra should use HISD's resources to make necessary improvements. If the district needs talent, it should recruit and hire the administrators and teachers needed to get the job done. If the job doesn't get done, taxpayers won't have to look beyond the superintendent's office to find the person they can hold responsible.
Oh please. Do the editors really think they know better than Dr. Saavedra how to fix these three schools? Do the editors WANT the state to take over the schools? If it was within HISD's abilities to fix them, don't the editors think Dr. Saavedra would do it? And who knows, maybe the best bid to fix the schools will come from a group within HISD. But the constant Chronicle screeching of "PRIVATIZATION, PRIVATIZATION, PRIVATIZATION," does nothing to improve the education of students; it only inflames an already tense situation. (How did the situation get tense? Oh yeah.)
I've made this point before (sorry to be repetitive): the elites at the Chronicle are always pushing new urbanism ideas. A key component of getting families to move back to the city is good schools. Dr. Saavedra has shown a willingness to think outside the public education box to improve the education HISD provides. The Chronicle, however, seems to be doing its utmost to put up obstacles and stop any talk of reform and improvement.
Why?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/26/05 05:04 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
18 April 2005
Another example of press release journalism?
Saturday the Chronicle ran a story about a new study out of Stanford that says teachers who come from traditional certification programs are better than teachers who come from untraditional programs. The study focused on HISD and Teach for America which provides some of HISD's teachers, according to the Chronicle's story. Teach for America would be considered an untraditional program.
Something I found interesting is that if you go to the Stanford website, you can find the press release announcing the study, with the date April 15. The Chronicle story was posted late on April 15th. Things that make you go hmmmmm...
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/18/05 07:18 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
12 May 2005
Chron's HISD story is very misleading (updated)
If you read the story in today's Chronicle about HISD reducing high school graduation requirements for math and science, and the story made you mad -- STOP!
First of all, look who wrote the story -- Jason Spencer. That should send up warning flags. I know it did for me. So before I panicked -- after all, how could the superintendent who is aggressively trying to reform HISD take a big step backward? -- I decided to see if there's more to the story.
There is. According to HISD spokesman Terry Abbott, HISD is not lowering the number of credits required to graduate. Here is what Abbott told me:
What we are proposing to do is simply what Spring Branch and Cy Fair and Austin and virtually every other school district is Texas does, and that is give a middle school kid credit if he takes a high-school level course in middle school.
This policy does NOT affect the number of credits needed to graduate. An HISD student still must have three high-school level math credits, for instance, to graduate.
In fact, here's the very LAST paragraph of the story:
Dallas requires three years of science and math in high school. Cy-Fair requires three years of high school math, but allows students to earn science credit in middle school. Austin school officials are thinking of changing their policy that now allows students to graduate with just two years of math and science in high school.
HISD is not lowering requirements. If a middle school student takes a high school level class while in middle school, the course can be counted for high school credit. And, interestingly, it's the same policy that many other Texas school districts have, including Spring Branch, Cy-Fair and Austin.
I await Spencer's story castigating those districts for this policy.
Also, Dr. Saavedra's proposal takes HISD back to the requirements that were in place in 2001. The story says that the current policy was enacted in conjunction with TAKS testing.
And all readers should know by now that if the Chronicle has a story about HISD, they should read it with a grain of salt.
UPDATE: Terry Abbott has forwarded me the letter he sent to the Chronicle, protesting Spencer's story. I will post it in the extended entry.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 05/12/05 04:34 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
06 December 2005
Civil War cemetery not found on HISD property (updated)
Remember that little uproar last year about HISD building new school buildings on land that supposedly contained a Civil War-era cemetery?
Well, that didn't pan out:
HISD hopes to soon begin construction of the new Gregory-Lincoln Education Center for about 750 students after an extensive archeological study found no graves on the site.
The largest archeological effort in Texas history to focus on an African-American urban community turned up “no solid evidence of a cemetery or human remains” at the 4th Ward site. HISD is asking the Texas Historical Commission for permission to go ahead with the long-planned construction of the school in the wake of the archeological study of the area between Saulnier, Gray, Taft and Genesee streets.
HISD hired archeologists who collected oral histories and conducted ground penetrating radar searches of the area. The firm of Hicks & Company, under the guidance of African-American archeological expert Dr. Fred McGhee, spent a month digging 55 trenches and test units over 10 city blocks in search of graves and other artifacts. Reports from the community had suggested there might be a Civil War era cemetery in the area.
