Fenwick graduation 2012
Ponitz graduation 2012
Cars and Parts Swap Meet
Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > September > 06
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Reconsidering the former school board
Let’s remember back for a moment to the excitement of 2001. Gail Littlejohn, a retired corporate attorney, and three allies won four seats on the school board, taking control with a majority and promising big changes that would help lead the district back to respectability.
And for the first few years, the Kids First team had a remarkable run of successes. They replaced a well meaning but floundering superintendent with an efficient manager in Percy Mack, a move that was well received in the community. They put a reform in place that emphasized teacher training and focused on math and reading instruction. They got the NAACP and the state to agree to settle the 20-year-old desegregation case, bringing millions in cash and releasing the district from court supervision. They got a huge bond issue passed to rebuild all the schools in the city. Eventually, Dayton even had enough test score gain to jump from “academic emergency to “continuous improvement” in the state ratings. And for at least those first few years, Kids First got support from the rest of the school board, business leaders and much of the community.
But by 2007 a weary Littlejohn had stepped down as school board president and then left Dayton altogether, a crucial school board levy was soundly defeated and two key remaining Kids First allies on the board suffered stunning defeats to little known and underfunded challengers.
How did it all come apart? The dismantling was helped along by a handful of key missteps by the board and school administration. Some of the moves this year by the new school board and its hand-picked interim superintendent Kurt Stanic demonstrate that some of those past decisions haven’t worked out as the old board had hoped. Let’s consider a few examples:
The Reynolds purchase. In 2003, Dayton spent just under $20 millions to purchase, renovate and move into two downtown buildings that formerly housed Reynolds & Reynolds’ world headquarters. City officials, including the mayor, begged the district not to do the deal. The editorial board at the DDN was sharply critical. But they went ahead with it.
Treasurer Stan Lucas defends the purchase to this day as sensible at the time and necessary to consolidate administrative operations. But the board certainly paid a big political price for the move thanks to fallout that they failed to anticipate from angry residents that eventually grew bigger and helped fuel future electoral defeat.
Let’s look at a couple recent developments and what they say about this move. Earlier this summer, the board said it would consider putting one of the two Reynolds buildings up for sale because it could fit all its administrators in one building, suggesting two buildings was more space than needed. And second, the board just sold its former First Street administration building to the Dayton Technology Design High School, a charter school the board sponsors, for $1. I specifically remember questioning a confident Littlejohn about her assertion that proceeds from selling the First Street building would defray a few hundred thousand dollars of the cost of the Reynolds purchase. It has sat vacant until the sale to DTDHS.
Debra Brathwaite. It was pretty clear soon after Brathwaite arrived as deputy superintendent under Mack that the board viewed her as a successor to be groomed. But after the board changed and Mack left the new board decided not to go with Brathwaite, who took the matter personally and left to follow Mack to Columbia, S.C. Stanic, who they picked instead, told me he personally prefers to groom internal candidates to replace himself when he leaves and when I asked about the board not picking the candidate they groomed, he said if the board was not comfortable with her they made the right decision. It seems this board thinks grooming Brathwaite was a mistake.
The 2007 school levy. Many people were shocked when the school board placed a huge 15.17-mill levy on the ballot in May of 2007, and a lot of them were angry. Today the board is asking voters for a significantly more modest 4.9-mill levy and Stanic said he personally would never have supported the larger levy.
The choice to go for the big levy demonstrates two big missteps by the former board. First, the board worked very hard to hold off a levy as long as possible. This was a noble goal, but the heavy focus on delaying a levy possibly blinded the board to the danger of waiting too long. There were some factors that worked against the board that were beyond its control, but it’s now clear it waited too long.
Had the board used some of the political capital it had earned during its run of success from 2001 to 2004 it probably could have gotten a 5-mill levy passed at that time and reduced the fiscal stress that eventually came in 2007.
It’s also now clear that the 15.17-mill levy had no chance of passing and was just an enormous waste of effort and resources. The board absolutely should have aimed lower with a smaller levy. That’s clear to just about everyone now.
School cuts. Last year, the board cut music, art and gym and eliminated teacher planning periods during the day, among a host of reductions. This was the biggest problem for teachers, who complained all year that they and their students were fatigued by the long hours of classwork without breaks. Stanic has since restored most of those programs and the planning periods while living within the same budget constraints. If they could do it this year, why couldn’t they do it last year?
Administrative cuts. A hot debate during the 2007 levy campaign was the size of the administration. Despite several rounds of cuts by the board, many observers still felt the administration was not cut deeply enough. Mack insisted he had gone as far as he could go. But this summer Stanic’s first order of business was to cut $2.2 million from the budget, including several more administration jobs. So it seems there were more cuts to be had at the central office.
Specialty schools vs. traditional schools. Mack and Brathwaite attempted to compete with Dayton’s huge charter school movement by starting their own charter-like schools. And its hard to argue their approach didn’t have merit. The Dayton Early College Academy and the boys and girls schools all are among the be among the best scoring schools in the city. But critics argued that they focused too much on those pet projects and not enough on the traditional schools, where most of the district’s kids attended.
That criticism seems to fit with Stanic’s approach to reform. Stanic has said several times that the district needs a heavy focus on instruction in its rank and file classrooms and that is where he has pledged to make his biggest push for improvement.
Looking back at the Kids First era, what comes to your mind as the key moments that led to their successes and ultimate downfall?
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
