Ensuring equity, equality

Originally printed May 24, 2011.

To provide some perspective for the Press-Citizen's four-day series on the Iowa City School District, I turned to Ross Wilburn, director of equity for the district and an member of the Iowa City Council.

The following is an edited account of our conversation.

» JCC: A few years ago, the Iowa Department of Education cited the district because it determined that Roosevelt Elementary was racially and socio-economically isolated. The board and administration responded by opening Borlaug Elementary and ensuring that such demographics are considered when drawing the new boundary lines. But the 2009 discussion about Roosevelt not only impacted the immediate Miller-Orchard neighborhood, but it also contributed directly to last year's redistricting debates. Did the state require the district to take this level of action?

RW: The state and federal governments put a number of goals out there, but they also recognize that these types of issues will continue to challenge a district. They just want to make sure that we are addressing these issues.

They want to make sure that -- whenever the district is making a decision about constructing a new building, redrawing a school boundary or making changes to the feeder system -- we consider the effects on the racial and socio-economic makeup of the schools. They want to make sure such conversations are taking place.

» JCC: How is the district dealing with the federal civil rights compliance review that found the district has a disproportionate number of black students in special education?

RW: Since 2008, after being notified by the state about the problem, the district has been working with the state to look at the data to evaluate the assessment process for all students.
We've also implemented some universal screening and early intervention programs. That's helped address some of our instructional decision-making to ensure all students are benefiting from certain early supports, education strategies and assessments.

» JCC: One of the district's goals is to ensure that every school in the district offers similar educational opportunities. Does that close the door to individualized instruction at one school and not at other schools?

RW: You have to remember that my focus is equity; it isn't education. I'm looking at statutory issues and law. And equity -- or equality -- requires different approaches to different things.
Equity can mean "equal and the same." But it also refers to efforts to address historically disadvantaged populations and to provide resources and training to help them fulfill the district's mission by becoming responsible and independent learners.

With the GAP school programs, for example, we are trying to provide certain additional supports for low income and low achieving students -- guided reading, math and science resources, etc. That means we're providing resources that aren't going to be the same at every school.

It's a tension that has to be decided at the local level -- by the school board and by the community.

» JCC: How do you think the district can best move forward after last year's redistricting debates?

RW: We need people to step forward, to get engaged in the process and to run for School Board. It will be important to have a good deal of diversity on the School Board. I'm not just talking about race. But a diversity of ideas, temperament and expertise. The board will need to be willing to approach these problems for the benefits of all students in the community.

It's also important to get people to come out and vote in this election -- whether they have children in the district or not -- and not to wait until there is a hard issue in front of them.
You see the same thing at City Council meetings. The meetings will be packed during discussions of hard issues. But budget time is also a critical time, and few people come to the budget hearings -- even though those hearings have tremendous impact on what happens in town and what projects get funded in terms of infrastructure and other issues.

It's hard to be involved and informed on every issue. But that's why you have to take advantage of staff and experts.

It's also important to not assume that X percentage of free and reduced lunch rates means a certain level of bullying/violence/trouble/low achievement are present. We have been and always will be a high achieving district, despite the FRL numbers. If we can rally around the importance of educating all our students, provide support for those with life's challenges and draw upon the strength of all that diversity can present to us, we will become an even stronger community.

» JCC: Given your position in both Iowa City government and district administration, how could relations improve between the city and school district?

RW: The Iowa City Council is another area in which some folks need to come forward.
There are challenges involving the question of where affordable housing options are constructed and made available in the community. I've long been a supporter of inclusionary zoning as a way to try and diversify all of the neighborhoods in the city, but we can't seem to get agreement about that particular issue. And that's a struggle.

The planning staff does try to keep in touch with the issues related to where the new buildings will go. And I try to keep the administrators aware of certain development projects that are in the works.

The district's boundary committee struggled with that. But they also were looking to take ownership of all the youth in our community -- which is in line with the district's mission.

Press-Citizen Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com.

Meeks: Superintendent must hit ground running

Originally printed April 24, 2010.

The third and final candidate for superintendent of the Iowa City School District -- Brad Meeks, superintendent of Farmington, Minn., schools -- brought the conversation back to the concepts of "trust" Thursday.

Answering a question about why his district's administration has such a good working relationship with the teachers' union, Meeks explained that "the big thing is trust." When Meeks arrived in Farmington back in 2003, there was a hostile relationship between the union and several previous administrators. The contract negotiations, Meeks said, were done with administration and union representatives in different rooms, and the emotions tended to run high on both sides.

After hiring a new human resources officer, Meeks said he worked on improving the relationship so that the negotiations could be done in the same room. And after he had enough "trust" in his administrative staff -- and they had earned the "trust" of the union leadership -- he could be confident that negotiations would go on respectfully and efficiently.

Meeks has been a somewhat controversial figure in Farmington. Back in 2005, the Farmington school district and city had a dispute about the location of a new high school. The district found a location on the north end of the district, but the city wanted a location closer to the center of town to attract business. A lawsuit eventually was filed and went to mediation in 2006, which resulted in the school being built in the originally proposed location.

(On Thursday, Meeks said that the issue has been dealt with, relations with the city have improved over the past few years and the community has moved on.)

Meeks was the only superintendent who brought up how his district had managed to have three schools improve their test scores enough to be removed from the Schools in Need of Assistance list. In answer what steps were taken to accomplish this feat, Meeks praised the quality of his staff and said that the district pumped more resources into the schools, added K-12 math specialists and increased the number of times that students were tested so that the educators could know which areas needed to be improved.

When answering, Meeks didn't always offer the most polished responses. Yet he was comfortable about being silent for a few seconds to consider his answer. And while there were a few times when he continued talking past when he actually had something to say, for the most part he seemed to be providing a thoughtful answer based on his experience in the 6,400-student Farmington district.

After the board exhausted its questions, Meeks asked a very practical question of his own: What do you want a superintendent to accomplish in the first six months?

The answers from the board members highlighted how difficult a transition it is going to be to go from Lane Plugge to any new superintendent. After all, Plugge has served as superintendent for 11 years -- a longer tenure than anyone on the board. Plugge has become the institutional memory for the board.

Thus it was made clear Thursday that the board really needs a new superintendent who can hit the ground running. One who -- after a short period of getting to know the personalities and problems of the district -- will offer practical steps toward solutions.

The school board is scheduled to discuss the new superintendent in a closed session at 6 p.m. Sunday in the Central Administration Office. Meeks' interview -- along with the interviews of the two other finalists, Steve Murley and Mark Bezek -- will broadcast all weekend on ICCSD Cable Channel 21.

Press-Citizen Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 887-5435.

Murley: Clarifying the roles of boards, superintendents

Originally printed April 23, 2010.

If Steve Murley gets hired as the new superintendent of the Iowa City School District, he'll get a lot of fresh data for his dissertation research: Exploring how and why superintendents get evaluated by a lay board while every other educator in the public school system gets evaluated by educators.

"That's an awkward role for both (the board and the superintendent)," Murley said during Wednesday's public interview with the Iowa City School Board.

Murley, who hopes to finish his studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison in December, said his research suggests that school board members address this awkward role by focusing more on the areas in which they have some level of expertise. And as a result, superintendents tend to get evaluated -- whether during hiring decisions or during reviews -- more for their role as an operational leader rather than their role as an educational leader.

As the superintendent of the Wausau (Wis.) School District, Murley saw those two leadership roles -- operational and educational -- collide last year when the executive committee of the Wausau Education Association held a "no confidence" vote in his leadership during the bargaining process. Murley explained Wednesday that cutbacks from state funding -- as well as changes in the state's terms of compensation and caps on district revenue -- led to a perfect storm in which Murley asked for salary freezes, retirements and extra work from all the district's bargaining units.

The tension surely wasn't helped by Murley having spent years as the HR director for the district before becoming superintendent. Because Murley had been the one who handled grievances and established work schedules and rules, he knew how to use the contract effectively -- some union folks may even say deviously -- and the issue was resolved with the teachers agreeing to lower than normal raises along with some retirements.

On Wednesday, Murley said that, once the contract issue was settled, the reconciliation process was able to begin. He has held regular joint leadership meetings with the administration team, the board and the union to "have some very difficult discussions" that are allowing the district to "move forward."

Throughout the interview, Murley emphasized the need for clarifying roles -- after all, in the absence of clear responsibilities, people will just do "whatever they think is right" -- as well as the need to build relationships by putting angry parties in the same room together and working through issues.