None of archeological work found any solid evidence of a cemetery or graves. Although a number of historical features were found that “will help enrich the story of the community during the early part of the twentieth century,” the trenching “did not uncover any archeological remains that warrant further archeological investigation or that are eligible as a State Archeological Landmark,” according to the preliminary report from Hicks & Company.
RELATED: KHOU-11
UPDATE: Jason Spencer has the story for the Chronicle and he notes that funding for the new school is uncertain right now:
Archaeologists have found no evidence of a Civil War-era cemetery for freed slaves on the Fourth Ward site for the new High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, but financial problems might doom the construction project anyway.
A nonprofit group called HSPVA Friends signed a contract with the Houston Independent School District in 2003, agreeing to pay $15 million of the $30 million cost. So far, HISD officials said, the group has raised little money.
"To the best of my knowledge, they haven't raised any money of any significance," said Richard Lindsay, HISD's senior project executive. Lindsay told school board members the controversy over the school site crippled the group's fundraising efforts.
Jerome Simon, a member of the HSPVA Friends board, didn't dispute Lindsay's assessment.
He said it's too early to tell whether the group will be able to come up with the $15 million.
UPDATE 2: An emailer notes that there is more than one school to be built on the land. HISD has the money for the school it is building -- the Gregory-Lincoln Education Center. It's the The HSPVA project that is still uncertain, depending on HSPVA's ability to raise the funds to match HISD's contribution. Thanks for the clarification!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/06/05 09:21 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (0)
09 January 2005
Is HISD serious about ending TAKS cheating?
Rick Casey has an excellent column questioning HISD's seriousness about rooting out and then preventing TAKS cheating. He lists the bonuses given to district administrators and teachers for good TAKS results, including a fat $60,000 bonus for new Superintendent Abe Saavedra. Casey says the bonuses total up to about $7 million.
That should send up HUGE warning flags -- rewarding for good TAKS scores. Quite an incentive to fudge things, you know? Seven million dollars could be much better spent funding new textbooks, school supplies, quality teacher training, perhaps even TAKS cheating prevention. Rewarding administrators for good TAKS results when they aren't even on the front lines of teaching students is insulting to hardworking teachers.
In his column, Casey explores the reason for HISD's inability to effectively deal with TAKS cheating. He thinks it boils down to the massive size of the district and the lack of oversight:
But school trustees, part-time and unpaid, have only one source of in-depth information on the district's operations: the executive whose job, salary and bonus depend on their good impressions.
HISD is far too large and important an endeavor for a governing arrangement designed for small, 19th century communities.
He's right. This is where I would argue that the larger the school district, the more ineffective it is, except at being an employer. And that's not what a school district should be about. In my perfect world, large school districts would be broken up, so that communities could truly take back control of the schools in their own neighborhoods. Smaller communities understand the needs of their own students, and would have much fewer layers of bureaucrats sucking up valuable taxpayer dollars that should go to the students and the teachers.
But it's not my perfect world. So Casey suggests this idea:
And it may be that a change in state law would be required for trustees to set up a well-funded and well-staffed internal auditing arm reporting to them.
It would definitely be a good start.
UPDATE: The Chronicle has a terrific editorial on the issue of HISD's response to TAKS cheating:
Educational experts question whether a longtime district veteran with friendships in the bureaucracy is the right person to head up such an effort. The University of North Carolina's Gregory Cizek told the Chronicle's Jason Spencer that school districts who police themselves rather than hiring outside security consultants are setting up potential conflicts of interest.
The new superintendent says he does not intend to abolish the district practice of giving financial bonuses to teachers, principals and administrators for good student test performance. Some argue those cash incentives provide the motive for rigging scores.
While Saavedra promises real change in the district's efforts to enforce integrity in its testing, he said the same thing a year and a half ago when the focus was on Sharpstown High School. Back then he promised that the district would monitor accountability data more closely. According to HISD trustee Kevin Hoffman, "the board assumed that some of these controls were in place, and it's been made real clear to us of late that they are not."
Last week Saavedra explained the district's failure to keep that pledge with, "I wasn't superintendent then."
It's an excuse that he can only use once.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/09/05 08:20 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
24 September 2006
How should HISD have handled recent closed-session meeting?
