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Coronavirus Education Mirage List

After 25 lost instructional days, here are the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Fantasyland  educational “standards” being represented by incompetent Elementary School Superintendent Cindy Marten and backed by the corrupt School Board led by Richard “Tricky Dick” Barrera:

  • ZERO planning input or involvement allowed from Parent, Guardian, Student or Community Stakeholders.
  • ALL Parent, Guardian, Student and Community Stakeholders are to blame for any failures
  • No District, State or Federal Testing to measure amount of educational erosion
  • No uniform, published, enforced Teacher performance standards – According to SDUSD/SDEA MOU , no disciplinary action can be taken during this Sandimic.
  • No Class Scheduling standards…decisions left up to individual School/Teacher
  • No meaningful Student grading – grades can only go up.
  • No Student or Teacher attendance standards
  • No verified/audited/published financial plan for thousands of frantically distributed Chromebook Laptops and Hotspots to Students including associated financial risk.
  • No verified/audited/published Computer/Internet access reports for ALL Students by standard socioeconomic category.
  • No verified/audited/published class logon or participation reports for ALL Students by standard socioeconomic category.
  • No verified/audited/published plan or attempt to make up lost instructional days.

As an ongoing feature especially for the Coronavirus Pandemic, we will begin to show the progress, or total lack thereof, of the SDUSD leadership via relevant LOCAL news articles by LOCAL Reporters (if available) that focus on the SDUSD Sandimic.

Below is an interesting article and other information we received and discovered this past week regarding the Coronavirus impact to K-12 education…

BE WELL…TAKE COVID 19 PRECAUTIONS!

School Accountability in the Time of Virus

By: Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Quote from Article:

Let’s assume that nobody is going to end up taking state assessments or end-of-course exams this spring. One way or another, everyone will be waived from those federal obligations and their state-imposed counterparts, mainly at the high-school level. The College Board and ACT are striving to improvise, reschedule, and reformat their volitional tests, such as AP and SAT, and some—maybe a lot—of that will continue for purposes of college admissions and credit. But it’s unlikely that the states, districts, and schools that have been requiring participation in those tests will be able to do so. Nor will they be able to administer third-grade “reading guarantee” tests or the myriad other universal tests that have been playing a central role in results-based accountability for schools, districts, individual students, and sometimes for their teachers.

I agree with Jay Mathews—and, it seems, Diane Ravitch—that “the tests will be back,” presumably next year. They are, as Jay writes, “deeply woven” into the culture of American education, plus mandated by laws that aren’t likely to change. But we obviously can’t hold schools accountable for results over the next three months. Too much is out of their control. This leads to the question: What steps do we hope they—and their districts, networks and states—will take? And are there ways to encourage transparency, if not true accountability, for taking those steps?

And…

Yes, it’s mostly about process, not outcomes, and that always makes me uncomfortable. But everything is uncomfortable now, and schools, districts, and charter networks can fairly be expected to grapple with the discomfort, not just endure it. They’re not off the hook just because it’s a plague year. Arguably, they’re more responsible than ever as the federal government eases regulations and offers waivers. Besides, there might be things we learn during this time of improvisation that could improve our overall approach to accountability when the tests return.

And…

Once schools, districts, and networks manage to deploy online assignments—which so far is happening at radically different velocities around the country, what about simple counts of how many kids are actually completing them? What steps are schools and teachers taking to contact, encourage and assist those who aren’t? It’s easy to conjure revealing metrics that give clues, if not to how well kids are learning, at least to how hard schools are working to see that they try. While we’re at it, what about teacher participation in these efforts? As we know from ESSA-plan struggles, attendance and absenteeism by both students and teachers can be important clues to a school’s organizational health. In the virtual world, of course, a complicating factor is kids and adults who lack access to the requisite technology or don’t know how to operate it. But South Carolina is dispatching Wi-Fi enabled buses to function as internet “hotspots” in low-income neighborhoods, and districts could be shipping laptops or tablets and instructions to the homes of those without. That’s too hefty a price tag for many districts—but an excellent use for whatever federal stimulus dollars end up in the K–12 realm.