But more important than any single answer was the fact that Murley answered all the board's questions both substantially and succinctly. Board members seemed to be scrambling to ask additional questions after their list was exhausted. There even was time for Murley to ask board members to state their vision for what the district would be like in 10 or 15 years. (And the interview still managed to conclude about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled!)

In that short time, Murley showed he knows how important it is to develop communication systems during times of calm to clarify people's roles during times of crisis.

He knows that sometimes, when you are hearing from one section of the community, you have a hard time hearing all the voices from other sections of the community.

And he knows how important it is to move slowly with major changes so that enough people -- especially district employees -- can be involved on the front end of the discussions. (He has learned that, when seeking out employees' input, it's important to make sure it's about issues that are actually "meaningful to them.")

Despite the many operational and educational successes Murley touted Wednesday, the Wausau area still is very different community from the Iowa City area. Murley oversees 8,500 students, 1,200 employees and a $112 million budget. In contrast, outgoing superintendent Lane Plugge oversees about 11,900 students, about 1,600 employees and a roughly $120 million budget.

Whether or not the Iowa City School Board decides Murley is the right fit for the job here -- as opposed to Brad Meeks, who interviewed Thursday, or Mark Bezek, who interviewed Tuesday -- it will be interesting how Murley describes this particular interview process in his dissertation.

Press-Citizen Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435.

Bezek: Searching for 'faith, trust and transparency'

Originally printed April 22, 2010.

Some of the people who keep track of such things tell me that Mark Bezek hit all the right notes Tuesday when it came to addressing the types of educational research and management literature that school district superintendents are supposed to keep track of. With all that listing of 20 management pillars, with all that explanation of what it means to be a "change agent," the current superintendent of Elk River, Minn., Schools managed to show that, in his words, "I know enough to be dangerous in a lot of things."

But if Bezek did hit all the right notes, it was sometimes hard to follow the melody. He had his motifs of "faith, trust and transparency" and his counter melodies about "letting good people do their job," but he never established a strong chord structure as he improvised responses to such questions as:

• What are your strengths? (Assembling a team of good people and building relationships with them so that, when brainstorming with senior staff, "I want to be the dumbest one there.")

• What are your weaknesses? (Bezek said he would face a learning curve to understand the ins and outs of Iowa school finance and would be looking to administrative staff to help him get up to speed.)

• How have you handled both uninvolved and rogue school board members? (Because superintendents can't "discipline" board members, Bezek works through the local board leadership and encourages board members to take advantage of professional development that "teaches them what their roles are." After all, "you can't have happy campers without happy counselors.")

• Give some examples of how you have communicated well with the public? (Since Bezek has implemented and improved a communication department in Elk River, he said the community now "loves the communication from the district.")

• How have you implemented new programs? (Bezek went back to his time in Fergus Falls, Minn., to talk about how he implemented an alternative education program and how he worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a magnet school program at the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center.

• How do you measure the success? ("We're data freaks. We don't just collect data. We use data in a ... very personal manner.")

• How do you prepare a board for politically sensitive issues? (By giving hard data and explaining how the issue relates to best practices or to the best of what's happening in other communities.)

• How do you address achievement gaps and growing racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity? (Elk River, while otherwise "mirroring" Iowa City, has not experienced those changes to the same degree yet. But they are preparing for such changes by implementing cultural competency curriculum and by realizing they need to address new families through direct outreach efforts.)

Although Bezek's answers might have included all the buzzwords on people's various check lists, Tuesday's interview still matters less than checking the extent to which Bezek's words actually match up to what he accomplished from 2001 to 2006 as superintendent of Fergus Falls Public Schools and since 2006 in Elk River. And that double checking is all the more important because Bezek responded to many of the Iowa City-focused questions by acknowledging, "I haven't studied your district enough to be able to answer that."

Bezek's answers also highlight the learning curve each of the three finalists will face because the school board couldn't find one single finalist who actually works in Iowa and understands the idiosyncrasies of Iowa school finance.

The school board met Wednesday with the second finalist, Steve Murley, superintendent of the Wausau, Wis., School District. And the public interview for the final finalist -- Brad Meeks, superintendent of Farmington, Minn., School District -- will begin at 6:15 p.m. today.

Press-Citizen Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435.

Our View -- Questions linger after Hanson's resignation

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Feb. 26, 2010.

The Iowa City School Board unanimously accepted City High Principal Mark Hanson's resignation earlier this week, but community members still want to know exactly why Hanson is leaving ("Board accepts resignation," Feb. 24).

Dozens of City High parents and students attended Tuesday's school board meeting to ask questions and to urge the board to reject Hanson's resignation. But after the board went into closed session -- at Hanson's request -- those parents and students were left disappointed and angry.

Their confusion is understandable. If Hanson had submitted his letter of resignation a few years ago, very few people would have questioned the reason. Back during the 2007-08 school year, for example, City High was experiencing a spike in the number of incidents of student-to-student violence. Parents and other community members were demanding a restoration of order and repeatedly pointing out that a school administrator's No. 1 priority is maintaining a safe learning environment.

If Hanson's resignation had come during the worst of those problems, then the reason would have seemed obvious. But the number of violent incidents has dropped over the past years as Hanson and district administrators clamped down on student movement in the halls during class periods, implemented no-tolerance policies, expanded the off-site behavior problems classroom and opened a Welcome Center at City High to help students new to the district learn what kinds of behavior are completely unacceptable.

That's why it's unclear as to why, in June of 2009, the district gave Hanson only a one-year contract. That's why it's unclear as to why, in September of 2009, Hanson informed City High staff he would be leaving his position after the 2009-10 school year. And that's why it's unclear why Hanson agreed to submit a letter of resignation rather than force his termination and then appeal it to the school board.

Hanson's supporters on Tuesday said they're angry because they think Hanson has done a good job during his tenure as principal. They also could rightly assume that, because Hanson is an important public employee, they have a right -- as citizens and taxpayers -- to participate in the decision and to know what exactly is going on.

Unfortunately, they don't have such a right under Iowa law -- or at least not to the extent that they want. As in most states, job performance records are specifically exempted from disclosure under the Iowa open records law. And one of the reasons the Iowa open meetings law allows public boards to go into closed session is "to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual's reputation and that individual requests a closed session."

School district officials have repeatedly declined to answer key questions about Hanson's departure, saying it is a personnel issue. And Hanson himself made a written request that the board discuss his resignation in closed session.

That's why there is no official, public explanation for why Hanson is leaving City High. Last fall, Hanson's mother said Hanson was being forced to leave because of a column he wrote that appeared in the Press-Citizen in May. In that column, Hanson wrote how boundary changes were needed to balance high school enrollment and distribution of students qualifying for free- and reduced-lunch programs.

But, as Associate Superintendent Jim Behle said at the time, district policy forbids staff members from being punished for "expressing an ethical dissent." If Hanson were being punished for submitting the column, it would be a violation of that district policy -- suggesting that Hanson could make a case for appeal. But because the board decided to begin the current redistricting process within a few months after the column was printed, it seems unlikely that it was a major factor in the decision for a one-year contract.

Given the restrictions in state law, we're not surprised that officials are not answering key questions. To do so would be irresponsible and could expose the district to potential litigation. Hanson, however, is free to comment or refuse to comment as he so chooses.

We've likewise asked the district to release the public documents related to the resignation -- namely, any settlements between the district and Hanson. We'll print that information when it becomes available.

Our View - Why school boards need to address poverty rates

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Feb. 6, 2010.

"In discussing the difficulties of making high-poverty schools work, it is important to draw a distinction between the problems associated with concentrations of school poverty and beliefs about the ability of poor children to learn. Many people confuse the first with the second. Evidence suggests that children from all socioeconomic groups can learn to high levels if given the right environment. High-poverty schools, however, do not normally provide the positive learning environment that children need and deserve." -- Richard D. Kahlenberg, "Turnaround Schools That Work: Moving Beyond Separate but Equal" (2009).

In the week since the Iowa City School District announced that its redistricting committee would be bringing "Scenario 2" for public forums, we've heard a number of questions such as:

• "Why are they focusing on tearing down 'good schools' rather than on building up 'bad schools'?"

• "Why don't they focus on improving the performance at the underachieving schools rather than messing up what seems to be working at other schools throughout the district?"

• "Why do they want to bring down schools that are performing in the top 90th percentile so that all the schools in the district wind up performing in a mediocre 70th percentile?"

