Category: Education (Page 1 of 4)

How Much Pay Do Teachers Deserve?

October 17, 2021 / ijsadmin

Varda, Reed and Parker are running on a platform of “Paying Teachers What They Deserve”.

Obviously, they want people to believe that teachers are underpaid for what they are doing. But, what does that really mean in an era of declining results in Jeffco Schools?

In any private company I’ve ever been at a salary increase would be looked at very closely when organization objectives weren’t met. In many instances, annual increases would be limited to COLA increases or less, and it would stay that way until objectives were met.

For instance, taking last year’s DUIP, how can anyone justify salary increases when Jeffco wasn’t even close to achieving their goals, that were set during the pandemic?

Yet, Varda, Parker and Reed think that teachers “deserve’ more pay. Their definition of “deserve” is far different than mine. A salary increase above COLA would be hard to justify in my mind.

In fact, over the past 4 years teachers’ salaries have increased significantly, far outpacing the 11% Denver inflation rate.

For example, a teacher w/BA @ Step 2 and a teacher w/MA @ Step 4 would have each seen salary increases of approx. 30% including the 4 steps awarded by Jeffco. These teachers now make $51k and $61k respectively, before benefits.

Approximately 40% of Jeffco teachers have salaries over $70k and 20% make over $80k.

That’s not bad for:

185 working days
Job Security
Ability to retire w/75% salary @55 & 30 years

In addition, Jeffco currently pays teachers based on their level of education along with years of service. Yet, study after study show that, with only limited exceptions (e.g. math and science), advanced degrees do not correlate to increased teacher effectiveness. (https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/teacherprep1_20170301_2.pdf) Therefore, why is Jeffco paying more to teachers with those degrees? Do those teachers really “deserve” higher salaries? Not in my mind.

With year after year of declining education results, just how much do Varda, Parker and Reed think these teachers deserve in salary? They’re not saying, but you can be darn sure a salary increase wouldn’t be the topic of discussion on any corporate Board.

Jeffco schools is not an organization that is showing that it “deserves” salary increases for teachers and admin. It’s time to take a realistic look at total teacher compensation, not just salaries. It’s time to push back on the same old union rhetoric that teachers are underpaid because they aren’t for the results they are delivering.

And it is absolutely wrong for teacher pay to be one of Varda, Reed and Parker’s top priorities when Jeffco’s education results are so atrocious.

They aren’t a good fit for what Jeffco’s kids need now.

Jeffco Needs Accountability and Change

October 10, 2021 / ijsadmin

In 2017-18 the Educational Research & Design department of Jeffco Schools, led by Chief Academic Officer Matt Flores had a $23M budget. By 2021-22 that budget increased nearly 40%, $9M, to $32M.

Yet during that same time period both growth and achievement fell dramatically in Jeffco Schools.

It’s obvious that more money and continuing to keep Matt Flores as CAO are not the solutions to what is now a very real and urgent problem. Flores is responsible for these atrocious results and it is evident he doesn’t have the skills to reverse the slide that has permanently harmed 10,000s of kids.

Dorland needs to fire Flores immediately. He is providing no useful value to Jeffco. The fact that after 6 months she hasn’t already done this is a yellow flag on whether she has the ability to recognize the rot in Jeffco and the fortitude to do what is necessary.

Dorland and the Board next need to scrutinize EVERY single penny in the $32M ER&D budget. Clearly, that money is not being spent on programs that are improving achievement and growth. It’s time to find programs that work and spend taxpayers money in a manner that will truly improve the schools.

It’s time for the old, status quo, way of doing things to end. It is plainly obvious that the same people are incapable of effecting positive change. It is time for drastic and decisive decisions and actions to keep Jeffco schools from spiraling from its current state of mediocrity into the terrible category and to keep even more kids from being permanently harmed.

Taxpayers and students deserve Board members who will ask tough questions and hold Dorland accountable for big improvements, people like

Jeff Wilhite

Theresa Shelton

Kathy Miks

More money isn’t necessarily the answer to the problem. Even District staff admit that.

