Remaining Focused after the Primary

We all still have work to do, so I won’t spend much time discussing the election or events leading up to it. Before we move forward, though, I would like to share a couple of videos with you. I’ve already pushed them out onto Facebook and Twitter in the last day or so, but if you didn’t happen to be online at the time, you may have missed them.

First is some raw video posted by the Tulsa World of the comments made by Superintendent Janet Barresi at the standards convening earlier this month. This is the Bible-quoting, go to hell speech. In case you can’t watch it on your mobile device, or if you’re trapped in a cubicle somewhere and don’t want to bother those around you, the World has also provided a transcription.

“I’m going to go look at the Legislature next fall, next year and I’m going to say folks, you want this done? Pay up, or you’re going to get the value for the money you put into it.”

“I’m determined. I am determined. Kids in Oklahoma deserve this. You deserve this. God has blessed this state and he blesses these children and I’m not going to let anything get in their way. They deserve the blessings of this state and the blessings of this country. And I need you to help me rebuild that. We are going to build a house.

“Anybody that has any question what we’re doing, read Nehemiah. Open up your Bibles and read Nehemiah. I want you to put on your breast plate and I want you to fight off the enemy at the same time you’re rebuilding the wall. Because there’s a lot of people, a lot of enemies are going to try to creep up the back of your neck and say you can’t do it, it can’t be done. Do me a favor and tell ‘em to go to hell. We’ve got a wall to build. ‘Cause I’m gonna be in there with you, too. I’m going to take the hits. I don’t care, I don’t care. And then we will be, we will be an example to the rest of the country about how you produce a wonderful child that is educated and ready to take control of their life. Are there any questions?

“Love you all. I pray for you guys every day. Every teacher in the state, I pray for you every day. I know there’s some that hate me and want me to lose my campaign. We’re not talking about campaigns right now. I don’t care, I love them anyway. I appreciate their service, I understand the toughness that they’re into and I just offer you up to God and ask him to hold you every day. Thank you all. God bless you.”

As I said at the top, I don’t want to live in the past. This becomes relevant, however, knowing what is on the agenda for today’s State Board of Education meeting. Several items catch my eye. They will be discussing where the state stands regarding our No Child Left Behind waiver. They may act to terminate our testing contracts with CTB/McGraw-Hill (for incompetence) and Measured Progress (because of HB 3399). They will also discuss the new standards-writing process.

That’s where the video comes in. She makes it clear that we’re going to write the best standards in the country, which is a laudable goal, but speaks in terms of holy war. What I would have hoped she might have learned in the last four years is that teachers function best when they are allowed to collaborate. Under heightened stress, such as what she describes, the threads connecting us are more likely to sever. Combine this with video of her speech Tuesday evening, and we have a clear picture that she intends to have these standards written before she leaves office in January.

HB 3399 gives the SBE two years to send them standards. School districts are still wiping the little rubber pellets away from where they’ve erased the words Common Core from all of their curriculum maps. The SDE has charged Teri Brecheen, who “led” the state’s efforts to implement the third-grade retention law. Brecheen also wrote (although it was signed by Barresi) the letter letting the REAC³H coaches know they were no longer employed. Read that again, and you’ll see more evidence of people who think this is a holy war.

If it is, by the way, what does that make the rest of us? Isn’t it possible that the people who think third-grade retention is for the best, along with those who don’t, all have the best interest of children at heart? Do we have to pull from the book of Nehemiah to state our case? I simply don’t think retaining third graders is a great idea. Developmentally, it’s too late. We are slamming on the brakes while emerging readers also develop a love of books, which is key to learning to read or reading to learn or whatever you want to say. I respect your opinion, if you believe differently, unless you stick your finger in your ear when opposition comes at you. It certainly doesn’t help when you call people pathetic.

This is why we must pay attention. This is why I will continue writing about anything that happens in Oklahoma education, if I feel I have something to add. We still have a state superintendent, and we must remain focused.

Then There Were Three

I told you this morning that it’s a beautiful day!