Although we understand why many parents are concerned about so many boundary changes happening so quickly, we still agree that the time has come for the district to call for a districtwide boundary change. With eastside elementaries facing capacity issues and with west-side schools continuing to experience growth, major boundary shifts seem inevitable.

And after reporting the test scores and other data for the various elementary schools for the past few years, we agreed with the board's decision last year to take one step toward addressing an "achievement gap" between the schools by including "demographic considerations" as one of the criteria used for redrawing those lines.

But we also think it's necessary to have those demographic considerations (specifically free and reduced lunch rates) be balanced against three other criteria:

• keeping neighborhoods together when possible,

• using building space efficiently and

• not adding to the district's operational costs.

That way, it would be impossible for the committee or the board to recommend any large-scale "forced busing" plan that would severely disrupt neighborhoods and send transportation costs through the roof.

Balancing poverty numbers

"Scenario 2," at best, is a good starting template for showing what happens when school officials try to balance those criteria for the Iowa City School District. The scenario would help make school boundaries a little more geographically coherent, but it also includes some features that seem "unfair" and that smack a little too much of "forced busing" -- especially when it comes to reassigning the sections of Lemme to Wood and reassigning sections of Wood to Lemme.

It is a fair question to ask why the scenario includes such a busing swap between Lemme and Wood yet offers no similar busing strategy to increase the lunch-assisted rates at Wickham and Shimek. But after acknowledging that unfairness, it's still important to keep in mind that we're talking about relatively short distances between the eastside schools. While there has been a lot of talk about students "having to be bused across town," the busing distances involved in the proposal having nothing in common with massive distances that some families have been forced to travel in large metropolitan areas.

"This is a 15-minute town," Peter Hlebowitsh, UI professor of teaching and learning, said of Iowa City. "It really isn't overwhelmingly onerous to get your kid from one school from the next."

Hlebowitsh agrees that changing the demographics is a "necessary" step if the district wants to keep addressing the "achievement gap." But he also said changing demographics is not a "sufficient" step and that the district must still place an emphasis on preschool, after-school and summer learning opportunities.

Noga O'Connor, a visiting assistant professor of education at UI, goes even further when discussing what the education research says about the benefits of improving the balance of demographics.

"Even if we change nothing else -- not hiring more teachers, not providing additional teacher training, not making curricular changes -- we still will see results," she said.

O'Connor said studies show that students from higher-poverty schools will perform better when moved to a more mixed environment, and those students will not bring down the performance of the "strong students" already there. Although a school's overall scores may dip for a while, the performance of individual students -- and the district as a whole -- will be improved.

Luckily, the Iowa City area schools with high concentrations of poverty aren't suffering from inadequate facilities or lesser quality teachers. If anything, the district has been throwing everything it has -- including some of its more energetic, creative and idealistic teachers -- into working to help disadvantaged children not get left behind.

And when good teachers have a few students who are academically behind or challenged by severe poverty, they can work with the students individually to help them catch up. But when those numbers start ratcheting up to more than half of the class, then even the best of teachers face a struggle.

As education scholar Richard Kahlenberg writes, "Research has long found that integration is not a zero-sum game: low-income students can benefit from economically integrated schools and middle-class achievement does not decline so long as a strong core of middle-class children are present."

Endogenous effect

Not everyone agrees that benefits of improving the balance of poverty numbers would outweigh the social costs involved with so utterly disrupting longstanding school communities in the Iowa City area.

Gerard Rushton, the UI geography professor who has been working with the district on enrollment projections since the 1980s, said he is concerned that implementing the boundary changes proposed in "Scenario 2" would be undermined by the "endogenous effect." That is, the decisions made by the board to solve a perceived problem may, in fact, actually cause or worsen the problem.

District officials, for example, have proposed changing the boundaries because they want to create a better balance of poverty rates. But the changes may not have the desired effect, Rushton said, because they could trigger a new round of "white flight" in which more affluent families decide to open enroll out of the higher-poverty schools to which they've been reassigned -- especially if those newly assigned schools are "in need of assistance."

And even if the poverty rates were evened out successfully among the schools, Rushton said that implementing Scenario 2 would still undermine the benefits that are supposed to come with successfully balancing out the rates.

After all, educators focus on lunch-assisted rates only as a means of improving the educational environment offered in a school. This is because:

• Recent court opinions have upheld the right of districts to use socio-economic factors -- as opposed to race -- as a means of determining what students go to what school.

• Because there are the strong associational links between behavioral problems -- including poorer academic performance -- in schools with a high concentration of children who live in poverty.

• Because there are strong associational links between academic success in low-poverty schools and higher rates of parental involvement. (A 2008 study by the National Center for Education Statistics, for example, found that low-income parents are four times less likely than more-affluent parents to be members of PTA and only half as likely to volunteer in the classroom or to serve on a committee.)

Rushton said he thinks the process should include a fifth criterion asking the committee to recognize the value of the traditional communities and educational structures that have been built around schools for decades. If those long-standing ties are severed by sending families to other schools -- even to nearby ones -- then all that collected institutional memory gets lost. Suddenly every school has to start over at square one when it comes to finding out the best way to involve parents in the educational process.

"The costs are not just in the schools where you are increasing the percentage but also where you are reducing the percentage," Rushton said. "You are going to have to adapt to that new composition. And that will take a lot of work. That will take a lot of effort. ... So it basically becomes a non sequitur."

Moving forward

Our community has long recognized that high-concentrated poverty harms children. And many in our community recognize that ending high-poverty, concentrated schools is a must.

Because the research shows that dispersing poverty rates helps poor children without hurting middle-class and affluent children, we think the school district does need to include "demographic considerations" when redrawing boundary lines. It's not an issue of being "politically correct," it's an issue of helping to improve the learning environments for the district overall.

"It's the starting gate analogy," Hlebowitsh said. "It's not that poor kids can't learn or are less capable, but they do have to run a lot longer to make it. ... There are real deprivations with poverty. It's not just an abstract idea."

"Scenario 2" meets the board's criteria in that it would bring down lunch-assistance rates in the high poverty elementaries of Hills, Kirkwood, Mann, Twain and Wood. Unfortunately, it does so by dramatically increasing the rates at Horn, Longfellow and Lincoln and while not changing the single-digit rates at Shimek and Wickham.

"Scenario 2" is far from a perfect balance of the board's four criteria. But it does represent a large step in the right direction precisely because it views improving socio-economic rates to be as important as the other three criteria.

As the redistricting committee and the board address the public's concerns about the scenario, they should not lessen the importance of improving the balance of poverty rates throughout the district.

Our View: How to read the district's redistricting scenarios

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Feb. 3, 2010.

On Thursday and Friday, the Iowa City School District will be holding public forums on one of the scenarios under consideration by the 38-member redistricting committee.

The good news is that the district and the committee have made the maps for "Scenario 2" available to the public nearly a week before the forums. Besides the small versions of the maps printed today, the Press-Citizen printed a full-size version of the elementary school map on Saturday. And electronic versions of the elementary, junior high and senior high maps are available on the district's Web site, www.iccsd.k12.ia.us/district/redistrict.

The bad news is that the maps are not readily understandable just by looking at them. They require some time, examination and explanation to understand fully.

The printed school names and purple boundary lines featured on the maps, for example, represent the existing school attendance areas. And it's sometimes confusing for readers to realize that they need to pay attention solely to the color coding for the different schools if they are going to understand the proposed new boundaries.

It's also important to remember that the scenario represents the efforts by the committee, consultants and district officials to balance the four redistricting criteria set by the School Board last year:

• Keeping neighborhoods and neighborhood schools intact (assigning students to the nearest school as much as possible).

• Demographic considerations (elementary boundaries are designed to reduce socio-economic percentages to no more than 20 percentage points above the district average of 30 percent).

• Addressing projected enrollments and ensuring that available building space is used efficiently.

• Ensuring that the proposed changes won't add to the district's operational budget.

The scenario addresses much of the strange gerrymandering that been part of the current school boundaries for far too long -- such as sending students from the west side's Hawkeye Court and Hawkeye Drive across the river to Mann (and to South East and City), sending students from north of Interstate 80 across other school's attendance areas to get to Lincoln and sending Pheasant Ridge students past Horn to Roosevelt. We're happy to see that the proposed junior and senior high boundaries are, at least, all contiguous.