Yet, Parker, Varda and Reed want people to believe that repealing TABOR and eliminating the BS factor will solve all of the the District’s problems. They want people to believe that paying the same teachers even more money will somehow, miraculously, improve education in Jeffco. They want to “keep Jeffco strong”, when in fact Jeffco isn’t strong and has been on a downward trend for years. They have their heads buried in the sand.

Jeffco needs change. Parker, Varda and Reed are not going to provide that change.

Matt Flores - Jeffco's Chief Academic Officer

Jeffco’s Use of Discredited and Debunked Reading Curriculum

October 21, 2020 / ijsadmin

Jeffco’s Chief Academic Officer should be fired!

The positive impact of high-quality curriculum in K-12 education is undisputed.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Reading Curriculum.

Phonics has long been known to be a key ingredient in teaching reading since the National Reading Panel released its report in April 2000.

In September 2018 Emily Hanford published “Hard Words” her article on the Science of Reading, igniting a national conversation relating to how schools teach reading.

In August 2019 Emily Hanford followed up with “At a Loss for Words” – what’s wrong with how schools teach reading and the national conversation relating to the teaching for reading continued.

Recently, Colorado’s SB 19-199 strengthened the READ Act and the CDE identified quality reading instructional programs that were to be used in state schools.

The discussion surrounding the Science of Reading, curriculum and products that support the Science of Reading is not new.

The question then is why, with only 44% of 3^rd graders meeting state reading expectations, aren’t Jeffco Schools using Science based, proven, high-quality reading curriculum?

Jeffco’s Chief Academic Officer, Matt Flores, who has been with Jeffco a long time , should know the answer.

His salary cost to the District is $147,000, plus benefits per year.

I would expect someone, who makes that kind of money to be relatively competent at their job and provide real value.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Flores has overseen the continuing decline in reading proficiency in the District.

Jeffco’s MAP Predictive Reading Winter scores

He has not overseen a migration to a proven, scientific based reading curriculum at the continuing permanent harm to 1,000s of students each year and has no plan to do so.

Even worse, when asked by an education reporter as to what curriculum is used at each of the District’s Elementary Schools – he didn’t know and it took him over 30 days to find out! I find that incredulous. Especially when he oversees 285 people and has a $30M budget!

Jeffco’s reading proficiency is atrocious. Colorado is essentially mandating the use of approved curriculum and it is a virtual known that high-quality curriculum is a key ingredient in education, yet Matt Flores, Jeffco’s CAO, doesn’t know what curriculum is being used in the District.

That is not the answer you want to hear from a CAO. In fact, in my opinion, that is grounds for immediate termination for incompetence and malpractice.

On top of this, Flores blatantly avoided answering the reporter’s question on when the District would transition to state approved curriculum.

I would think that anyone who is even half-way competent would have already planned this transition/migration and could have easily and instantaneously told the reporter the answer. Isn’t it reasonable to expect highly paid executives, responsible for the education of 84,000 kids, to keep up with the Science and conversations in their profession? Absolutely!

Instead, Jeffco’s students are left with at least another year of being taught with discredited and debunked curriculum harming 1,000s of kids and no one, particularly highly paid and ineffective Matt Flores, will be fired.

The Failure of Jason Glass at Jeffco Schools

September 27, 2020 / ijsadmin

When 2018-19 assessment results for Jeffco Schools became available last year there was a great deal of consternation. Achievement was down pretty much across the board and more importantly growth for the District was below the state average. A scramble was made to provide teachers with more planning time. Even though this was the second year of declining results under Glass, Deputy Superintendent Kris Schuh told the Board that this dip was anticipated due to moving to a focus on transforming the task and Deeper Learning.

While end-of-year state testing was not conducted in 2019-20 due to COVID, the District did, as it does every year, administer Winter MAP tests. Predictive MAP tests are highly correlated to state tests.

We can compare the yearly Winter MAP results to get an excellent idea of the direction the District’s students were headed in 2019-20 before Covid and whether the additional teacher planning time and the emphasis on transforming the task and Deeper Learning were having positive impacts.