Now that tonight’s votes have been counted, we are certain that Oklahoma will be getting a new state superintendent in 2015. Voters have selected Republican candidate Joy Hofmeister to represent them on the November ballot. Meanwhile, Democrats have moved two candidates – John Cox and Freda Deskin – forward to an August run-off election.

This is the best-case scenario that I had hoped for. While I would have liked both parties to have decided their races today (to avoid further campaigning), I think we all saw that as unlikely.

I said nine days ago that we had to be all in for this to happen. If Janet Barresi was going to dump millions into her campaign, we had to fight back the best way we know how – with social media. Grass roots activism beat her money, her agenda, and her out-of-state handlers. Little did we know we’d be sending her all the way to a third-place finish!

How do I feel about the outcome? See below:

 Euphoric doesn’t even begin to describe it.

We all made this happen. It started when we just couldn’t contain ourselves. Our murmurs grew into an eruption. We would not be silenced. We demanded respect. But it’s not all about me. Here are some other reactions from across Twitter.

Not only did @joy4ok win, @JanetBarresi came in dead last! #oklaed #edsandite #wedidit pic.twitter.com/LWleR3Iehc

— Mandi Cloud (@mandi_cloud) June 25, 2014

The real question tonight: Will @okeducation or @oksde being partying harder tonight? #oklaed

— Seth Meier (@SethMeier) June 25, 2014

It's not about funding your race, it's about building relationships and a heart for kids! @joy4ok #oklaed

— Dena Rogers (@dena_rogers) June 25, 2014

https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%23oklaed&src=savs

Oh, and one last thing.

Go vote!

Wake up, people! Go vote! It’s a beautiful day!

Case Closed. Vote Tuesday.

As I was preparing for last night’s #oklaed chat on Twitter, I was also enjoying the World Cup match between the US and Portugal. It started ugly, with a defensive mistake leading to a Portugal score in the first five minutes. That score held until halftime, although the US seemed to be gaining momentum. After scoring twice in the second half, the US appeared headed to victory. Unfortunately, just as time was running out, Portugal scored on a beautiful crossing pass and header into the back of the net. The tie means that the US head into this week’s match against Germany guaranteed of absolutely nothing.

Similarly (pay attention, Janet Costello Barresi – this is how you develop an analogy), those of us fighting to elect a state superintendent who is competent and worthy of our respect haven’t accomplished anything yet. If we are complacent as the clock winds down, we could see a costly run-off ahead. Yes, we’ve all seen the poll numbers. Joy Hofmeister has a lead, but too many voters still consider themselves to be undecided. A win tomorrow without an outright majority is more or less a tie. The score will revert to 0-0 until August.

Those of us who’ve been using our outside voices have made an airtight case for why Barresi needs to be replaced. To which group has she shown real understanding of their needs and conditions?

1. Students
2. Parents
3. Teachers
4. Administrators

The answer, of course, is None of the Above. She doesn’t understand school finance. She doesn’t think rules apply to her. She listens to people outside of Oklahoma more than people inside of Oklahoma. She owes herself $2 million from this campaign. Her administration has no highlights. She has pushed reforms that few asked for, and she has implemented none of them effectively.

Polls open in 12 hours. They close in 24. Our job isn’t finished yet. The clock is running out. We can see the finish line, but we cannot relent, not even for a second. Keep talking, tweeting, posting, and sharing.

6.22.14 #oklaed chat wrap

Thanks to all who participated in tonight’s conversation on Twitter. It was my first time to host, and honestly, it was a blast. So many positive, hopeful people come together each Sunday evening to discuss ways to make our schools better for our students. Usually, we don’t spend the whole night on politics. Hopefully soon, we can get back to spending Sunday nights on collaboration and classroom solutions.

If you missed it, you can catch up on Storify (thanks to Anne Beck). The entire hour is archived there.

I closed with this Rush song (and quote from it): “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Vote Tuesday. It matters.

6.22.14 #OKLAED Chat Questions

After completing my honorable mention post, I began working on my lesson plan for this evening, when I will be moderating the #oklaed chat on Twitter. Depending on time available, these are the discussion questions I plan to use.