And…

How about efforts by schools to schedule IEP conferences (virtual, phone, conference call, Zoom, etc.) with parents of special-needs pupils? How many such conferences occur in a month, how many IEPs get modified to deal with the changed circumstance—and how many such students begin to get the supplemental or remedial instruction that they may need? (And what about something analogous for ELL youngsters?)

How satisfied are students, parents, and teachers with what the district, network, or school is providing them by way of quality opportunities during this trying time? If “school-climate” surveys make sense when school is physically in session, why not their virtual equivalent now?

What about planning for tomorrow? What steps are schools taking to do better at all this in May than in April? What are their plans for summer learning? (Two sets of plans at this point, methinks, one for physical summer school, another for summer online, including both catch-up and move-ahead.) What about planning for how to resume regular school—God willing—in the fall? John Bailey predicts more closures next year, so two sets of plans are needed here, too. And the planner will need to factor in whatever adjustments are dictated by the present shutdown and whatever improvements can be made based on the experience that we’re all living through.

And…

That’s not the end of it, either. Not every test is entirely out of the question, even now. The kinds that are routinely taken online, whether NWEA’s MAP tests or the Smarter-Balanced adaptive assessments, don’t have to be taken in a schoolroom. Particularly when they’re the sort of test, such as MAP usually is, that’s given several times a year and thus shows growth within the year, not only do practitioners get valuable formative feedback from the results but districts (or charter networks) can also use them to gauge the gains that are (or aren’t) being made by students in a particular school, grade level, or subgroup.

Places with a district-wide or network-wide curricula can also devise their own on-line formative and summative assessments if they haven’t already done so, keyed to their curricula. Obviously these, too, must be amenable to being taken at home. If newly devised, they won’t yield growth or effectiveness data for schools, but they’ll at least provide an end-of-year status report for schools and subgroups, against which to plan what needs to happen over the summer and next year.

And…

Beyond online testing are many rich and revealing—and educationally beneficial—forms of student portfolios, projects, research papers, book reports, and other evidence of learning and accomplishment. In normal times, these are usually deployed—and evaluated—mainly by individual teachers. But if they’re submitted online, they could easily be evaluated by others, too: other teachers, math specialists, curriculum directors, and more. Start by asking simply whether such student work is being turned in? Is every school in the district or network tabulating receipt of such assignments by X percent of its students, then cross-tabbing by grade level and student group and if not why not and what’s being done about it? How about teachers evaluating each other’s students’ work and somebody monitoring and moderating for consistency of assignment difficulty and evaluative criteria?

And…

It’s likely too late in the year, and school and district circumstances are too different, for states to mandate much (perhaps any) of this. But motivated district and network leaders, as well as individual school heads, could make a lot of it happen, and back-office staff could remotely tabulate and analyze the data.

Accountability this year will be different than any time in the past quarter century. But it isn’t dead. It’s simply engaged in social distancing.

District Deeds Synopsis:

An excellent article that underscores the need for REAL transparency and accountability by school district leadership.

We see the following as the KEY quote from the article:

They’re not off the hook just because it’s a plague year. Arguably, they’re more responsible than ever as the federal government eases regulations and offers waivers. Besides, there might be things we learn during this time of improvisation that could improve our overall approach to accountability when the tests return.

District Deeds response:

ABSOLUTELY!!!

All the inept and financially/operationally incompetent SDUSD Senior management can produce are weakly deployed distance learning initiatives that favor the wealthiest Stakeholders with no grading, attendance or equity standards, no performance measurements and ZERO transparency as illustrated by the SDUSD Coronavirus Education Mirage List.

There are a number of items in the article that are virtually NON_EXISTENT in the minimal SDUSD distance learning disaster.

A few examples:

  • Once schools, districts, and networks manage to deploy online assignments—which so far is happening at radically different velocities around the country, what about simple counts of how many kids are actually completing them? What steps are schools and teachers taking to contact, encourage and assist those who aren’t? 

The SDUSD has produce absolutely ZERO verifiable data that proves how many Students are completing online assignments.  The “steps” to “contact, encourage and assist” those students are not standardized in any way from school to school and likely not standardized from Teacher to Teacher in the same school…and according to the SDEA/SDUSD Distance-Learning-MOU-4.2.2020, Teachers will not be held accountable for any of it.