Comparing the percentage of Jeffco students who Met or Exceeded Exceeded Standards from Winter 2018-19 to Winter 2019-20 we can see that the highly touted teacher planning time and continued emphasis on transforming the task were not working.

Essentially, Glass was failing in his most important responsibility – improving education in Jeffco.

And, unfortunately, this was the 3^rd straight year that Jeffco Winter MAP results went in a downward direction, for both Reading and Math under Glass.

Is it any wonder that Glass beat feet out of Jeffco? Winter 2019-20 results should have been available in January and he would have known these before applying to be Kentucky Ed Commissioner. It also makes me suspicious why, unlike every year in the past, Winter MAP results were not presented to the Board of Education in January or February. Was this an act of intentional deception that no one wanted to be accountable for?

It is clear from these charts that Jason Glass did a massive amount of damage to Jeffco’s kids. Even without the additional impacts from Covid, it will take years to stop this slide and get Jeffco headed in the right direction.

Complicit in this damage is Jeffco’s Board of Education. Current members Susan Harmon, Brad Rupert and Ron Mitchell were members of the Board when they hired Glass, without any record of improving education.

I hope these Board members realize how many kids’ they permanently harmed with the Glass hire and that they learned from this mistake when hiring the next Superintendent.

Jeffco is fortunate that Glass left when he did as there is no end in sight to Jeffco’s continuing downward spiral.

Glass was a complete failure in Jeffco.

The damage he did was real and will be extremely difficult to correct.

Glass needs to answer Remote Learning questions.

Remote Learning Questions for Jason Glass

July 18, 2020 / ijsadmin

With Denver Public Schools just announcing a start to the school year in full Remote Learning, we can believe that Glass will follow and announce the same within the next few days for Jeffco. This will be mere days after Glass’s disastorous FB Live event in which no actual questions regarding the District’s restart plan were answered.

In fact, in the 40 minutes of the FB Live event, Remote Learning and academics were not mentioned once. The restart plan itself merely contains several pages of vague eduspeak and is actually tellingly shorter than the Communications plan.

It’s just a plain dereliction of responsibility and an avoidance of accountability that the Plan is so vague and includes no specifics.

Remote Learning, in some form, was always going to happen this Fall. A failure to provide specifics in the Plan is a truly appalling lack of leadership.

Going forward, Glass should be required to immediately and definitively answer the following questions:

By what date will EVERY Jeffco student have at-residence access to their own electronic device? The only acceptable answer would be within the first week of class.
By what date will EVERY Jeffco student have at-residence internet connectivity. The only acceptable answer would be within the first week of class. Did the IT Department work on alternatives during the summer such as bus or school building roof hot spots as many other districts have done?
Will teachers be required to deliver Remote Learning from their classrooms for accountability purposes? If not, why not?
Given that school will start a week late, should we continue to expect 5 days of instruction weekly? If not, why not and what impact on students will reduced class time have on students?
When will beginning of year assessments be administered to ascertain how much learning was lost during the spring’s failed experiment in Remote Learning?
Will student attendance be measured in a different manner than in the spring? If not, why not?
How will teachers be held accountable for their instruction?
How, specifically, will best practices be shared? Will best practice sharing be limited to tool usage or will sharing/instruction on proven Remote Learning techniques be mandatory?
What guidelines will teachers be given relating to Remote Learning? Will there be Synchronous teaching requirements? If not, why not?
How will students be held accountable for Remote Learning?
What are the specific plans to make up for the spring learning loss?
Will anything be done to improve the Grab-and-Go meal distribution to ensure more students and families receive meals?
How long will non-working Classified staff be paid full wages if Remote Learning extends beyond just a few weeks?
If the school year starts with Remote Learning for all, why didn’t the District fall back on the K-5 in school option previously presented?

It’s well past time for the eduspeak and vague ‘plans’ for how things will work this fall. Remote Learning was always going to be given. At this point, Glass and staff should be able to provide details and extremely specific plans. If he can’t do that the Board should execute their responsibility of ensuring quality education and get rid of him immediately. They should put someone in charge who will actually get something done while there is still time to make an impact.