Last Wednesday, HISD spokesman Terry Abbott sent out a press notification that the HISD Board would be holding a meeting at Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse. The press notification made clear that the meeting, which was described as a "mini-retreat," would mainly be a closed-session meeting to discuss legal and personnel matters, as allowed by state law.
The Chronicle ran a story before the meeting that seemed unclear on the nature of the meeting:
Plan to make a reservation for tonight's Houston Independent School Board meeting. The "mini-retreat" is at 6 p.m. in the board room of the high-priced, downtown Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse.
Outside of meat and potatoes, the menu will mainly consist of HISD leaders discussing personnel issues behind closed doors. Among the items is Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra's performance evaluation.
"That's just altogether weird," said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. "It's like they're trying to make sure you don't go."
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/24/06 10:08 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati |
10 November 2004
The Chronicle should use its bully pulpit more wisely
Today's Chronicle has an editorial taking HISD to task for its secretive superintendent search. Good for the Chronicle - except that it's really late in coming. This has been an issue for weeks now.
Richard Connelly first brought this secrecy to light at the end of September. It took the Chronicle more than two weeks after that to get the story into print. And then, yet another two weeks before the Chronicle's Jason Spencer doggedly got on the case and we learned, not only who the candidates are, but what tactics HISD was using to keep the candidates' identities a secret:
All the candidate interviews are being conducted in secret and trustees have gone through great pains to protect the applicants' identities. They've hidden the candidates in various meeting rooms throughout the HISD headquarters building on Richmond to elude a reporter waiting outside. Four HISD police officers working overtime used their radios to make sure no one was looking when the candidates left, getting into different vehicles from the ones in which they had arrived.
The Chronicle has the bully pulpit in this town and isn't afraid to use it for Jeff Cohen's pet causes, but the education of Houston's children should be at the top of Jeff Cohen's pet cause list. And I'm not talking about teen summits for tolerance and understanding. The Chronicle should have been all over this secret superintendent search from the beginning.
One last point - using the term "ill-serves" is not grammatically correct:
Since these candidates have no future with their current or former employer, HISD trustees had no reason for holding secret interviews other than keeping the public in the dark. Public knowledge of the interviews harms no one, while secrecy ill-serves parents and taxpayers.
It's slangy, but not correct. A more appropriate wording would be "while secrecy does not serve parents and taxpayers well."
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/10/04 10:16 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
23 March 2007
Most news outlets report on abduction attempt at HISD (updated)
On Wednesday, HISD issued a press release about actions taken by HISD in response to an attempted abduction of a student. Here's an excerpt from the press release email* I received from HISD:
The principal of HISD’s Scarborough High School telephoned nearly 500 homes today to warn parents about an attempted abduction of a student on a city street.
Scarborough Principal Moses Diaz contacted 489 homes in minutes using the district’s new automatic phone messaging system to warn parents about a man who attempted to abduct a 9th grade student as she walked to school. (Audio of phone call is attached.)
Principal Diaz told parents that about 8:15 a.m. today, a Hispanic male driving a blue four-door Dodge truck attempted to abduct the girl from a street corner at Antoine and Libby.
“The man was between the ages of 25 to 30 years, 5-feet 6-inches tall with short black spiked hair with excessive acne on his face. He was wearing a royal blue button up shirt and blue jeans. The student who was involved is a 9th grader at Scarborough High School and was able to escape this attempted abduction and was not physically harmed,” Principal Diaz told parents.
The principal said HISD Police and Houston Police are investigating, and that extra police patrols have been added in the area.
The local television news outlets reported this news story the same day (KPRC-2, KHOU-11, KTRK-13, KRIV-26).
Strangely enough, Houston's Leading Information Source didn't run an actual story on the matter.
However, Chronicle education editor Jason Spencer, who whined recently on his Chron.com blog about HISD issuing press releases in an effort to gain favorable media coverage of HISD topics (shocking!), did mention the story on the same Chron.com blog yesterday, while pointing out that HISD's press office issued a press release on the attempted abduction but did not issue a press release on a teaching assistant accused of sexually assaulting a student off campus.
We've long suspected that the Chronicle editor's apparent animus towards HISD spokesman Terry Abbott adversely affects the Chronicle's coverage of HISD. The absence of any non-blog coverage of an attempted abduction -- considered with these recent blog posts -- lends further credence to the notion.
