One might have thought that with seven months of lead time some kind of
final decision could get made. Back then, the Board did not renew the contract
of outgoing Superintendent Gerald Dawkins, meaning his last day of work ends up
being this week, right before the school year’s beginning. Dawkins’ five years
was marked by a rapid deterioration in the district’s fiscal position that led
to retrenchment mirroring that drop in pupil population and was marked by a
persistent inability to raise district performance …
… until perhaps this past year? Although it will be in the fall that
the state releases all the data on school performance, under federal law it
must alert parents about the status of failing schools (that continue under the
same operator) prior to the beginning of the school year. It did so quietly
last week, not even posting a list statewide.
But media across the state were quick to pick up on the notices, and in
Caddo of the 22 persistently failing schools that represent about a third of
the entire district roster, ten
had managed to get above passing for the first time in almost a decade.
Three unfortunately slipped into that status, although only one was not an
alternative school, to leave 15 now categorized as failing. Still, going from a
third to a quarter in the district comprising this was progress.
So perhaps Dawkins should be given some credit for this hike in school
performance scores? And maybe as well one of the two candidates the Board
deadlocked over a couple of days before releasing of these data, current
Central Office Chief of Staff Mary Nash Robinson? In fact, the other candidate John
Dilworth’s job prior job before his temporary retirement was as the head of the
East Baton Rouge School District, ending a year-and-a-half ago, where one
school board member there gave him credit for the improvement. Then again,
all that has been released are these aggregate numbers, with no data on
subgroup performance, nor on overall district performance, so the picture is
incomplete.
And, these might also be statistical artifacts. The scoring
system underwent some changes this year, mainly in below high school
removing the attendance component and in high school deemphasizing other
factors in favor of adding in the American College Test and increasing
graduation rate. It also changed metrics from a 200- to 150-point scale,
although these should remain largely comparable among the A to F categories.
Especially for high schools the changes
might boost scores from what they might have been otherwise. The addition
of the ACT is scored so that failure occurs only with a score below 18; with a
state average of over 20, bonus points well above failing are added. The same
goes for students doing decently or better on advanced placement exams, where
there has been a tremendous
push to take them that sent the number of attempts statewide skyrocketing
with many more earning credit, all of which serve as more bonus points.
That scoring changes may have had a separate impact receives some confirmation
from the fact that the state’s largest districts generally all saw the numbers
of failing schools drop, from Orleans
to Jefferson to East
Baton Rouge, and it seemed that high schools disproportionately enjoyed
promotion. This may quiet some febrile
critics of the use of the ACT who felt convinced that its use with the
below-18 standard, which conveyed no points in the SPS calculation, was there
deliberately to punish some schools.
So a good case can be made that neither Robinson nor Dilworth really
effected the change. Robinson managed during the district’s decline while
Dilworth, himself a long-time employee in the district before taking superintendents
jobs in Montgomery, AL, and Baton Rouge, while having prior experience in such
a job also has a history of clashing with boards and has a had an erratic
employment record as one: after a short interval he ditched Montgomery for EBR,
then said he was resigning but after a few days said he’d stay put, then two
years later abruptly declared retirement for health reasons. Dilworth also faced
declining enrollment and fiscal positions in his three-year tenure there.
Perhaps the best thing was the Board splitting its votes and thereby rendering itself unable to hire one of them, leaving a chance to take a mulligan and start over with an eye to selecting a younger, if less experienced, talent from a more successful district. Then again, last time that happened they came up with Dawkins. And that's largely a recipe for stagnation in a declining district that can't afford any time to waste to turn that around.
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