1. I’ve posted over 30 separate reasons this month to replace Barresi. Why should we vote FOR the candidate you support?

2. What should a new State Superintendent do on day one in office?

3. What direction would you like to see #oklaed take regarding the use of standardized testing?

4. In your work setting, where has the lack of #oklaed funding hurt the most?

5. Aside from State Superintendent, what other races matter to you in Tuesday’s primary, and why?

6. We have less than 2 years to get new #oklaed academic standards in place. Where should we start?

7. Over the past few years, what impact has #oklaed activism had on both policy-making and campaigning?

8. If Hofmeister wins the primary outright on Tuesday, what do you expect the next 6 months to look like before JCB leaves office?

9. What has been the most head-scratching moment of the past 42 months?

10. If all goes well, how do you plan to celebrate Tuesday evening?

See you tonight on Twitter at 8 pm. Remember to include #oklaed in all of your responses.

After the Top 20: Dishonorable Mention

Counting down from 20 was so much fun (how fun was it?)…it was so much fun I added a new number one yesterday afternoon. Now I’m going to add 13 more! These are additional examples of things that Barresi or the SDE have done during the last 42 months to wreck public education. Whether an example of failure by design or incompetence, each is worthy of dishonorable mention. There is no particular order to the following list. Nor should they be interpreted as Reasons 22-34. Some could easily have made the top 20. Even after this, I’m sure I’m missing something.

For each, I’m going to limit myself to a paragraph or two and add a relevant link.

TLE Implementation

On many fronts, the SDE has mishandled the development of the Teacher/Leader Effectiveness system. While the qualitative component that counts for half of a teacher’s evaluation has been met with good reviews overall, initially Barresi was reluctant to accept the TLE Commission’s recommendation for a model. She was hell-bent on anything but the Tulsa model (much as #oklaed is hell-bent on anything but Barresi right now). Validating the work of one of her staunchest opponents (TPS Superintendent Keith Ballard) was more than she could stomach. Unfortunately for her, more than 400 school districts went with the Oklahoma-grown evaluation model. Since the cool thing in 2014 all about growing our own, this should be ideal, right?

In 2012, when it came time to provide funds for districts to train teachers, principals, and other administrators in the models of choice, the SDE predictably dropped the ball. They had anticipated a cost of $1.5 million for training (after stating in legislative hearings that TLE would be a revenue-neutral initiative). The lowest bid received was $4.3 million. This was their solution:

Given that time is of the essence, to best serve the needs of districts, and to provide you with more autonomy over these funds, SDE has determined that it will indeed be most effective to distribute the $1.5 million directly to districts to seek TLE evaluator training.

Some districts had already tried to secure training independently of the SDE prior to that announcement, but the SDE had blocked them. They literally kept the entities authorized to provide the training from entering into contracts with individual school districts. This announcement by the SDE then was doubly frustrating. Districts trying to be proactive were blocked. They had to wait an extra 2-3 months for the training they knew their staff needed.

Test Exemption in Moyers

In April, a family in Moyers suffered a great tragedy. The school called the SDE to try to get a testing waiver for a student going through tremendous grief. It took a social media onslaught to get the agency to reverse its original decision not to grant the waiver.

Eventually, the SDE caved. They said it was a misunderstanding. Barresi was also quick to blame the federal government for setting such intractable testing rules. It’s a typical JCB story. Testing matters more than students or schools. If she looks bad, blame someone else – especially liberals or the feds.

Removing API Scores from the SDE Website

Janet Barresi tells anyone who is forced to listen to her that her greatest accomplishments are transparency and accountability. As of October (or earlier – this was when I first noticed it) the SDE’s Accountability Page no longer contains API scores . The Academic Performance Index was Oklahoma’s school accountability system from 2002-2011. It was replaced in 2012 by the A-F Report Cards, which were one of Barresi’s hallmark reforms.

Visit the page now and you see the following message:

*Please Note: The State Department of Education is currently reviewing historical assessment and accountability reports to ensure compliance with the Oklahoma’s new “Student Data Accessibility, Transparency and Accountability Act of 2013.” Some sites on this web page may be temporarily disabled until compliance is ensured.