But the scenario also adds some strange gerrymandering of its own. Students from Windsor Ridge, who currently get bused to Longfellow, would continue to be bused but now would go to Hoover. Students from the Lakeside area would be pulled from the Wood attendance area and bused over to Lemme. And at the same time, the Lemme attendance area would be reduced dramatically and some its current students would be divided among Mann and Hoover (which makes geographic sense) as well as Twain and Wood (which would require driving them right past Lemme and Lucas).

District officials say that partitioning the current Lemme attendance area was necessary in order to address the demographic and building use criteria. Because Lemme is already over capacity, its boundaries needed to be contracted. And since the students from the east side of Scott Boulevard already were being bused to Lemme, they could just as easily get bused a little further to Mann, Hoover, Twain and Wood.

But the partitioning of Lemme seems to be a quick jamming of some final pieces into a puzzle that's otherwise fairly complete. Yes, "Scenario 2" utterly fails to balance out the single-digit free and reduced lunch rates among the student populations at Wickham and Shimek. But the plan does help balance out significantly the rates at Horn, Longfellow and Weber as it brings down the more than 50 percent rates at Hills, Kirkwood, Mann, Twain and Wood.

The elementary with the biggest change, of course, is Lincoln. Under Scenario 2, Lincoln's free and reduced lunch rate would shoot up an order of magnitude from about 4 percent to more than 40 percent. And its students would go on to South East and City rather than to Northwest and West.

We can understand how the Lincoln community would be concerned about such drastic changes to their neighborhood school. But because the new Lincoln area would be both contiguous and within close geographic proximity to the school, Lincoln would actually become a "neighborhood school" -- in the strictest sense of the term. If anything, the Lincoln portion of Scenario 2 demonstrates what happens when the four criteria work together well.

District officials emphasize that Scenario 2 is still open for comments and changes. But they also say that the scenario does the best job so far of balancing the board's four criteria. Although the committee may change some boundaries here and there, the committee's final two or three recommendations probably will rely on Scenario 2 as a basic template.

That's why it is important for all district families and other concerned citizens to take part in the public forums at 7 p.m. Thursday in Parkview Church, 15 Foster Road., and 7 p.m. Friday in the Amos Dean Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel, 210 S. Dubuque St. Please visit the district site, read the maps and proposals carefully and come ready to ask questions and provide comment.

If you can't attend the forums, you can still send your written comments to the district's designated e-mail account at redistricting@iccsd.k12.ia.us. (And please feel free to copy the e-mail to opinion@press-citizen.com as well.)

Our View -- Boundaries are now dynamic, no longer static

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Jan. 30, 2010.

Whatever recommendations the 38-member redistricting committee makes next month -- and however the Iowa City School Board decides to redraw school boundaries -- one thing is certain: The Iowa City School District is at the beginning of a cultural shift in how it determines and updates school attendance areas.

Last year, "several members" of the High School Enrollment Task Force called on the district to fundamentally change the way it thinks about boundaries. Rather than consider attendance areas as static entities that should largely be left alone except for an occasional tweaking, the district should start thinking about "boundaries as fluid and change them periodically, perhaps as often as every five years."

And the current redistricting debate is a perfect example of why district officials need to listen to the recommendation of those "several members."

For decades, the only times that district officials would even dream of redrawing school boundaries was when they decided to open a new school. With the opening of Weber, Wickham and Van Allen elementaries and North Central Junior High (and with the scheduled openings of Garner Elementary and the elementary on Camp Cardinal Road), attendance areas were shifted as a means of addressing growth in the north and west sections of the district.

Those focused changes allowed administrators and board members to avoid an all-out, dragged-out fight over changing boundaries districtwide. Although there were pointed comments and raised emotions in the boundary-setting meetings over those new schools, the heated discussions took place in a relatively small sections of the district.

Because eastside families haven't seen widespread changes in more than a generation, many long-term district families have come to view school boundaries as somehow written in stone. They've come to consider the elementary and secondary schools their family attends (or attended) as a legacy that they have a right to pass on to future family members.

With enrollment projections showing that eastside elementaries are soon facing capacity issues, however, that sense of stability was bound to come to end -- even if the decision to close Roosevelt hadn't triggered a passionate call for redrawing school boundaries districtwide. And by avoiding boundary changes except for new schools, past administrators and board members have all but ensured the current redistricting effort will be more difficult than it ever needed to be.

We understand that, in practical terms, changing boundaries districtwide every five years may introduce too much chaos into the mix. But the current redistricting debate shows why the district needs to begin reconsidering boundaries on a more regular basis. That way, district officials can respond more directly to population shifts and to inequities among facilities.

In the meantime, we encourage all district families to follow the process on the district and the Press-Citizen redistricting Web pages (www.iowa-city.k12.ia.us/district/redistrict and www.press-citizen.com/redistricting) and to attend the public forums at 7 p.m. Thursday in Parkview Church, 15 Foster Road., and 7 p.m. Friday in the Amos Dean Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel, 210 S. Dubuque St.

And maybe if district officials can start thinking about school boundaries in such fluid terms, they also can start thinking about school curricula in more fluid terms. Then they could begin addressing underperforming schools, not only through improving poverty rates and other demographic considerations but also by developing magnet programs and other innovations.

Our View: A primer for discussing how to redraw boundaries in the Iowa City School District

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Jan. 27, 2010.

As the redistricting process continues for the Iowa City School District, we thought our readers would benefit from some quick definitions of the terms being thrown around by district officials and committee members.

Capacity issues

Capacity is simply the number of students that can be served within a single facility. What constitutes a "capacity issue," however, depends on whom you're talking with. Everyone agrees that overcrowding is an issue, but under-use of available space also seems, at best, a waste of resources and, at worst, an excuse to cut back the number of programs and educational services available.

Committee

The district has pulled together a 38-member committee to deal with redistricting issues. (Some people, amazingly, wanted the committee to be even larger.)

The committee is charged with coming up with two or three recommendations for changing boundaries among elementary and secondary schools. The committee members are scheduled to present their recommendations to the board Feb. 23.

Concept

In the November and December meetings with the redistricting committee, the district's consultants introduced a number of "concept" maps to gauge the committee members' gut-level reactions. These concepts have been described as "views from 50,000 feet" rather than attempts to draw lines where the new boundaries will be.

In order to be open about the process, the district has opted to make the concept maps available on its redistricting Web page (www.iowa-city.k12.ia.us/district/redistrict). But those early concepts are not to be confused with the "scenario" maps that the committee is beginning to discuss and eventually will be presented in public forums on Feb. 4 and 5.

Consultants

The school board hired Kansas-based consultants RSP and Associates to help it through the redistricting process. The school board members say the consultants are well-experienced in working on redistricting issues and are necessary facilitators for this local discussion. Some critics worry that the consultants are pushing for a pre-arranged final scenario. Still others wonder whether the consultants are "snake-oil salesmen" hawking a process only they understand.

But as Executive Editor Jim Lewers writes today, "There are so many moving parts -- or possibly moving parts -- involved that this process could be overwhelming without the consultants."

Criteria

The board determined that the 38-member committee would discuss redrawing boundaries based on the following criteria: demographic considerations, finances, keeping neighborhoods intact and projected enrollments. The board hopes that, by delegating to the committee at this stage of the process, it is providing an effective means for community input. Critics accuse the board of abdicating its ultimate responsibility for developing a redistricting plan.

Denial

Too many local residents seem to be in a state of denial as to whether redistricting is actually going to happen. It is. And most likely, it is going to affect every family in the district in some way.

Hopefully, by the time the public forums roll around on Feb. 4 and 5, more residents will have moved out of denial and into the next stages: bargaining, anger and acceptance.

Free and reduced lunch

Free and reduced lunch rates -- as the main indicators of poverty -- are the most important "demographic consideration" to be considered by the redistricting committee. Much of groundswell behind the call for redistricting came because the district's elementary schools have such widely divergent rates -- from 2 percent at Lincoln to 62 percent at Wood. School board members stress that they are working to improve the balance of rates among the elementary schools. They are not trying to achieve a perfect balance among the schools, they say, because that would require too much busing.

Isolated

"Isolated" is the euphemism the state Department of Education uses to describe lopsided statistics for race, ethnicity and poverty among schools. It's a label the state used when describing Roosevelt Elementary -- isolated both racially and socioeconomically -- which was one of many reasons why the board chose to close Roosevelt and redraw boundaries among several west-side elementaries. That discussion led directly to the current redistricting discussions.