  • As we know from ESSA-plan struggles, attendance and absenteeism by both students and teachers can be important clues to a school’s organizational health.

There are no SDUSD distance learning attendance or absenteeism standards for Students and Teachers for the rest of this school year.  Obviously under inexperienced Marten and corrupt Barrera, the “organizational health’ of the SDUSD is on a ventilator in the educational ICU. 

  • How about efforts by schools to schedule IEP conferences (virtual, phone, conference call, Zoom, etc.) with parents of special-needs pupils? How many such conferences occur in a month, how many IEPs get modified to deal with the changed circumstance—and how many such students begin to get the supplemental or remedial instruction that they may need? (And what about something analogous for ELL youngsters?)

For the dysfunctional SDUSD under incompetent ESS Marten, there are only minimal  standards on providing an IEP for SOME students.  Here are the most current Distance Learning Special Education Guidelines:

As you can see, this SDUSD Special Education (SPED) PROPAGANDA document makes a large number of commitments with virtually ZERO associated reporting or tracking document protocols that PROVE that any of the content is actually being performed!

Here is the section regarding documentation:

“One important aspect of this process will be to document interactions, progress, and needs. Staff will maintain logs on student contact, note needs of each family, consider feedback, and reflect on what is working and what needs to be shifted. School staff will document contact with families in regard to distance learning plans which are not part of an IEP.”

In other words, to measure actual adhereance to the IEP standards district-wide someone will have to manually go through logs by every counselor in the district to determines level of IEP compliance for the SDUSD.

RIDICULOUS!  It will never happen!

On top of that, no special COVID-19 Pandemic instructions for non-SPED IEP Students has been provided to any SDUSD personnel or Families.

There are no IEP standards for for English Language Learners (ELL)

There are no IEP standards for non-SPED struggling students.

In fact, there aren’t even any standards about what SDUSD personnel need to actually SHOW UP for the virtual IEP meetings.

In SDUSD IEP meetings District Deeds has had with our own children, typically the SDUSD personnel attending includes the Counselor, multiple Teachers, a school site Administrator and, if necessary, the School Nurse and Psychologist.

Through our SDUSD sources we have discovered that in this Marten SDUSD Sandimic, only the Counselor and one Teacher MIGHT attend the IEP with the Student and Family.

So typical of the Marten/Barrera SDUSD…LONG on Propaganda…SHORT on Delivery!!!

  • How satisfied are students, parents, and teachers with what the district, network, or school is providing them by way of quality opportunities during this trying time? If “school-climate” surveys make sense when school is physically in session, why not their virtual equivalent now?

Since there has been virtually ZERO community participation in developing the SDUSD Distance Learning disaster, why would ANY SDUSD Stakeholder expect that the corrupt Marten and Barrera would create, publish or provide the “school-climate or “district climate” results of this Marten/Barrera  Distance Learning disaster?

Again…LONG on Propaganda…SHORT on Delivery!!!

  • What about planning for tomorrow? What steps are schools taking to do better at all this in May than in April? What are their plans for summer learning? (Two sets of plans at this point, methinks, one for physical summer school, another for summer online, including both catch-up and move-ahead.) What about planning for how to resume regular school—God willing—in the fall? 

Incompetent SDUSD leadership had no “planning for tomorrow” disaster recovery plan in place for the Coronavirus Pandemic (or any other disaster…fires, earthquakes, etc) in the the $1,4 BILLION SDUSD budget.  The overwhelmed, over-matched, incompetent Elementary School Superintendent (ESS) Cindy Marten took SIX WEEKS to BEGIN distance learning so it is IMPOSSIBLE to compare the 4 days of April to the Month of May.  At this point (5/3/20), there are ZERO “summer learning” plans in place by Marten/Barrera or even any preliminary discussions in place with Stakeholders regarding it.

This lack of planning for the rest of this school year, the Summer and the 2020/21 school year will continue to force Students, Families, Teachers, Principals, and Staff to stay on a ventilator in the SDUSD educational ICU due to TOTAL Leadership incompetence.