Barresi likes to construct a narrative in which accountability didn’t exist before she showed up. As with most of her talking points, there is no merit to this. There is also no reason to hide old API reports. Nothing in the Act named above would require historical data to be removed.

Whole Language

In November, Barresi participated in a candidate forum that was captured on video and posted to YouTube. That video alone could have been the basis for a pretty solid top ten list. One of the outrageous things she said was that the reason Oklahoma students can’t read is because the University of Oklahoma still teaches Whole Language. She also insists that OU and OSU need to teach their education students how to teach reading and math. Maybe she was just still bitter about the research report discrediting her precious A-F Report Cards. In any case, she simply sounded uninformed and petty.

The Shameful Treatment of Crutcho Public Schools

Early in the Morning of May 10^th, Rob Miller received an email from the superintendent of Crutcho Public Schools. The news media had been reporting that the district had the worst 3^rd grade scores in Oklahoma. Due to technical problems with CTB/McGraw-Hill (go figure), she had not been able to login to confirm their scores. The first news story reported that none of the school’s students passed the test. They corrected it at the 10:00 broadcast. Unfortunately, we all know that retractions don’t have the impact as an inaccurate report in the first place. If the SDE hadn’t been in such a rush to get scores out to the media and represent their reading initiative as a success, this misrepresentation never would have happened. Barresi doesn’t care about that – just about controlling the narrative.

Badmouthing Teachers in Public

The most-viewed post of all time on this blog is from March: How to Lose Your Appetite. The funny thing is that I really didn’t care for the post all that much. Based on screenshots and redacted identities, I piece together comments overheard from Barresi during lunch. She thinks Sandy Garrett had no accomplishments. She thinks the legislature is crazy. She thinks teachers are liberal. She blames everyone but herself for how badly she is doing in this job. Her commercials make that perfectly clear.

Illegal Hiring Practices

Normally, especially with state government jobs, an agency will post a position (and a job description). Under Barresi, nothing is done the normal way at the SDE. Did you know that Michelle Sprague, the Director of Reading/Literacy, is set to become the new Director of Elementary English/Language Arts? Funny, that position never posted to the SDE website. That must’ve been an oversight, as was the creation of the new position. Likewise, Sprague’s successor in the position she’s leaving has already been selected. That job never posted either.

Throughout Barresi’s tenure at the SDE, she has fired and run off good people, often replacing them with others who aren’t qualified for their jobs. The SDE has definitely found a few hard workers who try hard to help schools through all of the challenges they face, but their efforts are often stymied from above. Maybe it’s just as well that they’re not performing legitimate job searches. There’s no point for great people to leave good jobs to go up there now.

Vendor Favoritism

The SDE is supposed to help schools find solutions to their problems. This should not include a show of favoritism to certain vendors. I’ve covered the irregularities with the selection of CTB/McGraw-Hll and the bad decision to keep them after the first annual testing debacle in the countdown already. It goes beyond that, though. She has pushed specific professional development providers relative to the Reading Sufficiency Act and Advanced placement programs. And in one debate last week, she said that she hoped schools would go back to Saxon Math – which I’m sure thrilled all the other publishers. It’s not that I want all the vendors to be happy or all to be miserable. I just want them all to have a fair shot. Too many times, whether through sole source contracts or less-than-transparent bidding processes, they find the deck to be stacked.

Rewards that Nobody Wants

One component of the state’s ESEA Waiver is that the SDE will provide rewards to schools with high achievement and schools with high growth. In 2013, the first year anything other than certificates were given as a reward, only five percent of eligible schools applied.

• 229 Reward Schools were eligible to apply.
• 14 applications were received.
• 6 grants totaling $400,000 were awarded.
• 60 percent of the funds are to be spent celebrating the success of the Reward School.
• 40 percent of the funds are to be spent on partnership activities benefiting both the Reward School and the Partnership School.

The catch was that schools eligible for a reward had to partner with a low-performing school to apply. Unless I missed it, the SDE announced no new awards in 2014. In that case, they could have used the $2.8 million set aside for that expense to make up the deficit in funding employee benefits, rather than yanking funds at the last minute from professional development and alternative education.