Magnet schools

Schools that highlight specific types of curriculum -- music and art, math and science, foreign language immersion, etc. -- often attract students from beyond their local geographic area. In the early discussions of redistricting, there was some talk of addressing lower-achieving schools by transforming them into such magnet schools. And Superintendent Lane Plugge has said the planned third comprehensive high school would exert some magnetic attraction to students throughout the district who may prefer attending a smaller school.

Throughout recent history, however, the district has been committed to the idea of providing equal opportunities for comprehensive learning in each and every school. Talk about developing magnet programs has not moved much beyond mere talk.

Neighborhood schools

Geographic proximity and keeping neighborhoods in tact are among the criteria for the redistricting committee to consider when recommending how to redraw boundaries. The problem is that those criteria are at odds with the committee's emphasis on improving the balance of demographic factors.

The problem is made worse because no one can agree on a definition for "neighborhood school." The common sense definition of the phrase would be "schools located in and serving specific city neighborhoods."

Even if the redistricting committee comes up with a plan that corrects past injustices and makes some school boundaries more contiguous or coherent, people still will react emotionally to being assigned to a different "neighborhood school" -- even if their previous school was located nowhere near their neighborhood.

Projections

District officials stress that numbers used in planning documents are only "projections" and not crystal-ball predictions. As such, the numbers are subject to change and reevaluation. Since the early 1980s, the board has relied on the projections offered by University of Iowa geography professor Gerard Rushton and his graduate students. During the redistricting discussions, those projections are supplemented with data from the district's consultants, RSP and Associates.

Public forums

On Feb. 4 and 5, the redistricting committee will hold a public forum in which it will explain the different scenarios under consideration and give the public a chance to weigh in. The committee then has a few weeks to process the public input and make changes to the proposals before bringing two or three recommendations to the board.

Scenarios

The redistricting committee discussed its first possible "scenario" during its Jan. 21 meeting. Prior to that, the maps and data presented to the committee were mere "concepts" for provoking discussion and for helping the consultants begin developing scenarios.

SINA

District officials are unsure how provisions of the No Child Left Behind law will affect their final decisions on redrawing boundaries. Schools that have been labeled "Schools In Need of Assistance" will continue to bear that label for at least a year, if not longer, depending on future test scores.

Under the law, the district is required to provide transportation to any students who want to opt out of the SINA schools they've been assigned to. But the district can limit which non-SINA schools the students will be transferred to. And with so many schools having capacity issues, there might be a very limited number of options for schools accepting such SINA escapees.

Survey

In order to better gauge public input, the district contracted out a random phone survey of hundreds of district residents, offered an online survey to which nearly 2,400 community members and more than 700 staff members responded and had more than 2,600 high school students fill out their own surveys. The overwhelming consensus is that the board needs to make sure the process is fair to everyone. The many other preferences identified in the surveys, unfortunately, offer the committee and board somewhat contradictory advice.

Third high school

For years now, we've been advocating for the district to move toward building a third comprehensive high school somewhere in the northwest growth area. And during last year's public forums and task force meetings, the overwhelming sentiment seemed to be: It's not a question of "if" the district will build a third comprehensive high school; it's a question of "when."

Although current economic conditions may have pushed back the "when" by a year or two, we agree with the school board that any discussion of redistricting must start with viewing the third high school as a "given" and not as a mere possibility up for discussion.

With so many other factors already in motion, the redistricting committee shouldn't waste time coming up with scenarios and recommendations that don't include a third high school.

Our View: Redistricting about to kick into high gear

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Jan. 14, 2010.

When the Iowa City School District began the process of redrawing school boundaries back in October, we wrote, "Regardless of how well-designed this process looks now, it will work only if regular members of the community make use of the opportunities to share their thoughts and opinions." We called on Iowa City area residents to keep coming out in large numbers to meetings and forums, and we called on the School Board to "make sure it is publicly building on this momentum, not quietly stifling it."

Follow the Iowa City Schools redistricting process on our redistricting home page...

In the past few months, the redistricting process has been making some progress. The district has hired consultants to ensure that it has accurate information and that the process moves along. And the district has chosen a 38-member redistricting committee to work with the consultants and to ensure that the deciding making is guided by input from teachers, staff and parents as well as from the different local governments included in the district boundaries.

Unfortunately, as reported in today's Press-Citizen, there have been concerns that committee meetings have been dominated by the consultants' presentations -- leaving an extremely small amount of time for any substantial discussion from the dozens of community members who are volunteering their time and expertise. Rather than facilitate discussion, the consultants have seemed overly focused on collecting the committee members' gut-level reaction -- as conveyed through electronic clickers -- to the "concepts" and complicated data presented to them just moments earlier.

District administrators say they have responded to the committee members' concerns and have added a committee meeting to the schedule. The committee now has two scheduled meetings -- tonight and Jan. 21 -- "to refine concepts to scenarios" and an additional meeting -- Jan. 28 -- to "discuss scenarios, consensus" that it can then take to the public forums scheduled on Feb. 4 and 5.

We hope these remaining committee meetings will allow the process to kick into gear and begin winnowing the concepts, plans and proposals to a number of good options that can be made public a few days before next month's public forums. Although the consultants have the enrollment projections and estimated costs that will be essential for the committee to understand the consequences of their proposals, these boundary decisions need to be based on more than mere numbers alone.

And we hope the list of options for redrawing boundaries still includes more creative possibilities, such as establishing some schools as year-round schools or magnet schools, re-designating some K-6 schools to become K-3 and 4-6 schools as well as building new schools and possibly closing or repurposing schools.

We know that it will be impossible for the committee to present the board with a proposal that will please every group. Yet we think it is very important that these committee meetings start allowing the committee members to speak out more.

In the meantime, the committee meetings are broadcast on the district's cable channel, and all the information presented to the redistricting committee is available on a special Web page on the district's site, www.iowa-city.k12.ia.us/district/ redistrict. The Press-Citizen also has consolidated all of its coverage of the redistricting process on www.press-citizen.com/redistricting.

Our View - A challenge for Lane Plugge during his final six months

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Dec. 24, 2009

Our View - A challenge for Lane Plugge during his final six months

Now that Iowa City School Superintendent Lane Plugge has announced he will be leaving his job June 30, 2010, both his supporters and detractors are left wondering how he will finish out his decade-long tenure as the head of Iowa City area schools.

Just about everyone agrees that Plugge is a "nice guy." But supporters and detractors disagree on whether Plugge's aggressive congeniality has been a benefit or a detriment to his leadership over the past 10 years.

Plugge's supporters say his easygoing personality is an essential skill in his line of work. Without it, they say, Plugge never could have navigated through the prickly personalities and policies that pop up throughout the district. Although they may admit that Plugge has made some questionable decisions along the way, they point out that Iowa City area schools still are well "above average." And they say that the fact several of the schools are on the Schools in Need of Assistance List has more to do with the failure of No Child Left Behind than it does with any aspect Plugge's leadership.

Plugge's detractors -- the more tactful ones, anyway -- often admit that the outgoing superintendent has a lot of the skills required for succeeding in the job. Although they recognize that Plugge is very knowledgeable about what's happening in the district, they complain that he is constitutionally allergic to conflict and, thus, unwilling (or unable) to make the hard decisions that need to be made. They say the painful problems that have dogged Plugge for the past year -- from the backlash over the decision to close Roosevelt, to needing to trim millions from the budget to get under spending authority, to the recent flack over cutting busing to Regina -- are just the present-day consequences of Plugge's earlier administrative shortcomings.

We, however, don't think the time has yet come for anyone to properly evaluate how well Plugge has done for Iowa City schools. The Nebraska native still has six months to go -- and a lot of work to do -- before he can ride off into the western Iowa sunset.

Rather than praise or condemn Plugge's role as administrator, we think it's more important right now to challenge him to live up fully to his supporters' praise and to provide the strong leadership over the next six months that his detractors say has been lacking in the past 9½ years.

After all, the district is going to need such careful, thoughtful, decisive leadership to see it through its current redistricting process. That leadership and direction can't come from any paid consultants.

We know there are a lot of perks to being a superintendent in the Iowa City area. This district serves an amazingly over-educated population who readily opens up its wallet -- for bond issues and local option sales taxes -- to ensure that "all the children are above average." And we know that there are both wonderful headaches and painful benefits that come with overseeing a growing district.

But we only can imagine how hard it is for Iowa City superintendents to juggle all their responsibilities while standing under the never-ending critical gaze of a district stuffed full of self-appointed educational experts. And only very few people can know firsthand what it's like to receive such a constant barrage of advice from people who argue passionately and relentlessly for their personal view of what's best for their child, their school and "our" side of town.

