By Anonymous
Filed Friday, December 2 at 10:18 PM
[The following article was submitted by a teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous.]
Creg Williams played to 25 or so members of the Holly Hills Neighborhood Association on Monday, and read from the same script school board president Darnetta Clinkscale is using for her reelection campaign.
When the current board took office, they found a $90 million deficit, Williams said. Nevermind that he wasn't around then, and that Missouri Auditor Claire McCaskill said it wasn't true, and blasted the board for claiming it. It is part of the script.
Williams blamed site based management for the fall in middle school test scores in recent years. Elementary school test scores rose under site based management, but he doesn't mention that. He also wants us to forget that the fall in middle school test scores the last two years happened after the school board abolished site based management. We certainly don't want facts to get in the way of a fine theory.
In Williams' theory, every site-based managed school made up its own curriculum, and that confused students who moved from school to school, so that is why middle school test scores fell (it's a mystery why elementary school scores went up). The standardized curriculum now in place will fix all that, he said.
Williams is new. He probably does not know that there was a standardized curriculum, aligned with state standards, until the current board abolished the curriculum office in 2003. I still have old curriculum guides in my office. And, although Williams crows about the gains in elementary school test scores last year, he probably does not know that there have been gains every year for at least six years.
OK, maybe he does not know much about St. Louis schools or what has happened in the past, but he recites a script well. He is very slick.
Two parents of children at Kennard brought up the future of gifted programs. Williams said he has no plans to close Kennard or cut gifted programs. What about the cuts at McKinley? Oh that, that was because their enrollment dropped, he said. No one asked him if the higher standard for admission into gifted programs, and the cutback in testing last, had anything to do with limiting enrollment.
A Kennard teacher asked why Kennard lost a teacher. Didn't Kennard's enrollment also drop, Williams asked. The teacher said, "no," then Williams said it was probably because he had had to equalize positions across the district. That's equity.
Weren't magnet school funds already cut this year, the teacher asked. Well, maybe a little, Williams said, but it is all about to turn around. Williams said he had spoken to developers putting new housing in the city, and they expect to bring 2,000 new students into the school district..
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