By the way, for some reason, the legislature raised this pool of funds to $5.4 million next year.

Favoring Charter Schools

In October 2013, Janet Barresi said during a radio interview that she is “embarrassed” Oklahoma doesn’t have more charter schools. She continues not to comment, however, on the fact that the ones Oklahoma has don’t perform as well as the state’s traditional public schools. Both years in which we’ve had A-F Report Cards, even though the formula changed considerably from 2012 to 2013, charter schools did not score highly. We know that not all charter schools are created equally and that by law, they are supposed to accept students on a lottery basis. We also know that some have ways of counseling out students who might be hard to serve. And we know that they don’t face all the same regulations as traditional public schools.

While I have written consistently that I oppose expansion of charter schools out of the state’s urban areas, I do not oppose their existence altogether. What I’d like to see is all public schools granted some of the flexibility charter schools have. I’d also like to hear politicians acknowledge these differences in their discussions of charters.

FAY/NFAY

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Janet Costello Barresi claim that under her watch, the SDE has transformed from being a regulatory agency to being a service agency. None of us buy that. For example, on January 15, 2014, the SDE notified schools that they had changed the definition of Full Academic Year to mean “part of the academic year.” Instead of previous definitions, which had included some logical starting point relative to the beginning of the school year, we would now be counting all students who remained continuously enrolled from October 1^st and before.

Supposedly, there was a hue and cry from Oklahoma administrators to make this change. I have a hard time believing that. Yes, we want to teach all children we have, but the FAY/NFAY designation is really only an accountability issue. Schools with high mobility have a hard enough time without the SDE senselessly piling on via bureaucratic fiat.

Pricey Propaganda

In April, the SDE released 2,000 copies of the agency’s annual report at a cost of $33,000 to taxpayers. Printed copies. In 2014. Simply inexplicable. One senator felt the same way:

Patrick Anderson today said he was shocked that the State Department of Education spent $33,268.00 on its annual report. The report, which is 60 pages in length and includes 50 glossy color photos and charts, was delivered to legislators Wednesday.

According to the document, the Department of Education printed 2,000 copies, meaning each copy of the report cost taxpayers $16.63.

“This is a total waste of taxpayer dollars,” said Anderson, R-Enid. “The State Department of Education is simply required to make an annual report to the members of the Legislature, not produce a coffee table book. The fact that our limited education dollars are being spent on projects like this is mind-boggling.”

Anderson was the author of Senate Bill 1697, which directed state agencies to issue such reports in electronic format to save taxpayer dollars. SB 1697 was signed into law in 2010.

In four years, the SDE can’t make this switch, but they expect schools to make more drastic changes virtually overnight? Classic.

The Threat

I already covered in Reason #3 in the countdown how Barresi and the SDE threatened to revoke certification from one vocal critic. In January of this year, the SDE announced that all school districts would be required to participate in the systems tests of their computers for both testing vendors. If they didn’t, they might lose funding, accreditation, or certification of administrators. This was nothing but a bullying tactic. Districts that did not comply faced no sanctions. As for the instructional time lost, we gained nothing in return. Measured Progress, which seemed like a pretty decent outfit altogether (at least more responsive than CTB or Pearson, our previous testing vendor), is one-and-done. The bill revoking Common Core essentially kills our state’s contract with them.

If after all of these reasons, you have any doubts that Janet Barresi is a bully, just think back to a SBE meeting not too long ago when the elected state superintendent pulled aside an appointed board member, berated her, and shook her finger in her face, and began a fight that she will likely lose on Tuesday. Who was that board member again? Oh yeah, Joy Hofmeister.

Two days to go, people. Stay in the fight. Keep writing, sharing, and talking to your friends. We can’t afford for one educator, one parent, or one voter to stay on the sidelines. Too much is at stake.

24 Hours Later, a New #1: Barresi and Moore

I spent the last three weeks counting down the 20 biggest reasons to replace Janet Barresi when we go to the polls on Tuesday, knowing the whole time what would be the number one reason. Once it posted, I changed my mind within four hours. Thanks, Rob Miller! Thanks Janet Barresi!