To function in the job, Iowa City superintendents need to keep telling themselves -- despite all the evidence to the contrary -- that they are some of the few people actually able to envision what's best for the district as a whole. Yes, they need to be open and accessible to their employees. Yes, they need seek out and to listen to the families who will be affected by their decisions. But they also have to believe in themselves enough to make necessary decisions that are going to make no one happy -- not even them.

With the district going through the painful process of redrawing the boundaries around every school, we urge Plugge to be willing to make some very hard decisions over the next six months -- decisions that the School Board and the next superintendent can build on.

Our View - Still room for district, Regina to work together

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Dec. 12, 2009

Our View - Still room for district, Regina to work together

Iowa City School District and Regina officials agree on very little when it comes to how much the district should pay to transport students to Regina Catholic Education Center. But both sides agree that it seems unlikely the Iowa City School Board is going to change its mind after Thursday's 6-1 decision to discontinue busing to Regina at the end of the current school year.

"The Regina community has a history of coming together and figuring out solutions," said Regina President Carol Trueg. "We're continuing to explore options and to figure out what's the best way to serve our families."

That's good because continued cooperation between the district and Regina remains essential. Part of the motion approved Thursday includes a provision for Iowa City Superintendent Lane Plugge to work with Trueg and other Regina officials to figure the best way to pass along the transportation reimbursement that the state allows for accredited, non-public schools.

If both sides agree, the district and Regina could contract for a 28E agreement that would allow the reimbursements for bus-eligible Regina students to flow directly from the state, through the district to the school itself. Otherwise, individual families who attend the 855-student school would have to apply for the state reimbursement individually -- as is the case with the families who attend the 55-student Willowwind.

Unfortunately, both sides have some animosity to overcome if the district and Regina are going to continue to work together as effectively has they have for decades.

• The district estimates that it is losing nearly $260,000 this year in the difference between how much it actually pays for the 11 buses for Regina students and how the state reimburses the district for the expense.

But Regina officials say the shortfall is actually much lower -- as little as $140,000 -- because three of the routes designated for Regina also ferry public school students who have opted out of their Schools in Need of Assistance and are now enrolled in Hoover Elementary.

District officials say if they didn't use the Regina buses for the SINA students -- whose transportation is paid for out of Title 1 money rather than out the general fund -- they would make use of other existing routes. So they are standing by the $260,000 figure.

We think the specific dollar amount matters less than the fact that the Regina decision is just one of many difficult, budget-cutting decisions that the school board will have to make soon because of plummeting state revenues and funding levels.

• Regina officials say the district has shot down all of their ideas for further improving bus service. They also say that last week's negotiations, while congenial, were basically done in bad faith on the district's part.

"We realize transporting directly from a student's home to Regina is the Cadillac of service," Trueg said. "We're open to transfers and sharing buses."

But district officials say that they are wary of the complications that would come with bus transfers. And they say many of Regina's proposed changes would have extended route times beyond the 60- or 75-minute limit and would have required other practices that school districts aren't allowed to do under state law.

If Regina and the district were to contract under a 28E agreement, however, then district officials say the state-accredited, non-public school would be free to be as creative as it would like to be when it comes to combining routes, implementing centralized pick-up points or otherwise trimming its busing costs.

Plugge said he is still open to suggestions from Regina on how they can work together to find a solution that is "revenue neutral" for the district, but he doesn't think such a solution is likely.

Trueg said that, even under the best case scenario for trimming transportation costs, there still is going to be a shortfall between what the state reimburses and what Regina will actually pay.

We agree with the district that any shortfall is Regina's responsibility to pay. But we hope the district and Regina can continue to work together to make that shortfall as short as possible for the area's largest state-accredited, non-public school.

Our View - Still room for negotiations on school busing

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Dec. 1, 2009

Our View - Still room for negotiations on school busing

In their efforts to trim millions of dollars from their budget -- and in preparation for even worse economic times ahead -- Iowa City School District officials have been talking about eliminating the district's long-standing practice of providing bus service for Regina Catholic Education Center. Instead, they are considering having the district serve as an intermediary through which transportation reimbursements directly pass to Regina parents.

That seems like a fair idea to us. After all, the district is losing about $260,000 this year because of the bus service. District officials say that they contract out service to Durham Student Services for an average of slightly more than $39,300 per bus. With 11 buses going to Regina, the district shells out more than $432,000, for which it receives only about $173,000 in state reimbursements -- leaving the district to pull from its general fund to cover the extra transportation costs.

But a better idea is for the district to start working with Regina to set up a plan by which the private school -- over a series of one, two or three years -- eventually begins paying all the difference between the state's reimbursement and how much the bus service costs.

The district does have a legal obligation to assist in the transportation of resident students to state-accredited, non-public schools like Regina. That law has been on the books at least since the early 1970s. But that responsibility shouldn't become a financial hardship for any public school district -- which is why state law also allows for districts to offer reimbursements directly to students' families. And given the pessimistic forecasts for next year's state revenues, it's highly unlikely that the state will be increasing the reimbursement rate any time soon.

The district already offers reimbursements to the only other state-accredited, non-public school in the Iowa City area: Willowwind. That situation is quite a bit different, however, because Willowwind only has less than five dozen K-6 students (compared to Regina's 855 K-12 students) and because Willowwind officials haven't asked for any designated bus routes. (Officials from North Liberty-based Heritage Christian School, which is accredited by the Association of Christian Schools International, say they have no immediate plans to seek the additional state accreditation that would be necessary for their 150 students to qualify for transportation reimbursement.)

Regina officials say that the $260,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the many other areas in which the district could trim its budget. They argue that, if the district's transportation decision leads to many families deciding to pull their students out of Regina and to enroll them in public school, then the district would have to deal with the costs of more students with no additional local property taxes to supplement state funding. They also point out that while reimbursement is a legal option for the district, the practice represents the minimum standard allowable by law.

"Minimum service isn't a hallmark of Iowa City education," Regina President Carol Trueg said.

We agree that the situation isn't just an either-or choice between the public school district cutting the busing service and the district eating the $260,000 in extra costs. There is still room for negotiations between the two school systems.

So we urge both sides to work together to find a solution that allows the public school district to meet its obligations to non-public students -- beyond the minimum legal standard -- but that also stops Regina from receiving what amounts to a free bus ride at public expense.

Our View - Scores don't tell full story about teaching

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Nov. 28, 2009

Our View - Scores don't tell full story about teaching

At first glance, there seems to be a lot of value to the idea of tying teacher evaluations to student test scores. The most pressing value right now, in fact, is how such a policy would place the state in a better position to claim the $175 million it could be eligible for under the federal "Race to the Top" program. (To qualify, states must vote to tie teacher evaluations to test scores, adopt tougher standards, turn around troubled schools, build long-term student tracking systems and lift legal limits on charter schools.)

That would seem to be a key reason why Democratic Gov. Chet Culver, a former teacher himself, is bucking the counsel of the teachers' unions and pushing for a more direct correlation between student test scores and helping to identify a teacher's effectiveness.

Some state education leaders like the clear criteria and objective analysis that the test scores allow.

"There's a whole bunch of us in administration who won't mind seeing that be part of the equation," Carlisle Superintendent Tom Lane told The Des Moines Register. "When I get evaluated, my board looks at what we are doing with student achievement."

But standardize tests scores, on their own, can't tell the full story about the quality of education being offered and received. Many other criteria need to be factored into that equation to determine a teachers' effectiveness.

Take Iowa City for example. The "Schools in Need of Assistance" within the district tend to have very high mobility rates among their students. That means, in some schools and in some classrooms, teachers have more than half of their students leave or enter the class over the course of the school year. If teachers' individual performance is based on standardized tests, then they will be held accountable for the performance of students who they might not have had in class for very long.

That's not to imply that there aren't, in fact, bad teachers out there teachers who are incompetent, disorganized, emotionally unstable or simply burned out. As Iowa City Education Association Co-President Tom Yates observed in his Friday guest opinion: "Who cannot claim to have passed through school, public or private, having lived through a year with a 'bad' teacher?"

But test scores do not provide a full picture on whether teachers are "bad." Nor do they offer the best course of action for dealing with "bad" teachers.

Our View - Lessons to learn before redrawing school boundaries

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Nov. 12, 2009

Our View - Lessons to learn before redrawing school boundaries

On Monday, the Editorial Board met with the school board president and key administrators to talk about changing school boundaries in the Iowa City School District. During that discussion, it was very clear that school officials are trying not to repeat the mistakes made during the six-month discussion about the future of Roosevelt Elementary.