  • That’s not the end of it, either. Not every test is entirely out of the question, even now. The kinds that are routinely taken online, whether NWEA’s MAP tests or the Smarter-Balanced adaptive assessments, don’t have to be taken in a schoolroom. Particularly when they’re the sort of test, such as MAP usually is, that’s given several times a year and thus shows growth within the year, not only do practitioners get valuable formative feedback from the results but districts (or charter networks) can also use them to gauge the gains that are (or aren’t) being made by students in a particular school, grade level, or subgroup.   Places with a district-wide or network-wide curricula can also devise their own on-line formative and summative assessments if they haven’t already done so, keyed to their curricula.

Lack of attendance, performance standards and tracking for any and all Students and Techers and the lack of “district-wide or network-wide curricula” has DOOMED ALL Students, Families, Teachers, Principals, and Staff to go through this painful SDUSD Sandimic with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to show for it!

  • It’s likely too late in the year, and school and district circumstances are too different, for states to mandate much (perhaps any) of this. But motivated district and network leaders, as well as individual school heads, could make a lot of it happen, and back-office staff could remotely tabulate and analyze the data.

This statement by the Mr. Finn, Fordham Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow and President Emeritus is a HOPEFUL statement but unfortunately UNREALISTIC in the dysfunctional, toxic SDUSD work environment under Marten and Barrera.

Why would ANY SDUSD employee put their job on the line to suggest ANY of the options provided by Mr Finn when the vindictive Marten would do her best to FIRE THEM for doing so?

As many current and former SDUSD employees have told us about the toxic work environment under poorly qualified and professionally paranoid Marten…

“I keep my head down and my mouth shut” – SDUSD Employee

A toxic work environment that prevents any possibility for the development of REAL “motivated district and network leaders”, NOT just under-qualified CRONIES and SUPPLICANTS of Marten and Barrera.

It was very easy for District Deeds to fully embrace ALL of the excellent suggestions by Mr. Finn but very hard, if not impossible, to see ANY of the suggestions being implemented by the current incompetent and corrupt SDUSD Senior leadership.

Since ESS Cindy Marten was improperly appointed, the SDUSD has had MILLIONS of dollars to cover up her gross incompetence.

$123 million Budget Deficit?

No Problem!  Hire local reporters to work for the SDUSD and provide “scoops” to reporter supplicants in the local news media to cover up financial malfeasance.

Allowing sexual predators on every SDUSD campus?

No Problem!  Pump millions of dollars into both in-house and outsourced legal representative to financially CRUSH poor, underprivileged and pay off whistleblower investigators.

Allowing Students of color to fail miserably on performance tests…

No Problem!  Graduate as many as you can via unproctored credit recovery classes and have them pay for remedial classes IF they can get into college.

But now there is no way for Marten, Barrera and their cronies to hide.

What this Coronavirus Pandemic has exposed to ALL SDUSD Stakeholders is the fact that ALL of our Students are being irrevocably damaged DAILY by the current SDUSD Superintendent Cindy Marten, “Tricky Dick” Barrera, the current Trustees…Kevin Beiser, John Evans, Sharon Whitehurst Payne, and Mike McQuary.

This Coronavirus Pandemic has exposed the fact that NONE of the group listed above are capable of successfully leading a large school district like the SDUSD.

The sooner ALL SDUSD Stakeholders realize that fact and take action though elections and peaceful protests, the sooner ALL of our Students will have the chance to fulfill the dreams of every SDUSD family for their children.

#martensgottago

Now for our Quote of the Week:

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it” – Albert Einstein

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ESS Marten Sandimic Motto:  

Hardly Work, Act Blind, Lie Big, Make Excuses

#martensgottago

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IF

  • Your family has been injured by the San Diego Unified School District, go to the District Deeds Complaint Forms page to find instructions to fight for your Civil Rights!
  • YOU ARE TIRED OF THE COVER UPS AND LIES BY SUPT. CINDY MARTEN…

Please Click the Link Below and sign the Petition Today and READ the COMMENTS to Support the REMOVAL of Marten by SDUSD Stakeholders!

FIRE San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten Immediately!

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