Over the past year, I’ve tried to avoid writing about the Moore tornado because that is such a personal tragedy for so many people. I’ve known all along that Janet Barresi made promises she never intended to fulfill. I’ve had more messages from employees and patrons of the district than I can count. I think – even before Rob’s big revelation yesterday, if you’re in the footprint of that storm and have dealt first-hand with Barresi and the SDE since the tornado, this has been your #1 reason to elect someone new all along.

As an example, I give you this paragraph from an email I received last week from a Moore teacher:

To say that JB hasn’t been helpful is an understatement.  From the day she showed up uninvited at our district-wide meeting (on May 22–not even 48 hours after the tornado), took a seat on the stage (also uninvited), and then trotted out empty promises about all of the assistance SDE would provide…to the problems we had during the summer getting deadlines extended or communication that we needed…she and her staff have been far more hurtful than helpful.

If you’ll recall, about a month later, she sent an email to all MPS employees. This was equally intrusive, as she just took upon herself to send a message – a poorly written one at that – to a district that continues to function out of temporary workspace. She received no consent from the district to do so. Many found the action alarming.

Now she’s comparing the work we have to do as educators to rebuild the state standards to what Moore has experienced over the last 13 months. It’s not comparable, and it’s just not acceptable. One thing is the result of the folly of politicians. The other is the devastation of nature’s wrath. I think MPS Superintendent Dr. Robert Romines (who responded in the comments on Rob’s blog) is completely on target. Here’s an excerpt:

My response to Dr. Barresi’s comments will focus on Moore and its community because I am here and that is what I know. Our school district and its community are known for their resilient spirit, unwavering support for others, and determination – that is who we are and that is who we will always remain. These are attributes that we will continue to display in the event of tragedy or in something as simple as change. The 2500 plus employees of MPS are committed to doing what is best for our students, and we simply ask that the State Department of Education rely on the people in the trenches to help with making the changes needed over the next few years. We can do this without telling others “where to go” and asking for certain groups to “pony up”. Over this past year, not once did I have to tell anyone “where to go” or “pony up” and the school district and its people have accomplished much success! MPS and other communities have proven that great things can happen with the right attitude, spirit, and determination. In the future, I would humbly request that no one from the State Department of Education or any other agency use Moore Public Schools, our tragedy, and our rebuilding projects to help their cause.

This is precisely why I have avoided writing about Moore very much. I don’t think the district needs other people telling their story for them. Most who live and work there just keep their heads down and focus on the task at hand.

All that said, this is the most offensive action by Janet Barresi yet. She’s campaigning now as if it’s a good thing that the legislature and governor dumped the Common Core, but the truth is that she fought desperately to save it. Regardless of how you feel about the standards, you must acknowledge her lie here.

You also have to admit that her characterization of the SDE’s labors as something of a holy war is a bit disconcerting. Hers is the language of a delusional ideologue. She’s so committed to her cause that she doesn’t even listen to her own words anymore. She has no class and no clue. This may be all that overshadows her incompetence.

As for Moore – if all of those 2,500 employees vote – and everybody they know votes as well – June 24 will be the day all Oklahomans can say goodbye to Janet Costello Barresi. We won’t even tell her where she can go.

Reason #1 to Pick a New State Superintendent: FERPA Violations

Well, friends, we’ve reached the end – of the countdown. Not the race for state superintendent. And certainly not for the blog. No, this goes on no matter who wins the election. I could certainly use a little break though.

As I’ve counted down my top 20 reasons to elect a new state superintendent, I have found some glaring omissions. Based on page views, I definitely think many of you would have rearranged the list.

For example, the post introducing the list has the most visits. That makes sense; it’s been on the blog longest. Second-highest, though is the #5 reason: Fabricating Special Education Percentages. I don’t know if it’s because my audience doesn’t like it when Barresi just makes stuff up or because we collectively flinch when special education students are getting a raw deal. Every problem we’ve had with testing has been felt harder by that student group. Most of the students impacted by mandatory retention are on an IEP. Even my post this morning, which was little more than poor judgment by someone barely out of college, fired people up.