We hope some of the more important lessons learned by district officials and the broader community include:

• Don't offer a specific plan as a starting point for discussion. In fact, don't even have anything resembling a final plan until soliciting and collecting "input, input, input" from a variety of sources in the district.

Throughout the Roosevelt debate, Superintendent Lane Plugge and board members repeatedly said that the scenarios outlined in the district's facility plan were just options -- proposals, recommendations -- and not anything close to done deals. But those statements consistently fell on skeptical ears.

And when the board members finally did vote to close Roosevelt as a K-6 school before the 2011-12 school year, their critics felt justified in viewing the original proposal as a fait accompli.

This time, the board will rely on a consultant group to ensure that the redistricting proposals come out of dialogue with the public and the 30-member committee.

• Set clear parameters and metrics on how public input will be qualified, evaluated and presented.

During the Roosevelt debate, some of the members of the Facilities Advisory Committee complained about the method by which committee members were asked to evaluate the different options for the school. They went through a "forced choice exercise" in which their preferences were tallied and the resulting ranking was used to endorse a course of action (closing the school) that a majority of the committee members would have voted against.

Although people may disagree with the final result, they need to agree that the result is an accurate reflection of the consensus of the group.

On Monday, Plugge said that he hopes the clear criteria and standards set by the board will make the evaluation process more clear from the outset and thus avoid some of those problems. And on Tuesday, the board charged the boundary committee with developing two to three scenarios while keeping in mind demographics, finances, keeping neighborhood schools and neighborhoods intact and projected enrollments and building uses.

• While the criteria need to be clear from the outset, all options need to be on the table when considering initial proposals.

In this case, the list of possibilities include:

• Year-round schools.

• Magnet school programs.

• Re-designating some K-6 schools to become K-3 and 4-6 schools.

• Building new schools and (though no one likes to hear it) closing existing schools.

The final decision, in fact, may include some new use for the Roosevelt building.

• As important as it is to establish a transparent process that provides opportunities for productive public input, it's equally important to push the process forward to reach a decision.

At some time long before the board's official vote on June 9, the Roosevelt debate reached a point when it was clear that a majority of the board had reached its decision and that the further public forums were only dragging out the process. Unnecessarily prolonging the discussion by weeks (if not months), gave false hope to people working "to save Roosevelt" and basically added insult to injury.

During the redistricting discussion, it will be impossible, of course, for the consultants and the committee to present the board with a proposal that will please every group. Yet we think it is very important that everyone keep moving along in the process so that the consultants and the committee can present the board with two or three workable, affordable and equitable proposals by March.

• It's better for the public to get involved earlier than later in these decision-making processes.

Now, as the proposals are still being shaped, is the best time for local residents to share their thoughts, concerns and personal stories. The district has a page on its Web site devoted to the redistricting process (www.iowa-city.k12.ia.us/district/redistrict/index.html). And anyone at any time can submit their thoughts via e-mail at redistricting@iccsd.k12.ia.us.

Our View - Board needs civil dialogue, not clickers

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Oct. 31, 2009

Our View - Board needs civil dialogue, not clickers

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

You're one of seven contestants in the first round of the newest game show: The Iowa City School Board ("Board tries to pinpoint priorities," Oct. 28, and "Board finalizes priorities," Oct. 29).

Please grab your electronic clicker and -- at the risk of skirting the spirit of Iowa's open meetings laws and obscuring government accountability -- rank the criteria by which our $100,000, out-of-state consulting group will analyze the data by which the board will re-draw boundaries throughout the district.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

The first answers are:

• No. 1: Demographic considerations

• No. 2: Operational fiscal considerations and

• No. 3: Keeping neighborhoods intact.

I'm sorry.

That ranking is not quite right.

It places too much emphasis on demographics -- even though the current lopsided demographic numbers are the most important driving force in the call for redrawing boundaries.

Let's try again.

This time, please pick only your No. 1 priority.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

The answer is a tie between:

• Demographics,

• Operational fiscal considerations and

• Projected enrollment.

I'm sorry.

That answer is not quite right again.

Just so you know -- and to make sure we get out of here before dawn -- we are going to keep playing this game until we arrive at this final list:

• No.1: Fiscal consideration, operational. (The bottom line will be the bottom line.)

• No. 2: Projected enrollment and building use. (Essential information for computing the bottom line.)

• No. 3: Keeping neighborhoods intact. (Which will help reduce transportation costs and thus help the bottom line.)

• No. 4: Demographic considerations (which we can't get rid of altogether but we can move out of the Top Three.)

This game will get more complicated, of course, in the next round, as the number of contestants expands from a seven-member school board to a 30-member redistricting committee. (I'm not sure if we'll have enough electronic clickers to go around.)

That's why board members need to point out how close the percentages were for those four criteria and stress that the criteria essentially should be treated equally. That way, the committee and the studio audience (the citizens of the district) will know that the board can invoke the rankings or ignore the rankings depending on whatever decision gets made.

If anyone would like to join the studio audience -- or, in all seriousness, if you would like to give your input on how the redistricting process should proceed -- please join us for a public forum at 7 p.m. Monday at Parkview Church. (According to policy, board members won't be able to respond directly to your comments -- other than to smile, nod and occasionally scowl.)

Hopefully, the public will be able to persuade the board members that they should be using a consultant to help them implement their priorities, not to help figure out their priorities. But at the very the least, the public should persuade the board to think twice about using those electronic clickers again.

Our View - State cuts leave few options for school districts

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Oct. 19, 2009

Our View - State cuts leave few options for school districts

Every school district in Iowa is feeling the pinch from Gov. Chet Culver's recent decision to implement across-the-board budget cuts of 10 percent -- a huge number that state employees are still trying to get their heads around.

Early estimates show that the cuts mean the Iowa City School District now is going to get about $5.6 million less in revenue than it already has budgeted for. The cuts have not lowered the district's spending authority -- the limit on how much it can spend per pupil -- just the amount of cash that the district has on hand.

That leaves the Iowa City School Board with a few options:

• Continue to operate under the current budget and to use money from the district's reserves.

• Borrow money from another specified account -- such as the money from School Infrastructure Local Option sales tax voters approved in 2007 -- and use it for general fund expenses.

• Make decisions on how to cut the budget significantly in the middle of the school year.

• Eventually raise property taxes.

• All of the above.

The governor has suggested the first option for districts that have sufficient funds in their reserves. And right now, it looks like Iowa City area schools have just enough money in reserve to cover the cash shortage. But to do so would drain the reserves all but dry. And district officials say they are still in the process of cutting more than $2 million from next year's budget just to get out of the red -- a process that began long before the newest state budget cuts.

And district officials already have drained dry the public's trust in their ability to oversee the SILO funds in accordance with voter expectations. Many voters thought the SILO funds would be used to maintain and upgrade older schools. And they strongly disagreed with the district's decision to close the 78-year-old Roosevelt Elementary as a K-6 school. Many other voters assumed that the money would be used for a new comprehensive high school. And they already are worried that the district is moving away, rather than toward, that long-term goal.

Borrowing money from the SILO account would only add insult to injury and increase voter distrust the next time the district comes to the public with its hands out — and that includes raising property taxes.

The only benefit to using SILO money rather than reserves is that the district would be obligated to pay it back. (Although districts throughout the state already have started lobbying hard for the Iowa Legislature to give them discretion on how to use funds from these specific accounts for general fund expenses. So those restrictions may go by the wayside very quickly.)

And the district is unlikely to make significant mid-year cuts. Not when it still has more than $2 million to trim from next year's budget just to avoid deficit spending. Not when 80 percent of the general fund budget covers salaries and benefits and no one is interested in cutting back employees and increasing class sizes in the middle of the year.

With no easy solutions in sight, the School Board is going to have to tread carefully.

Our View - Give your input on re-drawing boundaries

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Oct. 7, 2009

Our View - Give your input on re-drawing boundaries

On today's Opinion page, Superintendent Lane Plugge describes the series of workshops and public forums that will be taking place over the next five months as the Iowa City School Board decides how best to redraw school boundaries across the district. We commend Plugge for trying to get in front of this controversial issue and for taking steps toward making this process as open and transparent as possible.