UPDATE: Lo and behold, as I was putting the finishing touches on this very blog post, Chron.com finally posted a news story about the abduction this morning! Better late than never, we suppose, although it certainly was late; maybe the Chron.com Froot Loop bureau should have helped out with this one! I have no idea if the story made it into this morning's print editions.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/23/07 09:24 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (16)
04 February 2005
Audit of HISD food programs uncovers numerous problems
Here's some completely unsurprising news out of HISD:
Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra ordered HISD's "breakfast in the classroom" program suspended indefinitely after a state review found inadequate procedures for accounting for the number of meals served.
Officials from the Texas Department of Agriculture visited six HISD schools last month that serve breakfast in the classroom and found that at five of the schools, teachers and food service staff were not properly accounting for the number of meals received and eaten.
Who would have thought that program might have some problems with it?
"This is a very well-intentioned program that needs stricter controls and better management in each classroom in which it is served," said Dr. Saavedra. "Thousands of children have eaten good meals in the classroom because of this program, and that is important. But the meals must be accounted for appropriately, and we must ensure it does not disrupt learning."
I am not sure why it is so important for students to eat breakfast at their desks, as Saavedra says, instead of the school cafeteria.
The state officials found record-keeping problems in eight of the 22 school lunch programs visited. The state officials said, however, the school meal application process at HISD was very good with few errors.
Now that's funny (sort of). The application process was practically error-free, but the program implementation was error-filled. HISD has its priorities straight -- get the money first and worry about the details...well, they don't worry about the details so much.
State officials found problems at seven of eight after-school snack programs reviewed, and said they have serious concerns about those programs. In some of the after-school snack programs, the officials said snacks were claimed but not served to children.
Dr. Saavedra ordered an immediate review of the snack program and said the problems will be fixed.
After-school snack program??? That means the parents of most HISD students are responsible for feeding their children -- dinner!
HISD will improve training and other procedures during the suspension period. Dr. Saavedra said the breakfast in the classroom program will be suspended beginning Feb. 14, and will only be reinstated at a school when training and procedures have been improved, and only if the school's shared decision making committee wants the program reinstated.
So it's not an immediate halt. I suppose HISD needs time to send a notice home, informing parents that children will have to eat breakfast in the school cafeteria, instead of at their desks.
UPDATE (02-05-2005): The Chronicle's Jason Spencer has a story on this with some more information:
The Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. took over HISD's food services operation in 1997 and turned the money-losing endeavor into a profit maker. HISD billed the federal government nearly $69 million in meal reimbursements last school year, compared with less than $46 million in 2000. HISD paid Aramark $4.75 million last year.
[snip]
"They were not properly accounting for the number of meals received and eaten," said Beverly Boyd, a Department of Agriculture spokeswoman. Boyd said she was unaware of similar findings at any other Texas school district since the department began conducting the reviews in August 2003. It could be several weeks before a final report is written, she said.
[snip]
The Houston Independent School District could be forced to repay the federal government for any meal reimbursements that were improperly charged, Boyd said.
The breakfast program's suspension came as vindication for Orell Fitzsimmons, local field director for the Service Employees International Union. He has been accusing Aramark of overbilling the government for more than a year. Fitzsimmons predicted the investigators would find major problems with the breakfast program before they arrived on Jan. 24.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/04/05 06:15 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)
29 April 2005
Chron: HISD is the "worst"
It must be nice to be a Chronicle sacred cow, like Metro. How else could a quasi-govenmental body with appointed officials waste millions and millions of dollars, cut bus service for the poor and the elderly, play down a record-setting light rail crash rate, end security service at Park and Rides and watch crime double, and hide from last year's financial report, with nary a word from our lone "watchdog" newspaper?
Of course there are plenty of people and entities in Houston that don't enjoy such a status: there's Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal -- who is too hard on criminals until Rick Casey's house gets broken into, then the DA is too soft on criminals; and of course, there's HISD. In spite of trying to implement aggressive reform ideas, the Chronicle won't cut HISD or Dr. Saavedra the teensiest bit of slack. The Chronicle will, however, practice lots of selective and shoddy reporting so that the public maintains a negative image of HISD.
Today's editorial about two-thirds of HISD's fifth-graders passing the TAKS math test is especially repugnant, in light of what we know about HISD's attempts to implement change, and because the Chronicle's less-than-stellar reporting has helped turn many local activist groups against HISD's attempt to improve three underachieving high schools.