Unfortunately, we know that isn’t going to happen because the Board is extraordinarily weak and unwilling to ask the hard questions. In the end, thousands and thousands of students will be permanently harmed because of the incompetence of Jason Glass and the Board’s failures.

Jason Glass’s Act of Betrayal and Lack of Integrity

July 11, 2020 / ijsadmin

Glass can call it what he wants, an “opportunity to come home”, but mere days into the start of a 5 year contract extension, I call it something else – a complete lack of integrity and a total betrayal of Jeffco and the Board members who gave him that contract extension.

As much as I think that Glass is an extraordinarily weak leader, this move goes far beyond weak leadership – this move is downright disgusting.

Think about it. Glass left Jeffco at a crucial time in implementing his Covid Restart plan and at a time in the year when it is extremely difficult to ensure that high quality candidates to fill the position would be willing or even available for interviews.

What type of person, if they really cared about an organization, its employees and most importantly its students would just pick up and leave at this critical time after the Board had done everything within its power to provide continuity for the next 5 years?

Obviously, someone who is self-centered. Someone who doesn’t really care about the damage that their move might cause. Maybe someone who doesn’t think they can really succeed in the position. In any case, its someone I’m glad I’m not. I’ve been in positions before where I hadn’t finished projects I was leading, or hadn’t finished the transformation of an organization to my standards and turned down more lucrative and exciting opportunities. Not only did I want to get the sense of accomplishment for what I set out to do, but I felt an obligation to the organization and my people. I guess that’s the difference between Glass and me. I’m glad I don’t have the same set of values and integrity he has.

And, where does that leave Jeffco’s 84,000+ students and 5,000+ employees? Essentially leaderless for a year. Another year with no academic gains and then a transition year with a new Superintendent, who most likely isn’t going to buy into the Transform the Task, Deeper Learning mumbo-jumbo that so far has only brought about confusion and declining results in the District. So, another change in direction as 1,000s of kids continue to be harmed each year by the poor curriculum and teaching methods propagated by Glass.

The Board needs to get it right with the next choice for Superintendent. We need someone who has a track record of focusing on students, not teachers, and a record of improving education, backed by results. Glass was a great talker and blogger, but his 6 year record of failing to improve education results in both Eagle and Jeffco is a total disaster for the kids.

Jeffco's Restart Model is Weak - Glass is not the Rockstar he wants people to believe he is

Jason Glass is NOT a Rock Star

June 15, 2020 / ijsadmin

For anyone who still thinks Jason Glass is a rock star, one only needs to compare his Restart Model with that of Broward County, Florida. (Original Jeffco document if link above has been altered). Or, one can compare the Jeffco 2020-21 Budget with that of Denver Public Schools.

Broward has obviously put considerable thought and effort into their plan, while Glass’s plan is just incredibly weak.

The level of detail in the Broward County plan is quite impressive. You can tell that a lot of effort has been put into it and many, many viewpoints have been considered. I particularly like the fact that Broward is using Wednesdays to clean schools, not the Fridays in Glass’s plan.

The same can’t be said for the Jeffco plan. The differences are painfully obvious. It just looks like a minimal amount of effort has been expended in comparison. You just don’t get the same level of confidence.

Regarding budgets, once again there is significantly more detail in Denver’s than in Jeffco’s, especially with regards to future impacts. In addition, on pages 433 – 46, Denver discusses use of Federal Covid Relief Funds, in detail ($28M – $52M). In Jeffco, Askelson and Glass are attempting to tell the Board that they only need $5.5M in additional Covid-19 funding AND are attempting to circumvent the federal restrictions on those monies (COVID related and spent by end of calendar year). Way too little thought has gone into something way too important.

It’s time to admit what Jeffco got and didn’t get with Jason Glass. We got a blogger, talker and tweeter. We didn’t get someone who could plan, who understands finances or could move the academic performance needle. That’s a shame.