On paper, the plan looks thoughtful and orderly, with plenty of opportunities for the board and the redistricting committee to receive input from administrators, teachers, support staff, students, parents, local governments and other residents. But given the heightened concerns and emotions that this discussion is sure to unleash, Plugge and the board need to ensure that the 30 members of the redistricting committee don't just include usual suspects who sign up -- or get asked -- for service. If this process is going to start out strong, it needs to begin with a committed group of people who really do represent the thousands of families who will be affected by this decision.

If the process is going to stay on track throughout the next five months, then the board and the committee also need to demonstrate repeatedly that they are listening and responding to what the public is saying. We need school leaders to learn from the mistakes they made earlier this year during the prolonged discussions over whether to close Roosevelt as a K-6 school. We need them to avoid presenting options as if they are finished plans. We need them to do more than simply smile and nod when members of the public make suggestions. And -- given how much money the district is paying for out-of-state consultants to collect comprehensive data and answer the many questions about the different options for redistricting -- we expect them to keep a steady pace throughout this process.

Regardless how well-designed this process looks now, it will work only if regular members of the community make use of the opportunities to share their thoughts and opinions. The Iowa City area needs its local residents -- whether parents or just concerned voters -- to continue to turn out to meetings and forums in the high numbers that they were coming out in the months before the last month's election. And the School Board needs make sure it is publicly building on this momentum, not quietly stifling it.

District officials have asked that everyone e-mail their suggestions for the redistricting process to redistricting@iccsd.k12.ia.us. They say that they soon will have a dedicated page on the district Web site at www.iccsd.k12.ia.us. We suggest that you help keep the district publicly accountable to your suggestions by also submitting them as letters to the editor at opinion@press-citizen.com.

The School Board is expected to vote on a new plan during its meeting on March 9, 2010. Please take steps to make sure that board members have heard your comments long before then.

Questioning the candidates

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Sept. 3, 2009.

The Press-Citizen and the Iowa City Education Association are co-sponsoring a forum tonight with the six candidates for the Iowa City School Board. The discussion will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Iowa City Public Library.

We encourage voters to learn as much as possible about the issues facing the school board at this pivotal time. The forum will provide an opportunity to hear the candidates explain their positions as well as to observe how the candidates might interact with the public and with other board members.

In addition to questions of policy and educational philosophy, one of the questions the Press-Citizen Editorial Board routinely asks candidates is, "What conflicts of interest from your personal and professional life do you see arising if voters were to elect you to office?"

• In the past two years, incumbent candidate Mike Cooper has recused himself when the district is discussing making purchases from his employer, Pearson. First-time candidate Anne Johnson, who also works at Pearson, would face a similar decision if voters elect her on Sept. 8.

• April Armstrong said, because her husband is part owner of Apex Construction, she would recuse herself from any voting on any bids from Apex Construction that might come before the board.

• Jean Jordison said, because her daughter and son-in-law work for the district, she probably would not work on negotiations -- even if it isn't determined to be a conflict legally.

• And Tuyet Dorau said her only conflict would be the fact that her son is a student at North Central Junior High -- which seems more of a potential bias than a legal conflict.

But the potential conflict of interest that has been getting the most attention involves Sarah Swisher, who is currently employed as political director for Service Employees International Union Local 199. The question arises because Swisher's employer represents three units of district employees: physical plant workers, school year secretaries and food service workers.

While there is some disagreement on whether Swisher can participate in the discussion of issues directly involving SEIU, there seems to be little disagreement that she shouldn't. Swisher herself told the Press-Citizen Thursday that, if she were elected, she would not participate in bargaining any union contract involving SEIU.

And it seems clear that Swisher, if elected, would retain her right to participate fully in discussions of all issues not directly involving her employer.

In fact, in a March 19 letter answering questions raised by a similar situation in Iowa County, the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board suggested that Chapter 68 of the Iowa Code doesn't even make it "an impermissible conflict of interest" for a Teamsters-employed Iowa County supervisor to act "on behalf of the county with a collective bargaining agreement that (his or her) outside employer helped negotiate." That's because the contracts under the elected officials' "control, inspection, review, audit, or enforcement authority" are with the public employees themselves, not with the unions.

Kirsten Frey, an attorney for the district, said the ethics board is correct in its analysis of the Iowa Code. But she points out other court decisions that require a stricter standard whenever public officials face a conflict of interest between their professional and public duties. In an Aug. 28 letter to the district, Frey advises that "an individual should recuse himself or herself whenever the interest of his or her employer might be implicated."

Yet Frey also advises against board members taking any steps to restrict involuntarily the voting purview of other members. That could be a violation of the board member's rights and could lead to its own legal problems. And Frey told the Press-Citizen Tuesday that Swisher would face a potential conflict only in terms of issues involving SEIU -- not on other budget or labor issues.

Frey ends her letter advising the district to seek further clarification from the Iowa Attorney General's Office.

It's just one example of the many complicated questions board members will face.

Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at 319-887-5435 or jcharisc@press-citizen.com.

Our View - Dorau, Johnson, Swisher will bring change to board

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Sept. 5, 2009.

Communication. Vision. Leadership.

Those are the qualities we're looking for in candidates for the Iowa City School Board. They also are the qualities that have been lacking in the current board's response to the many issues that have caused attendance at school board meetings to swell.

With the public's goodwill and trust exhausted after the six-month battle over Roosevelt Elementary, and with the announcement that the district needs to cut $6 million over the next two years, we think it's a time for change on the Iowa City School Board.

That's why we're backing the candidates in Tuesday's election we think can effect the most change in the right direction: Tuyet Dorau, Anne Johnson and Sarah Swisher.

Not only does Dorau have an inspiring personal story -- she was on the free and reduced lunch rolls when her mother, a refugee from Vietnam, worked three jobs while going to school full time -- but the West High graduate also now oversees grants and other projects as coordinator for multi-site clinical trials for the University of Iowa Department of Ophthalmology. We want her to bring a similar attentiveness to school board budgets and finance reports as she pushes the board to be more fiscally responsible and more transparent about its decision making. And we want her to do so with the same directness she's displayed during her campaign.

Like Dorau, Johnson is a product of the Iowa City school system -- having attended Wood Elementary, South East Junior High and City High. She now lives in North Liberty and has been instrumental in forming the group, Advocates for North Corridor High School.

There are some who worry that Johnson is a single-issue or regional candidate, and we do think she would be an effective advocate for this fast growing area of the district. But Johnson's performance in interviews and forums shows that her job at Pearson -- as well as her experiences with the district on both sides of the river -- gives her a broad perspective on the array of issues facing the district.

Swisher already is a known agent of change in local politics. Not only is she political director of SEIU Local 199 -- which represents three bargaining units in the district -- she also successfully co-chaired the "Yes for Kids" bond campaign in 2002. Because Swisher personally helped persuade her fellow citizens to trust the district with their money, she has a personal stake in ensuring that the district is trustworthy in how it spends money from the 2002 bond and the 2007 SILO.

There are some who worry that Swisher would politicize her position on the non-partisan board. But Swisher has pledged to recuse herself from voting on contracts or grievances negotiated through her employer, and the state ethics board and the district's attorney are clear that Swisher can participate in all discussions that don't directly involve her employer.

We also appreciate the blend of common sense and "out of the box" thinking Swisher has brought to the discussion so far. As Charlie Funk, her co-chairman for the "Yes for Schools" campaign, writes in his endorsement letter, "I found her to be energetic and very skilled at rallying persons toward a common goal. Our campaign faced a few bumps in the road in the early weeks, and she displayed a healthy amount of pragmatism as we worked through these problems."

Calling for a "year for change," of course, means that we are not endorsing incumbent candidate Mike Cooper. Elected to a three-year term in 2007, Cooper had one year shaved off when Iowa made school board elections bi-annual instead of annual. It's true that Cooper might have come into his own in his third year of service. He often has disagreed with the board majority -- at least in discussion, if not during the actual vote. And during his candidate interview, he owned up to the criticism that he spent too long trying to learn and to understand the system and didn't start soon enough asking critical questions to challenge "the way things have always been done."

So we can understand why Cooper's supporters think he now will be the change candidate they hoped he would be two years ago -- and if voters elect him Tuesday, we hope Cooper will live up to such high expectations. But we don't find the possibility a safe enough bet to endorse Cooper for a four-year term.

Instead, we recommend our readers vote for Dorau, Johnson and Swisher. And then we urge everyone -- regardless of their vote -- to continue coming out to meetings and participating in discussion of our district's future. That's the only way we can ensure the board members improve their communication, vision and leadership.