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PPS is seeking to come up with an innovative new model for the 2012-13 school year. In this release PPS is back to calling the school "Pittsburgh Westinghouse" instead of "The Academy at Westinghouse" although a new school can be expected to be given a new new name.
The Assistant Superintendent is definitely not the right person for this job. To her credit, I believe she knows that; but, neither is there a Broad Director who could do the job.
Please let's give this all due consideration with lots of input by community!
Oddly enough, it would take a retired "old school" principal to come in, tell central administration to stay out of it, and restore order. I can think of oh, at least 10 or 12 individuals who could do the trick, but two things occur to me:
1) Any retired principal would be completely insane to want to do anything for this regime and, 2) This regime would have to swallow its collective ego and admit it does not have the ability to right the ship.
Stranger things have happened, but to me at least, this is a "lost year" for the students, families and teachers at Westinghouse, and it the blame lies squarely at the feet of the superintendent and her lieutenants. If there was ever any doubt that the superintendent and her assistants are completely out of touch with what actually transpires in urban schools, this was the kick to the proverbial private parts.
Looks like 88 thousand to lead meetings. The teachers are expected to do all the design work. They will not get paid anything more but will have substitutes teach the classes that they miss in order to meet. Is there truly no "administrator" at Bellefield who can facilitate this process? The money would be better spent by giving students in the school a monetary "bonus" for coming to school and working hard.
Those students deserve a bonus for this year--this is virtually admitting they cant pull this together. Schools in Missouri pulled to together after a hurricane! It is sad that not one person at Bellefield can walk in and have the presence to be a real leader.
Here's a prediction: the "innovative new school" will include features that are part of the possible Homewood Childrens Village charter, so that the charter will not be able to meet the requirement that it demonstrate something PPS is not offering. And a suggestion: why not look at the plan proposed by the Open East End Panel?
Looks like just another way of not dealing with the Alumni Association. That group has been so right about everything so far. And its all comming back to haunt Linda lane and PPS for ignoring them.
Wondering, wasn't there a proposal in the past that called for Westinghouse to be with a sports focus of some sort. Is there a way to put new life into that plan?
I never got to see or meet with the advocates of that proposal. I do not know the details.
That was John Wallace's idea a few years ago. It seemed interesting but the district did not explain why the idea was rejected; some report that PPS objected to a sports focus for African American students. Too bad because those who are already enthusiastic about academics have options like U Prep and Obama; a sports focus might have made academics interesting to additional students.
I heard the proposal for the sports magnet. Academic subjects were only discussed very vaguely as being preparation for students to be sports managers and to go into sports medicine. The only concrete idea I heard was that the students were to take gym every day. I was not impressed.
Yet another analysis of Chicago Public Schools exposes Arne Duncan; this is from the Chicago Sun Times:
A new report on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress taken by 21 big-city districts was the second analysis in less than a month to indicate that, despite more than a decade of massive investments in reading, Chicago’s elementary-grade reading performance has barely budged in years.
CPS eighth-graders took seven years to finally produce real reading improvement, growing from an average score of 249 to 253 on a 500-point test known as “The Nation’s Report Card” between 2005 and 2011.
Fourth graders took even longer — nine years — to mount real reading gains and move from a 198 to 203 between 2003 and this year.
In between, the city’s flat or slight gains didn’t really amount to any kind of statistically significant improvement, a NAEP analysis of a representative sample of CPS students over time indicates.
Last month, a study by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research found that CPS elementary reading scores on other, higher-stakes tests — including the state’s achievement exams — really had not moved much between 1990 to 2009. To reach that conclusion, researchers adjusted for changes in the tests and study body.
Please advise the new "Director of Design" at Westinghouse that he/she will need to ascertain the real data and facts about attendance, etc. that is tracked and made available at all other schools by the "Pinnacle" software system.
"Pinnacle" is still not operational at Westinghouse and this is mid-December. Could it be that this information is deliberately being excluded from the system so as not to negatively impact community reaction OR next year's AYP status. WHY or HOW could Westinghouse be the only school where critical information is not being systematically and publicly accessible in terms of tracking and documenting.
Oh my, Oh my! Truly honesty is the best policy! PPS cannot continue to hide and spin. Be open! Solutions are available!
Pinnacle was brought in to mirror what takes place in the suburbs. That is, to allow parents access at any time to their kids' progress, attendance, assignments and any teacher notes. Is that happening anywhere? Part of the instant karma I hope besets central administration is Pinnacle. Over the summer, Lane "fires" central administration staff--read, janitors and IT. IT people must have a good chuckle at Pinnacle these days, and I'm glad. Meanwhile, I hope the toilets back up quite often on Bellefield.
21 comments:
PPS is seeking to come up with an innovative new model for the 2012-13 school year. In this release PPS is back to calling the school "Pittsburgh Westinghouse" instead of "The Academy at Westinghouse" although a new school can be expected to be given a new new name.
Sweet heavens, which one of the Broad resident/PELA neophytes is this job written for?
Ummmm...isn't the Assistant Superintendent enough administration to get the job done?
Great, more bloat.