What’s worse is that the Board extended his contract for 5 years, meaning 1,000s more kids will be harmed by his extraordinarily weak leadership and his feeble attempts at getting an 84,000 student school district to implement nice sounding educational theories that have not been proven effective anywhere.

Jeffco's Budget Reduction Scenarios are not well thought out.

Jeffco’s Budget Reduction Proposals Don’t Make Sense

June 4, 2020 / ijsadmin

The Jeffco Board will be presented with additional information related to next year’s budget today at a Board meeting, here and here.

Much of what is included in the two documents makes it look like Jason Glass and the District staff really haven’t thought through what is going to happen to the District financially or how to make the necessary budget reductions.

To start, Federal money, both direct from Washington and allocated by Gov. Polis, appear to being used as compensation for a large budget shortfall in state funding. However, it is my understanding that the Federal money comes with some strings attached – primarily that it be used for explicit COVID-19 related expenditures, not merely as a backfill for items already budgeted or budget shortfalls. No where in the District staff discussion does it talk about these restrictions or how they will affect the use of the money. It merely appears that Jeffco is using the money as backfill. In addition, there is no discussion of ANY additional costs related to COVID, which the Federal money could be used for. Isn’t the District going to have fairly substantial COVID related costs? Why aren’t they reflected in the budget as increased expenditures?

The second major issue I have with the District’s budget discussion is that it is centered on next year. The state budget shortfall will last at least through the following year, probably longer, and the local property tax shortfall will begin next year as well. In this respect, CFO Askelson fails miserably in her job to present the Board with a complete financial picture. How can the Board decide how much to take from reserves this year if they have ZERO information on how bad the budgetary picture could look in the next few years? They can’t! In my mind, that is a demonstration of the total incompetence on the part of Glass and the CFO to not present that information.

Next, I find some of the District recommended cuts to be extremely questionable.

There are only 2 proposed cuts listed as ‘Damaging’. One of those is the District’s paid lobbyist. Damaging? To whom? I have a hard time even remotely thinking of that cut as Damaging. Listing it this way clearly explains everything that is wrong with Jason Glass and Jeffco schools. Glass likes to say: “keep the main thing the main thing’. I hardly think a paid lobbyist is the main thing.
The listing of the ‘Damaging’ lobbyist cut goes hand-in-hand with the ‘Recommended’ cut of 2 Literacy Interventionists. That’s doesn’t seem to be a great idea in a District where over 50% of kids don’t meet state reading expectations. Why not reduce the number of Community Superintendents by 2 for a $326k+ savings instead and even hire an additional Literacy Interventionist?
And, what about a cut of $2.2M in School Improvement Funds, money that principally goes to Title I schools? In the interest of equity, couldn’t Glass find something else to cut – like $4.2M in 1:1 device purchases that have not been proven to improve academic growth or achievement?

Where would I cut? You can see that in a letter I wrote to the Board here, but below are some suggestions of where the District can and should look to make cuts.

I don’t envy the Board in having to make the cuts. I particularly don’t envy the Board because Glass and District staff have done such a horrendous job in deriving a list of potential cuts. However, there seems to be a tremendous amount of bloat in Jeffco’s $1.2B budget that is not focused on improving education that can easily be cut without affecting education or kids.

Jeffco's Restart Model - Lots of Fluff, not much else.

Jeffco’s Restart Model – Heavy on Fluff, Light on Anything Resembling a Plan

May 30, 2020 / ijsadmin

I guess I expected more from Jeffco’s Restart Plan. But, maybe on second thought, we got what I expected – not a lot of substance.

Yes, Jeffco got a lot of high-level concepts such as Remote Learning, Hybrid Learning, that the IT Department would work to get students machines and internet and that teachers and staff could take unpaid sabbatical, etc. But what employees didn’t get was an actual plan that would help them achieve the high-level concepts that were presented. I was particularly disappointed with the the most important section – Academics – which was essentially a whole lot of nothing.

Just as disconcerting was that there was a complete lack of any budgetary discussion in the document. How can you ask the Board of Education to approve a budget without any consideration of the almost certain added costs that Hybrid Learning will entail? That’s just incompetence and fiscal malpractice.

