Seattle schools in crisis
As the co-chair of the Seattle School District Superintendent's Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Education Excellence (CACIEE), I am so sorely disappointed in our School Board's actions on transportation and school closures.
For three months now, I have kept quiet about my feelings so as not to seem (or be) unsupportive of the School Board and the district as a whole. I really had faith that the board could do the right thing, but now I just can't take it anymore!
The CACIEE, led by John Warner and me, spent eight months thoroughly devising a set of recommendations that would not only get the district back in financial shape, but would require the district to improve academics for all children so our School District could become the world-class school system it should be. We had a very comprehensive community-engagement process and we actually managed to get the majority of the parents (and the School Board) to understand why we must close schools.
Our final report was released Feb. 10, 2006, but despite the fact that we encouraged the district and the School Board to take time to develop a comprehensive strategy to implement all our recommendations, School Board members decided to take on two of the recommendations — public transportation for high-school students and school closures — in isolation. They did this so people would see them as being responsible and taking action. Never mind the CACIEE basically did the job they should have been doing for the past umpteen years.
What a disaster! They balked on transportation because for some reason they don't think high-school students are capable of taking the city bus. Apparently, they don't understand that teens ride public transportation all the time.
Now, they're talking school closures and frankly it's no different than it was last year — except this time they're putting the burden on the shoulders of a group of well-meaning citizens. I guess they think this absolves them of any responsibility if it comes from the citizens themselves. However, the fact remains, they have no plan on how academics will be improved and they still have no vision of how closures will eventually facilitate a world-class education system.
In the meantime, the superintendent is doing everything the CACIEE asked: He has assembled a strategic-planning team that is making great progress on planning the implementation of the CACIEE's recommendations; he has secured funding from the Gates Foundation to move this along faster; and he has hired an excellent chief academic officer (CAO), who has already started making changes even though she just came on board in April.
All of the progress of the district strategic team will be derailed if the school closures are implemented now. Why? Because any plans the new CAO, Carla Santorno, has for the entire system will have to be put on hold to extinguish all the many fires that will result from the school closures.
How can we expect her to create an excellent academic system when the board hastily pushed through the school-closure process without thinking about the academic implications? How can the district strategic team move forward when it's dealing with a moving target — a system that has been twisted once again into another form of chaos?
I think most people understand how difficult the job of being a School Board member is. It's a volunteer position that requires a huge commitment of time and energy. But just because someone volunteers his or her time doesn't mean it's all good. If you can't do the job that is required of you, if you can't put personal issues and politics aside, if you can't work with the superintendent, if you can't think strategically, if you can't make a decision without 100 percent buy-in, if you can't put children first, then you need to step down. It's that simple.
This is not just about school closures. It's about the future of our kids, our school system, and our city. We have a school system that is for the most part in crisis. Yes, there are those few beacons of success, but, really, who are we fooling? We are nowhere near being the first-class education system that caters equally to all students.
A School Board working in concert with the superintendent to implement the CACIEE recommendations as a complete package will get us there.
Trish Millines Dziko, a former Microsoft manager and co-founder and executive director of the Technology Access Foundation, co-chaired the Seattle School District Superintendent's Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Education Excellence, http://www.seattleschools.org/area/committeeforexc/index.dxml
