Vicki and her principals

A Portland Tribune editorial yesterday called Vicki Phillips a superintendent with a "can do leadership style."  Perhaps.  But there is one thing Phillips proved absolutely incapable of doing:

Hiring competent principals. Or firing those who are clearly incompetent.

Jefferson's Leon Dudley, who just announced his resignation, is only one glaring example of Phillips's poor judgment.  It's still shocking to me that she refuses to admit her mistake.  She blames instead the "challenging" situation he faced, one that Phillips herself created, but one that she was cocksure Dudley could handle despite a record that indicated otherwise. 

Vicki, it seems, is besotted with test scores.  It clouds her judgment.  A principal with a knack for alienating staff and students is unlikely to achieve anything at the school he leads.

But enough with Dudley.  Consider that in 2005-06, Jefferson had three different principals. Or look at Madison High School, the next poor school undergoing the Gates Foundation small school transformation treatment that Vicki and her team are so enamored of.   Like Jefferson, Roosevelt and Marshall, Madison has suffered from poor test scores and a declining enrollment.  Why?  I can blame student demographics for "poor" test scores.  And I can blame the district's lax transfer policy for the enrollment decline.  But there may be another factor in play at Madison --its principal, Patricia Thompson. 

Here's part of a story comment from a Madison parent speculating about why Ms Thompson refused to return repeated phone calls to Trib reporter, Jennifer Anderson:

"Since Ms. Thompson's arrival, Madison has declined every single year. She came from St. Mary's - a private, well-funded, elite school, and was not prepared nor interested in the richly diverse culture of Madison, nor capable of handling the large staff, student needs, or funding crises of the past few years. ... PPS has allowed the poor management of this school to contribute to the 35% decline in enrollment. Instead of addressing these issues, Madison will now be turned into a mini-Microsoft experiment."

Now I don't know when Patricia Thompson was hired.  Maybe Vicki had nothing to do with it. But a superintendent with a "can do" attitude should be able to rid the schools of non-performing principals just as easily --perhaps more easily-- than closing or  reconfiguring non-performing schools.   

Don't you think?

Comments

[Wacky Mommy]

The situation at Madison saddens me just as much as the problems at Jeff -- Mad Hi is my alma mater.

[blueteeth]

"Can do" whatever she wants to do without regard to what the community thinks and wants. This is a good thing? The voters said no when they replaced Morgan with Ruth Adkins.

[Mary]

Not replacing incompetent principals is all part of the plan. They WANT schools to decline to the point where a Gates-style "rescue" appears to be the only solution. Madison's story line is just too suspiciously close to Jefferson's to ignore. No wonder so many incompetent, underqualified administrators are put in charge--apparently it's all part of the master plan to privatize and/or close and/or sell off our school buildings.

I fear that, by the time my son gets to high school, there will be nothing "public" left of the Portland Public Schools. And putting Connie van Brunt in charge of the PSF has done nothing to increase my confidence.

I suppose the next thing we'll read in the papers is yet another announcement about yet another stupid-ass "national search" for a new principal for Jefferson. Please pass the barf bag!

[blueteeth]

This kind of sabotage is not without precedent. Recall Reagan putting Ann Gorsuch in charge of the EPA with the unofficial mission of undermining the EPA. I believe she may have ended up in prison. It sounds rather fantastic to claim that folks like Phillips are actually seeking to weaken the public school system, but given her actions the possibility cannot be rejected out of hand.

[Himself]

I tend to discount the conspiracy theories about undermining traditional schools in order to foist creeping privatization onto the district.

But when I stop and analyze the situation, I have ask myself this: If they were actually trying to undermine the public schools could they do it any better?

Looking at the Jefferson Cluster, it is difficult to imagine a better way to totally screw things up, whether by conspiracy, incompetence or malign neglect.

Parallels to national politics can be useful to examine. One of the main tenets of the party holding the executive branch is that government doesn't work to solve people's problems. Lo and behold, with them in power it doesn't (cf. Katrina)!

Likewise, when we elect school board members who don't believe traditional, neighborhood-based schools work, and they in turn hire administrators who share that conviction, it's pretty easy to predict what's going to happen. Pretty easy in retrospect, anyway.

Hopefully we've learned from this.

[Mary]

Maybe "we" have, but I don't think the school board has, esp. after the silly "public hearings" concerning the next superintendent.

Normally I am not into "conspiracy theories" either, considering them a pastime for wackos, but the fact that Madison is going the way of Jefferson, combined with the "new leadership" at PSF, makes the evidence too strong to ignore.