It is now nearly the beginning of June and approximately 80 days until school is scheduled to start. Time is of the essence. While I don’t expect Glass and the District to have all of the answers, I would have liked for the “Plan” to have included dates when some of those answers would be known. Waiting until sometime in July and the final ‘Plan’ leaves very little time for necessary actions to be completed by the people who will be tasked with carrying out those tasks. It also would have been more comforting to know dates of when certain things would be accomplished once school starts.

Here are some examples that would have made the ‘Plan’ more meaningful, including some tasks that should have already been started:

No later than July 1, identify staff who will be taking 1 year unpaid sabbatical
No later than July 1, identify staff who do not desire to work in physical school locations
No later than July 15, identify and contract with Guest Teachers
No later than August 1^st, identify students who will solely participate in Remote Learning
No later than June 1, identify possible additional costs to run school meals and Grab-and-Go lunches simultaneously
No later than June 1, identify the estimated costs to set up screening stations in schools (thermometers, PPE, tables, personnel, training, etc)
No later than July 15, identify additional staff needed for things such as custodial, student flow control, busing etc.
By the end of the 3^rd day of school, the IT Department will have identified all students in need of a Chromebook
By the end of the 3^rd day of school, the IT Department will have identified all students who do not have Internet access from their place of residence
By the end of the 1^st week of classes, all students will have a Chromebook
No later than August 10, all schools will have floors marked with student flows
And on and on…

I don’t have any doubts that Principals will make things work in their schools. However, by not having some centralized guidelines and deadlines, it only makes the jobs’ of principals that much harder.

On first glance, the Jeffco Restart Model, at 29 pages, looks impressive. However, once you take a look at it, it is mostly fluff and doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, especially in relation to academics. Once again, this highlights the poor leadership at District level.

The Academics section of Jeffco's Draft Restart Model doesn't answer key questions and is essentially worthless.

The Academics section of Jeffco’s Draft Restart Model is worthless

May 29, 2020 / ijsadmin

Anyone who cares about education and academics should be appalled by the lack of anything concrete in Jeffco’s Draft Restart Model.

What does the Academics section of the Restart Model really say? It is nothing but generic and high-level mumbo-jumbo. It doesn’t answer ANY key questions about Academics in the Fall such as:

When will students be assessed to identify the COVID slide? Ideally, that should happen within the first week of school.
What assessment tools will be used?
What definitive and differentiated steps and actions will be taken to address the COVID slide?
How will prior year academic short-falls be addressed in the new year? How are teachers preparing for that?
How will Remote Learning in the fall be different than the questionable Remote Learning that just happened?
What will be the Hybrid and Remote Learning standards that students will be held to? How will attendance be counted?
What are the expectations for teachers? What standards will they be held to? How, and when, will they be assessed?
How will teachers be held accountable?
What are the District’s plans for when teachers get sick, since this could be for an extended period of time? We’ve all had our experiences with “Guest Teachers”. For this reason, shouldn’t the District be using a standardized, almost lock-step, curriculum across the District?
Why doesn’t Jeffco use the summer to create a Flipped Classroom curriculum that can easily be used by teachers in all grades to provide standardized teaching quality and consistency and ease the burden on teachers instead of each individual teacher essentially duplicating what possibly 100’s of other teachers all have to do?
How does it work for teachers and students when the teacher is in the classroom, but ½ or more of the students are at home? What is the expected effectiveness of that? I have a hard time grasping how that will be effective. Did the District consider team teaching – 2 teachers for a cohort, with one classroom teacher and one remote learning teacher?
Has Jeffco considered a summer tutor program such as one launched in Tennessee, or even a targeted tutoring program once school starts to mitigate equity impacts?

The Academics section of Jeffco’s Draft Restart Model is worthless. Time is of the essence. If Jeffco doesn’t start really planning for the fall, 1,000s of kids will be permanently harmed by the ineptitude and lack of leadership coming out of Denver West.