[Houston Public Schools] HISD, charter school [KIPP] wage an all-out talent war

Houston Chronicle ^ | July 4, 2011 | ERICKA MELLON

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Paul Castro had a promising career in the Houston Independent School District. At 29, he landed his first principal job....

But Castro made an abrupt exit last summer. He got a promotion at KIPP, Houston's fast-growing charter school chain. In a recent interview, Castro said he felt frustrated because he thought Superintendent Terry Grier was reining in his power as a principal.

..."There's no question, if they (KIPP) could grow their own, they wouldn't be recruiting from us," Grier said.

Similar rivalries are playing out in other hotbeds for charter schools. In Ohio, KIPP swiped a young principal from another charter school in Dayton, recalled Terry Ryan, a vice president for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which authorizes charter schools.

"It's clear," Ryan said, "that a great school leader is a hot commodity."

.....Castro, a 16-year HISD employee, left the district a few months after Grier moved him mid-year from Westside High School to Lee High. Castro said he was drafting an improvement plan for the long-troubled campus, but Grier was pushing a standardized reform model.

"What's hard," Castro said, "is when you have a group of leaders who've been raised with a lot of latitude in their decision-making and that gets reined in."

Castro was one of six administrators from HISD's west region to join KIPP in the last two years. He said he's recruited two HISD teachers, one successfully, but former coworkers have approached him as well.

"They say, 'You look better,'" said Castro, 39. "Every day is fun, and I'm working as hard if not harder than I've ever worked in my life. People see that and go, 'I want to play on that team.'".....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"Every day is fun, and I'm working as hard if not harder than I've ever worked in my life. People see that and go, 'I want to play on that team.'.

But millions of teachers want to play for Obama's team and be the union money and muscle behind his reelection.

July 4, 2011: Major teachers union [NEA] endorses Obama's re-election ".....Members of the National Education Association voted to support Obama on Monday at their annual convention in Chicago.

In a statement, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel says Obama and the union share a vision and members wanted early and strong support to help his election.

The endorsement comes a day after Vice President Joe Biden addressed thousands of educators at the convention. The association has 3.2 million members and bills itself as the largest labor union nationwide....."

--July 2, 2011 (CHICAGO) The 14 Wisconsin state senators who left the state to avoid voting on a collective bargaining bill were honored by educators in Chicago Saturday.
Six of them were on hand to receive the Friend of Education Award from the National Education Association..."

It should have been called the "Friend of Teachers Union Award."

Beware Fourth of July Parade: It will make you a Republican! "A recent paper, published by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, claims that “exposure to Fourth of July at an early age” makes young people more likely to later vote Republican. So before venturing out to the local Independence Day parade today, you may want to consider how your kids will cope with “exposure” to this nasty contagion........The general tone of the 40-page paper is that understanding the puffery and “public rituals” associated with Independence Day in America is best left to the professional social scientists who truly know such things..."

[USArmySpouse]

This is exactly how it should be, all over the country. Schools should not only be competing for the best faculty and administrators, but also for the best students.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yes it should be that way everywhere.

And it’s good to read that it can happen.