In fact, the 26 months in which I’ve been blogging confirm what I’ve always known about those of us who actually work in education. We are compassionate people who do not stand for anyone mistreating our students.

That’s why the number one reason why we need to pick a new state superintendent goes back to an event from two years ago this month – the SDE releasing names of students making appeals to the State Board of Education in order to graduate.

The issue lingering with me is the fact that the SDE posted student records online. I understand making students and/or their parents sign a FERPA release so that state board members can go into executive session and examine student records. That does not mean, however, that it is either legally or morally permissible to do so. An SDE spokesperson with about 17 months of institutional memory defended posting the information saying there is a “longstanding precedent” to make information available to the board also available to the public.

While the intention is good, there is also a line that needs to be drawn. Not all records the board reviews in closed session carry the same degree of sensitivity. Across the state, school boards often go into closed session to discuss sensitive matters involving students or personnel. Most of those boards rightly post an agenda item vaguely referring to that student or employee. Here’s an example of an Oklahoma school district that managed to note what was being discussed regarding a student’s appeal of a suspension without making the details of that student’s life known to the world.

As it should be.

At the best, this was a misinterpretation of the Open Records Act. Perhaps something more sinister was happening. The former high level employee who called Tulsa-area superintendents “dirtbags” was not reprimanded by Superintendent Barresi. It is also noteworthy that the feud between Broken Arrow (which originated many of these student waiver requests) and Barresi was made public when she accidentally hit the “Reply All” button on an email. Surely the release of student records wasn’t clumsy. Hopefully it wasn’t done as a deterrent to discourage future appeals. And it certainly wasn’t retaliation. What was it then? Simply inexplicable.

That was back when I thought one of my posts being shared 17 times on Facebook was a big deal. To me, this was the epitome of what’s wrong at the SDE, and with Barresi. She doesn’t understand special education. Or testing. Or people. Or procedures. Or instruction. Or finance. For as much as she proclaims the LNH Scholarship to be the best thing going, she sure doesn’t show special needs students respect.

I did give the SDE credit the next time they had student appeals to discuss. They actually learned from their mistake. They still haven’t reached proficiency, but they showed growth. Three weeks later, they were reeling from the appeals.

I wasn’t the only one who wrote about that. So did Diane Ravitch. So did Parents Across America. And Education News. Their actions also bothered at least one legislator from Superintendent Barresi’s own party. There’s no other way to say it: releasing student records publicly has disgraced the SDE.

Here we are three weeks later, and people are still mad about it. They should be! I know some members of the board have already asked questions, and I expect they will continue to. Barresi is one of a breed of education reformers who like to extol the virtue of accountability. Well somebody needs to be held accountable for what happened. Whether through design or incompetence, the public forum created by the legislature for students to appeal for a high school diploma turned into an embarrassing circus. Students were bullied. Excuses were made. And somewhere, in the time and distance, nobody forgot that any of this happened!

This agency, under Barresi’s direction, squanders opportunity after opportunity to lead. Rather than capitalizing on the momentum from the 2010 election and effectively pursuing the agenda that got her elected in the first place, she – along with her top staff – insist upon steering the ship directly into the iceberg. Regardless of whether you’re for her or against her – embracing her reforms or resisting them – you have to admit that the performance of the SDE has been consistently disappointing.

We found out last week that this really was a pattern of behavior. Earlier that year, the SDE had released names of special education students to the Barresi campaign. From the Tulsa World:

The mother of a special-needs student says State Superintendent Janet Barresi violated the privacy rights of her child and others receiving state-funded scholarships to private schools by providing their names and home addresses to her campaign for re-election.

The woman said she kept her concerns to herself for two years at the request of Joel Robison, Barresi’s chief of staff at the Oklahoma State Department of Education, but a new Barresi television campaign ad reignited her anger over the experience.

Barresi’s ad features a recipient of the state-funded Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships and accuses her GOP primary rival of “conspiring with education bureaucrats” to prevent other special-education students from obtaining the scholarships.