Here are some questions for Jason Spencer and James Howard Gibbons (who LOVES ideal states): Has the Chronicle examined the test results of any other school district in the Houston area? Where are the results from Cy-Fair ISD? What percentage of Cy-Fair ISD's students are low income or ESL? What about Aldine ISD -- can we get some results and percentages for that district? How about Alief ISD and Spring Branch ISD? Or will those stories, if they are ever written, be stashed away in the "This Week" sections so most Houstonians won't get to see them?
I will point out that it took the Chronicle almost a year to report on Spring Branch ISD's 2004 TAKS results (in "This Week" of course), and the story was glowing and positive. The story didn't provide a single 2004 TAKS statistic; it merely passed on the district's characterizations of the results.
I would never argue that HISD should get Metro-style reporting from the Chronicle, but a fair-shake certainly would be a welcome development.
RELATED: NAA Study: Readership Declines in 2004 (Editor & Publisher), Study: Vast Majority Says News Reporting is Biased (Editor & Publisher)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/29/05 10:12 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
19 February 2005
The "outsiders" outrage that won't die down
We previously noted the Chronicle's inaccurate coverage of HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra's State of the Schools speech last week, where Jason Spencer mischaracterized what Superintendent Saavedra said, by writing that "outsiders" would be brought in to fix three underperforming high schools. The story's headline and subhead were also rather dramatic. What Saavedra really said was that HISD would seek applications from "reform providers" -- community organizations, educators—including current school leaders—and other interested groups. On Thursday, the Chronicle offered a small clarification but it wasn't on page A1 with big headlines like the original story was.
We can only imagine the headache that HISD officials are now enduring as they attempt to set the record straight. All over the media on Friday we saw outraged community leaders complaining about Saavedra wanting to bring in for-profit, private companies to take over the schools and taxpayer dollars. On KRIV-26, I heard one man threaten to sue HISD to keep private companies out of those schools.
Then in a really ironic turn, this morning I see the Chronicle has a story about Houston minority leaders decrying Saavedra's plan to bring in private contractors -- a story that, at least partially I would argue, the Chronicle helped create! This time the story was written by Allan Turner, and in it HISD spokesman Terry Abbott tried to clear things up:
Terry Abbott, spokesman for the Houston Independent School District, said indignation over the plan, which was outlined earlier this week by Superintendent Abe Saavedra during his annual State of the Schools address, is misplaced and based on media accounts that he contends are inaccurate.
While contracting with for-profit entities to run the schools is a possibility, Abbott said, the district also welcomes reform proposals from district employees and community groups. Texas education officials have decreed that the schools, which have been deemed "low-performing" for two consecutive years, must be dramatically improved or closed.
Do you think Abbott said "media accounts"? Nah, neither do I, because this is what a KPRC-2 story on Thursday said:
Saavedra insisted Thursday that the Houston Chronicle improperly reported his plans for Yates, Sam Houston and Kashmere high schools.
Anyway, there were a couple of interesting points in today's Chronicle story:
Yates Principal George August has advised HISD that his school's administrators, teachers, parents and other community members will offer trustees a "bold, innovative redesign and restructuring of the entire instructional program at Yates to improve student achievement."
[snip]
Abbott insisted the district has not neglected community opinion.
"Nothing has been done," he said. "We've begun at the beginning and we're asking the community for ideas. Mr. Saavedra announced the plan in front of 2,000 people that he was going out to the community for ideas. I don't know how he could have told more people at one time."
But they're sandwiched between plenty of dramatics:
[Rep. Sheila] Jackson Lee admonished HISD to seek more community input before making a decision to privatize the schools.
Private contractors, she suggested, would "dumb down" the schools, first making cosmetic improvements to gain favor, then cutting back on less visible but important educational programs.
Jackson Lee complained that representatives from her office had to "wear pajamas" to attend a 7:30 a.m. Thursday school board meeting in which trustees authorized Saavedra to pursue his plan.
Her staff had to wear their jammies to a 7:30 a.m. meeting? Maybe she needs to get them some alarm clocks. In the real world, it's not unheard of to be at work by seven in the morning.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/19/05 04:32 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
05 March 2005
Does the Chron have an anti-HISD stance?
This Chronicle story is completely befuddling:
Students in the Spring Branch school district performed better on the state-mandated Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests last year than the previous year, even though the passing standards were higher.
Superintendent Duncan Klussmann said the district is delighted with the results and thanked campus leaders, teachers and students for their efforts.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/05/05 09:33 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
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