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Posted on 10/07/2003 10:03:09 PM PDT by DMDTX
News Release: Monday, September 29, 2003 CONTACT: Jimmy Kilpatrick: 281-687-6728 or George Scott: 281-703-2163
Academic Preparation & Performance Audits Monday, September 29, 2003 EducationNews.org
(HOUSTON, TEXAS) - The owner of EducationNews.org – an influential internet publication – announced today that it has identified the Fort Bend I.S.D. as the subject of its first independent, comprehensive audit evaluating the effectiveness of the district’s curriculum strategies in the academic preparation and performance of its students.
“EducationNews.org has assembled an impressive team of certified teachers, administrators and academic experts to assist us in developing a model process that will serve as a national template allowing media and parents to hold public education truly accountable for its conduct and performance,” Jimmy Kilpatrick said.
Kilpatrick said the name of the project provides insight into the mission of the audit: “District – Campus – Classroom: Academic Preparation & Performance Audits of Curriculum Strategies.”
“Parents deserve the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from public education. Unfortunately, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and school districts such as Fort Bend I.S.D. have spent the last decade running from that responsibility,” Kilpatrick said. “Moreover, the TEA and public school districts in general have been far too willing to participate in willful manipulation of the truth.”
Kilpatrick said that it is an unfortunate fact that the modern school board has too often become a public relations extension of its administration. “We hope that one of the benefits of this project will be to give school board members independent access to information that administrators generally do not share with them,” Kilpatrick said.
“EducationNews.org has designed and will implement a project to bypass these sophisticated government public relations schemes put in place by administrators to get data and answers that parents deserve,” Kilpatrick said. “We look forward to assisting school board members who are not hopelessly chained to blind support of the district administration.”
“The sad and tragic truth is that parents who trust government officials to tell them the truth about their children’s academic skills may well be making the mistakes of their children’s lifetimes,” he added.
“As we begin this project, I hope that classroom teachers throughout the Fort Bend I.S.D. will understand or come to understand that we understand they are often the unfortunate victims (along with our children) of the bureaucratic nonsense that the State’s perverted use of testing has imposed upon them and their students,” Kilpatrick said. “We, like most teachers, understand the cynical abuse of children and teachers that the so-called “Leave No Child Behind” effort is inflicting upon them and our children.”
“The days that Fort Bend I.S.D. will be permitted to sit on information that parents deserve and need to make decisions on behalf of their children are over,” Kilpatrick said. “Our first mission will be to obtain data. The District will not be able to stop that effort because the data we will seek has already been determined to be public information in other districts such as Houston I.S.D.”
While EducationNews.org will manage the project, the professional project director will be Dr. Carl Shaw, a psychometrician with extensive experience in student testing and evaluation. During his public career, he served as director of testing for Houston I.S.D. and Fort Worth I.S.D. while serving on dozens of committees formed by the Texas Education Agency. He warned the TEA early in the TAAS testing program that there were serious flaws in the testing methodology.
Dr. Shaw is currently in the private sector working with among others a company that has multi-national operations involved in testing and qualifying teachers and nurses who want to immigrate legally to the United States. In addition, he provides consulting services to foreign universities and companies in similar capacities.
Kilpatrick said that the other members of his project team will include:
Public policy researcher and author Certified Elementary School teacher who has become a national consultant on training reading teachers. A Certified Secondary Teacher in Language Arts who is also certified to teach math in grades 4-8 A Certified School Administrator with job experience at both elementary and secondary schools as well as a certified secondary teacher in Language Arts. Various academic university professors with skills targeted to effectively assist the implementation of this project.
“I encourage parents in Fort Bend I.S.D. to follow the developments and even become involved in this effort by accessing the EducationNews.org website. The home page will have a very identifiable direct link to the Fort Bend project,” Kilpatrick said.
“In a perfect world, school boards would require administrators to do what we are about to do. However, the Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas Association of School Administrators have been very successful in the process of intimidating many board members,” Kilpatrick said. “Our first mission is to help parents. In helping parents, we hope that will also encourage school board members to assume a more independent role in the performance of their duties.”
(Excerpt) Read more at educationnews.org ...
Links:
http://www.educationnews.org/Academic-Preparation-&-Performance-Audits.htm
http://www.educationnews.org/Project-Link-FBISD.htm
http://www.educationnews.org/
Also of interest but in no relation to the efforts of EducationNews.org is a student ran website about Fort Bend ISD http://www.fortbendisdsucks.com/ where students have detailed the problems with their education and problems with the district administration.
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