The mother of one such recipient said that in March 2012, her then-seventh-grader received an envelope in the mail from Barresi’s campaign.

Inside was a letter signed by Barresi to scholarship parents offering up to four tickets to an Oklahoma City Thunder basketball game, plus T-shirts, and an opportunity to shoot baskets and high-five the players as they entered the court.

I’m sure that was a neat experience for the children, but releasing the names of LNH Scholarship recipients to the campaign is crass. Having this effort as part of your campaign itself is crass. Again, we see that students – especially special education children – are only a prop to our state superintendent.

In response to this report, the SDE confirmed that the incident had happened, but blamed it on two former employees.

Phil Bacharach, spokesman for the state Department of Education, provided a written statement saying, “The staff members who were involved are no longer with the department, so the best I can offer is that the State Department of Education helped coordinate the Thunder game offer on behalf of organizations that wanted to do something nice for families with special needs children.”

He added that “no privacy was breached.”

When pressed, Bacharach said no student list ever left the Education Department’s office and that former general counsel Lisa Endres and events coordinator Ashley Hahn had sent the invitations after hours but mistakenly in campaign envelopes rather than Education Department envelopes.

Way to drop the bus on two people you don’t have on the payroll anymore!

Student information – regarding an IEP or anything else – is confidential. There’s no excuse for breaching that. There’s no excuse for having your campaign envelopes up at the agency, either.

The last 42 months, simply put, have disgusted me. Tomorrow, I’ll do a wrap up post with about 10 things that didn’t even make the list – either because I forgot about them initially, or because there just wasn’t room.  I hate it when people implore you to do something for the children or claim that they’re acting for the children. It’s a phrase that’s trite and saccharine and usually false. This election – starting Tuesday with the primary – is FOR THE CHILDREN. They’re the ones in the schools that our policy-makers continue to defile.

I never intended this blog to be all about Superindentist Janet Costello Breezy Schedule J Barresi. Hopefully soon, she’ll be relegated to the status of a minor character in the narrative.

The choice is yours. Go forth and vote, #oklaed.

All together now!

Pick a Different Word

I’m probably not the most politically correct person. I don’t tend to make huge mistakes that land my foot in my mouth, but I occasionally wish I could get a do-over when I speak. When I use social media, I tend to be more careful even. What I write – whether under my actual name or not – is a reflection upon me and everything I stand for. Even if I have a disclaimer on the top of my Twitter feed that the views expressed are mine and mine alone, the fact is that what I say may cause my employer some grief.

I won’t make this a big lecture, but a few days ago, a reader sent me an image of an old tweet (2012) from Janet Barresi’s campaign manager, Robyn Matthews. I don’t know much about her, so I looked at her Twitter feed and found that she sometimes gets impatient while waiting for lunch.

https://twitter.com/RobynMatthews89/status/478954580084940800

I can relate to that. I too like to eat my soup while it’s still warm. What I can’t relate to is the use of the R word to describe people trying to scalp Thunder tickets.

I find it offensive. Perhaps it’s just how I was raised. I get that not all people are wired that way, and I really try not to be the word police, but I have been known to ask others around me to pick a different word when I hear that one. It’s senseless. It’s imprecise. It’s insulting.

I also don’t work for a politician who acts like she’s the state’s leading advocate for special needs children. Then again, as of May 8, 2012, neither did Robyn Matthews. At that point, according to her online CV, she was a “Public Relations Coordinator,” a few months away from becoming a “Freelance Social Media Coordinator.” In that case, she definitely should have known better.

Perhaps it’s a mistake of youth. We have all had those. In 2012, Barresi was still two campaign managers away from selecting Matthews to run this train wreck. Heck, in 2012, she was still for PARCC and the Common Core! In any case, it’s not a good reflection on the candidate. Someone with a degree in journalism from OSU and a promising career in public relations should know better. Then again, when I was four years out of high school, I don’t know how smart I was about everything I said. Thankfully, there was no social media around to capture my gaffes.

End of lecture. Back to the countdown later this evening.