--- by Walter Venable>
As a concerned parent, I attended the public portion of the school board worksession of February 12th. I was very interested to observe the discussion of the results of a recent climate survey of DHS students, teachers, staff, and parents that rated various aspects of 9R performance. The board members were brainstorming how to publicly present the survey results. Mary Barter was present at the meeting, and she proposed an obscure method of presenting the survey results that was extremely misleading and in fact threw away most of the data collected, especially negative viewpoints.
The full article (click here to read it now) presents my observations in detail. It describes in plain language exactly how Mary Barter proposed to spin the survey data, and in fact has used the same techniques to misrepresent past information to the public. It also shows how the same data could be presented clearly and accurately without throwing any of it away. I hope you will read the article and post your own viewpoints here on the blog. I would be very interested to read your feedback and your opinions.
9 comments:
Well thought out, succinct, and informative. Thank you for taking the time to post this article and explain the difference between "mode" and "mean."
I think it's important to advise the public of the type of distorted results we are given. I sat in a meeting about CSAP scores that reflected a low percentage of students that scored in "proficient" in a certain area. Instead of admitting we needed to do some work in that area, the administration "spun" it so it appeared that the majority "actually" scored in "proficient." Most of us in that meeting sat there in shock. We watched the administration turn numbers around to make 9-R look good and essentially lie to the public. I believe this has been going on for years and it makes the results of the CSAPs have no value because we truly do not know what the real scores are.
I do not trust anything that comes from 9-R just because I don't think it's truthful.
In the end, it's our kids that suffer when surveys or test scores are altered to make things "look good."
I think Dr. Barter doesn't think we're very intelligent and certainly not intelligent enough to see through the way she distorts results.
We should not have to endure this any more. It's time for a change.
Is the meeting tonight closed or open to the public?
The first half hour of the meeting should be open to the public. The board then goes into closed "executive session" where they discuss sensitive issues like personnel matters.
Everyone please show up at the 9R Administration Building (across from the library) at 4:30 to demonstrate and to observe the first part of the board's working meeting.
Venable’s right – most of tonight is executive session.
Reasons to come anyway?
Start thinking together calmly about the next steps.
Trust has been lost; what kind of community wide process must happen to restore it.
Encourage board to think big and stay calm.
Chaos will not result from Barter’s influence sharply curtailed. If she can prove that she is the only person in the district with the capacity to carry out certain duties – see that she carries those out asap - and that she is removed from her "leadership" position.
The sooner a transition team and process is in place, the better.
The team should have professional expertise and Barter should play no role in recruiting its members. Trust is the big issue here, and until the public trusts the process, we will spin our wheels.
After so many years of dysfunction, it clearly is time for a fresh start.
The initial team could look at alternatives to just hiring an interim superintendent and begin identifying ways other communities have restored trust in similar situations.
Think big about our community and its social capital. We can do this.
Come tonight and meet your neighbors.
Surviving the psychopath....makes interesting reading. It sounds like Nightmare on 12th Street.
Dr. Clarke says that psychopaths survive by marginalising a certain person or group and developing strong friendships or bonds with another person or group - they survive by living in the benefit of the doubt of their allies.
Mrs. DoGood... what are the defining characteristics of "psychopaths?"
I recall reading somewhere that sociopaths (same thing??) are generally very charming people whose most important defining characteristic is the lack of a conscience.
Now folks, let's try to avoid inflammatory labels like "sociopath." Absent a psychiatric determination of a syndrome, bandying about such labels makes us look like we're simply name-calling and not carrying on a constructive dialogue.
As my article illustrates, there are a host of valid reasons, based in irrefutable facts, for demanding a change in 9R policy and leadership. If we stick to these arguments, then we will have a body of evidence so overwhelming and convincing that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of Mary Barter's inner motives or her conscience.
A line from the recent movie "Batman Begins" (yeah, I have a weakness for comic book stories, sue me!) comes to mind, where a character tells the hero, "It's not who you are inside, it's your actions that define you." Well, there are so many actions that define Ms. Barter's approach to running 9R that we have no lack of objective evidence. As the title of my blog entry says, let's all please stick to "Just the facts, ma'am!"
Really good article. Well done.
I would like to know what the individual school board members said in the work session. Mr. Venable refers to a minority that supported a minimizing of the survey results. Who were they? What did other board members say and how did they respond? Did anyone redirect the board away from a "mode" response?
I am interested because they are the people we elected. They are the people we really need to keep tabs on. The Superintendent can say anything but if our elected members make it clear what they expect then it will be easier for us as a community to see that there may be a difference in our needs and her style of operation. We need to refrain from personal attacks. To me, most of the (valid) criticism boils down to a lack of transparency by Durango 9-R. What can we do about that? First, hold the elected members accountable. If they support transparency, then they need to hold the Superintendent accountable. That is a tough job for a group of people who receive no compensation but a lot of responsibility.
For too long, the school board has accepted reports and done nothing with them. Reports that come up short on areas of importance. The board doesn't demand that these shortcomings be addressed except to say "Oh well, next time we get this report, can this area be addressed?" (two or three years later). Policy governance does not eliminate responsibility. Let's hope that this is the beginning of some board responsibility.
I'm really sorry, this was the first board meeting that I had attended in a long time so I have trouble matching the names of the members to exactly who said what. Also, the discussion at the meeting was clearly a continuation of a lot of previous work on the subject. A lot of history was assumed to be known (by the board members) and was not reiterated. We parents were not allowed to ask questions to clarify points.
From what I saw, it seemed like Melissa Youssef had done a lot of the legwork on analyzing the data. She spoke briefly and then Mary Barter proposed the reprocessing of the data using her "mode" method. Melissa demurred, saying that she felt enough time had been spent already analyzing the data. Mary barter kept on muttering, "Well, I'll go back and calculate the modes and get that to you," or something close to that.
In essence, she was proposing throwing away the work the Board had done and using her own data presentation format so all negative opinions would be discarded. This is par for the course, Mary is famous for setting up committees which put in a lot of time and effort only to have Mary do whatever she wants and ignore their work (e.g. the Escalante principal selection committee).
I ran into Melissa in town on a different day and broached the subject, and she said she had no intention of presenting the data using the "modes." I found this reassuring, and sent Melissa a link to my article just so she would not feel alone in resisting this proposed spinning of the data.
One of the things I found most telling was Mary Barter's comment that she had used the "mode" technique many times before in presenting data to the public. You and the others are absolutely right that we cannot trust anything that has been or is being published by 9R, including CSAP results. It's probably all just been spin to justify 9R's failure to truly serve all of our students and respond to valid parent complaints.
http://www.window.state.tx.us
/tspr/veribest/appendb2.htm
The narrative parent survey results for a school district in Texas. As you can see they didn't edit anything (as we have done), nor did they white out anything.
We should be as transparent too. I think it would be fair to insert "teacher" for Mrs. X and "Administrator" for Mrs. Y, other than that, we should get the results that were presented to the board.
I suppose if someone really wanted to see the original results, they could apply for them under the Freedom of Information Act (or whatever it is called). The document would be a public document, even if one had to request it.
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