The Assistant Superintendent is definitely not the right person for this job. To her credit, I believe she knows that; but, neither is there a Broad Director who could do the job.
Please let's give this all due consideration with lots of input by community!
Oddly enough, it would take a retired "old school" principal to come in, tell central administration to stay out of it, and restore order. I can think of oh, at least 10 or 12 individuals who could do the trick, but two things occur to me:
1) Any retired principal would be completely insane to want to do anything for this regime and,
2) This regime would have to swallow its collective ego and admit it does not have the ability to right the ship.
Stranger things have happened, but to me at least, this is a "lost year" for the students, families and teachers at Westinghouse, and it the blame lies squarely at the feet of the superintendent and her lieutenants.
If there was ever any doubt that the superintendent and her assistants are completely out of touch with what actually transpires in urban schools, this was the kick to the proverbial private parts.
" West End Mom said...
Sweet heavens, which one of the Broad resident/PELA neophytes is this job written for?"
I thought the same thing, but a salary of a mere 88K would be a pay cut for all Broadies! Not sure what PELA salaries are.
Looks like 88 thousand to lead meetings. The teachers are expected to do all the design work. They will not get paid anything more but will have substitutes teach the classes that they miss in order to meet. Is there truly no "administrator" at Bellefield who can facilitate this process? The money would be better spent by giving students in the school a monetary "bonus" for coming to school and working hard.
Those students deserve a bonus for this year--this is virtually admitting they cant pull this together. Schools in Missouri pulled to together after a hurricane! It is sad that not one person at Bellefield can walk in and have the presence to be a real leader.
Here's a prediction: the "innovative new school" will include features that are part of the possible Homewood Childrens Village charter, so that the charter will not be able to meet the requirement that it demonstrate something PPS is not offering. And a suggestion: why not look at the plan proposed by the Open East End Panel?
Looks like just another way of not dealing with the Alumni Association. That group has been so right about everything so far. And its all comming back to haunt Linda lane and PPS for ignoring them.
Linda Lane needs to hire WAA to get the job done and get it done right.
The WAA was not only right about Westinghouse, but that also put together a comprehensive fiscal action 7 months ago.
PPS could have saved $400,000 in wasted consultant dollars on this alone.
Lost year. Well, squeak, squeak....
How about offering the option of a 13th year.
Wondering, wasn't there a proposal in the past that called for Westinghouse to be with a sports focus of some sort. Is there a way to put new life into that plan?
I never got to see or meet with the advocates of that proposal. I do not know the details.
That was John Wallace's idea a few years ago. It seemed interesting but the district did not explain why the idea was rejected; some report that PPS objected to a sports focus for African American students. Too bad because those who are already enthusiastic about academics have options like U Prep and Obama; a sports focus might have made academics interesting to additional students.
I heard the proposal for the sports magnet. Academic subjects were only discussed very vaguely as being preparation for students to be sports managers and to go into sports medicine. The only concrete idea I heard was that the students were to take gym every day. I was not impressed.
There is little to be impressed about in PPS. So, so sad.
Yet another analysis of Chicago Public Schools exposes Arne Duncan; this is from the Chicago Sun Times:
A new report on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress taken by 21 big-city districts was the second analysis in less than a month to indicate that, despite more than a decade of massive investments in reading, Chicago’s elementary-grade reading performance has barely budged in years.
CPS eighth-graders took seven years to finally produce real reading improvement, growing from an average score of 249 to 253 on a 500-point test known as “The Nation’s Report Card” between 2005 and 2011.
Fourth graders took even longer — nine years — to mount real reading gains and move from a 198 to 203 between 2003 and this year.
In between, the city’s flat or slight gains didn’t really amount to any kind of statistically significant improvement, a NAEP analysis of a representative sample of CPS students over time indicates.
Last month, a study by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research found that CPS elementary reading scores on other, higher-stakes tests — including the state’s achievement exams — really had not moved much between 1990 to 2009. To reach that conclusion, researchers adjusted for changes in the tests and study body.
Please advise the new "Director of Design" at Westinghouse that he/she will need to ascertain the real data and facts about attendance, etc. that is tracked and made available at all other schools by the "Pinnacle" software system.
"Pinnacle" is still not operational at Westinghouse and this is mid-December. Could it be that this information is deliberately being excluded from the system so as not to negatively impact community reaction OR next year's AYP status. WHY or HOW could Westinghouse be the only school where critical information is not being systematically and publicly accessible in terms of tracking and documenting.
Oh my, Oh my! Truly honesty is the best policy! PPS cannot continue to hide and spin. Be open! Solutions are available!
Pinnacle was brought in to mirror what takes place in the suburbs. That is, to allow parents access at any time to their kids' progress, attendance, assignments and any teacher notes.
Is that happening anywhere?
Part of the instant karma I hope besets central administration is Pinnacle.
Over the summer, Lane "fires" central administration staff--read, janitors and IT.
IT people must have a good chuckle at Pinnacle these days, and I'm glad.
Meanwhile, I hope the toilets back up quite often on Bellefield.
On another post Anonymous wrote:
"Lane agreed to fire IT because Campbell [DELETED] offered the department up on a silver platter. Nobody knows what is going on."
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