[blueteeth]

I'm sure that Phillips, the new minority on the Board and their guiding light, the Broad Foundation, do not view their paradigm as designed to undermine the public school systems. Instead, their paradigm is couched in phrases like "creating a fully diverse and competitive marketplace for education." They believe that to the extent these neoliberal policies may take away from public schools, they enrich the larger educational environment by fostering a marketplace of ideas and options for consumers of the education "product." It is the Chicago School of Economics applied to education. A deeply conservative impulse that inevitably will shrink and impoverish the supply of public education and further stratify educational opportunities as between societys elites and everyone else. It has the unmistakable stink of republican-type politics.

[Mary]

Did you say "Chicago"? Isn't that where Connie van Brunt is coming from?

[Terry]

The University of Chicago spawned Milton Friedman and the whole "free market" school of economic thought. It was also home to Leo Strauss, the granddaddy of neoconservatism --and the war in Iraq.

And don't forget that Doug Morgan got his PhD from the University of Chicago. People here would do well to be leery of anyone with roots in Chicago.

[Himself]

People here would do well to be leery of anyone with roots in Chicago.

Hey, hold on a minute! Being leery of folks with academic roots at the University of Chicago (an elite private institution) is one thing. But don't tar all of Chicago with that brush.

Chicagoland offers so much more than neo-classical economics and neo-colonial foreign policy. I know a lot of progs with Chicago roots.

[Terry]

Perhaps I should have used the qualifier "academic." But then again there's the Daley legacy (which won't go away) and the '68 Democratic National Convention and the continued erosion and privatization of Chicago's public schools and... well, you know, there's just something about Chicago.

It does have Studs Terkel, though.

[Anne]

I love Studs Terkel! I read his book "Working" from cover to cover when I was in high school. But Terry don't leave out a strong union movement, the roots of the SDS...there is plenty to be respected in Chicago. The first day Daley and the neoliberals instituted the public military schools in Chicago public schools a few years ago there were militant demonstrations against it. We could use that kind of willingness to speak out, that kind of working class consciousness and unity among various sectors of the community here in Portland.

We have lots to learn from the people there who have been battling the neoliberal Renaissance 2010 plan. Portland's progressive movement has a long way to go. I am tired of supposedly progressive people ignoring the destruction of neighborhoods and schools here in Portland, and then telling me building a cob bench is going to help "build community". I am grateful for blogs like this one and Hockey God's "More Hockey, Less War" where there is actually a critique of neoliberalism.

....a little rant from a Detroit transplant

[marcia]

I think the public at large is just not informed about what has been happening to PPS under the "Reform" agenda. Nobody KNOWS! Believe me, I am dumbfounded when even teachers I run into start talking glowingly about VP and how sad it is that she is leaving. Then I start to rant and they run away.

[blueteeth]

Marcia, there are many teachers who see Phillips for exactly what she is--a careerist who put her own personal ambitions above everything else, including the welfare of PPS and our children. Many have had the courage to speak out openly against Phillips in public fora over the past couple of years. This, despite Phillips efforts to suppress any and all dissent under her autocratic reign. While Phillips has made some Machiavellian moves to curry favor with the teacher's union, in truth, her support from the teachers was very thin. Many justifiably despise her.

[blueteeth]

Anne, I hate to say it, but you are right. I learned during the PPS schools wars of ought-six that there is a significant wimp factor among Portland progressives that hampers our ability to fight the wrong-headed neoliberal agendas being advanced in PPS and elsewhere. A kind of complacent liberalism that talks a good game but backs away from the heavy fighting. Confrontation is too distasteful for them, so they'd rather compromise with the devil than risk being bruised. Our civil culture makes Portland a nice place to live in many ways, but also leaves us vulnerable to sharks like Phillips, Wynde, Regan et al. We do have to toughen up if we want to have a voice.

[Mad for Madison]

I agree with the assessment of Thompson at Madison. Another factor that comes into play is the Madison Cluster Area Director, Bev Pruitt. I challenge you to check into her lack of performance and inept handling of the schools in her charge. I witnessed her inability to answer questions about the Rose City Park/Gregory Heights transition, of which she was to oversee. Fortunately, parents voiced their outraged to VP and Pruitt was quietly removed from the process but still keeping her job. Why is PPS quietly hushing folks like Pruitt and allowing them to retain their titles, salaries, and benefits?

[Mary]

Because school administrators are a "good ol' boy (or gal)" society. This kind of stuff has been going on for decades. I know of at least three principals that embezzled money and got off scot-free--not so much as a slap on the wrist. In fact, the guy who got punished was the whistle blower! Nothing new here, I'm afraid.