Back when Eugene White took over as superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, yours truly questioned whether he would actually turn around the district's woeful performance or merely following the typical new top school boss script of preaching -- and not delivering -- reform.
Almost two years later, the results are mixed. On one hand, moves such as the release of a report card on the district's performance and the uproar arising from it -- show that White is at least trying to do more than talk the talk. And that is admirable.
But White's efforts have been inconsistent at best. By asking Mayor Bart Peterson to halt expansion of his charter school regime after proclaiming earlier in his tenure that he would simply compete with them, White raises questions about whether he is putting at risk the educational destinies of Indianapolis children who without choice, would be forced to attend woeful public schools.
Despite personnel moves such as replacing Northwest Principal Roy Simpson, White hasn't done enough to remove school-level officials such as Arlington's Jackie Greenwood and those top officials within the central district who have been partly responsible for IPS' status as home to the state's worst dropout factories. The move this month to recommend raises for several top longtime central staffers? Not smart at all.
But it's what he didn't do -- kick out the worst teachers in the district, toss out poor-performing principals early in his tenure, push for innovations for improving teacher quality -- that stands out. The longer a superintendent stays in office, the harder it is for him to effectively reform a school district, especially as the honeymoon period wears off and special interests within the district remain entrenched.
By failing to strike early, White has now limited his effectiveness. Which is a pity. Because more than ever, IPS students deserve better.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The More Eugene Changes Things, The More They Stay the Same
Do you remember Indy Star columnist Rishawn Biddle? An IPS teacher found this column he wrote two years ago and asked it be reprinted here. The words still ring true today.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Things have not stayed the same under Eugene White. They have gotten worse!! Meanwhile, it is my undersanding that IPS is scrambling to fill teaching vacancies even though they had a pool of RIF ed teachers. There have been a lot of resignations and late retirements this summer.
ReplyDeleteNot only is HR scrambling to fill vacant positions, IPS is now offering $5,000 annual 'performance-based salary incentives' for teachers who are willing to teach at John Marshall. This all sounds good until you read the fine print where a teacher signing on with this incentive program must agree to teach 2 years at Marshall and must agree to being dropped from the incentive bonus program if student scores do not increase.
ReplyDeleteOn the first read of this incentive bonus program, all sounds good; however, if a teacher thinks beyond the end of his/her nose, he/she will realize that nothing is mentioned about student attendance. If students do not attend school, then no amount of extraordinary teaching will result in increased student ISTEP scores. Unless a teacher signing on for this incentive bonus can be guaranteed that daily student attendance is factored into this equation, then the teacher is doomed from the get-go. Student achievement levels cannot increase unless student attendance increases, plain and simple.
IPS has took a nose dive under the leadership of Gene White. The list of vacant teachers is at an all time high and morale in the district is at its lowest. Gene came in and it was business as usual. There was a bit of hope when Jeffrey White tried to change things on the eastside. However, Jeffrey got too much attention, that of which created envy in the district. Now they are offering $5000 incentives to get teachers to go to John Marshall and had to scramble to find a principal. The ship is sinking fast....
ReplyDelete...and Eugene White keeps on adding high paying administrative jobs....and Mary Busch keeps on saying yes like the sock puppet she is......get her off the school board.
ReplyDeletePlease research Willie Giles. He left Kansas City for hiring his Daughter in-law who was convicted of stealing $40,000 from her previous employer.
ReplyDeleteEducation Week: K.C. District Chief Resigns;
www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1996/07/10/40kc2.h15.html
Keeping It All In The Family
ReplyDeleteFurther eroding his credibility, IPS Superintendent Eugene White is adding yet another family member to the school district's payroll. His son, Reginald White, was hired recently as a basketball coach and behavior dean at Tech High. The Star wrote that the IPS school board had a special called meeting to "clarify the district's nepotism policy" to allow the hiring of his son and make it clear he will not be supervising him.
Willie Giles will be supervising Reggie White. Isn't that a hoot...like Giles would ever write anything negative about his boss's son? The School Board has lost all credibility with this back-room trick.
You can't clarify nepotism.
Copied and pasted from Advance Indiana ~~~ June 10, 2009
ReplyDeleteTrouble Over Bridgwaters
Or is that a bridge over troubled waters? Prudence Bridgwaters is the IPS administrator who helped orchestrate the removal of IPS Principal Jeffrey White at John Marshall High School. A couple of months ago, Abdul Hakim-Shabazz uploaded an audio recording of a conversation between her and White during which she told White he couldn't suspend students at the school because they might sue the district. As it turns out, this isn't the first time Bridgwaters has been at the center of controversy at IPS. Bridgwaters previously worked as a principal at Coleman Middle School back in the 1990s before being removed due to serious issues with her performance.
After leaving IPS the first time, Bridgwaters later went to work for Mansur as the Welcome Center manager for the Fall Creek Place redevelopment project under the Peterson administration. The Welcome Center became known by many as the Unwelcome Center under her tenure there. IPS Superintendent Dr. Eugene White later rehired her as Director of Secondary Education after taking charge of the state's largest school system. Keep in mind that the Fall Creek Place project had strong backing from former U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, who made sure the project's managers, builders and contractors met with the approval of the Carson political machine.
At the time of Bridgwaters' removal as the principal of School 86 on West 49th Street, her attorney complained to Indianapolis Star reporter Barb Albert that she was the victim. Teachers and parents at the school told Albert a different story. One teacher commented to Albert, "I just don't feel that the building was run professionally." "So far as being principal, I don't think she is fair." Another teacher complained to Albert, "I don't think people respected her as a principal because they felt she did things unbecoming of an administrator." A parent complained to Albert, "She is ineffective as a principal." "She doesn't know how to deal with kids, and she doesn't deal well with the teachers." "She's divisive." "She pits one teacher against another."
Albert's report also raised more serious allegations against Bridgwaters. "IPS is alleging that she falsified a report and misrepresented the need for a classroom aide," Albert quoted an IPS official as saying. "She also allegedly sent teachers' aides on personal errands for her and improperly reported an illness of her own," Albert wrote. Bridgwaters' attorney admitted to Albert that his client had sent teacher aides on errands, but he insisted they were school-related. According to Albert, IPS claimed Bridgwaters "did not follow proper procedures for reporting a two-day illness." "Her son called a custodian and the IPS education Center one day, and she called the school the second day," Albert wrote.
Dr. White also hired Bridgwaters' son, Clark, as a compliance monitor for IPS Transportation.
Bridgewaters just recently told 9 Marshall teachers who were planning on attending a professional development seminar in Orlando that they could not go. Bridgewaters is so imcompetent that she failed to cancel the hotel and flight reservations for the 9 teachers and IPS had to pay for them anyway. How much longer will the school board put up with her incompetence??
ReplyDeleteThe funny party Mr. Biddle's story is the replies of Mary Louise. You have to give her credit, she was trying like hell to defend the regime.
ReplyDeleteThings haven't improved with textbooks getting into students' hands since October, 2005. The same old excuses we heard back in 2005, we're still hearing today. Giles and McLeish didn't have the foresight to order enough books for Tech in 2005. McLeish knew a shift in curriculum was coming; however, he failed to plan for it by ordering the textbooks. Nothing's changed.See Indy Star news article from October, 2005, copied below.
ReplyDeleteCOPYRIGHT 2005 The Indianapolis Star
Byline: Kim L. Hooper
Oct. 3--A textbook shortage at Tech High School is forcing students to cram their studies into class time because there aren't enough books to take home.
And a lack of textbooks, students say, is forcing them to share the few that are available in classrooms or simply to skip doing homework all together. They complain the problem is chronic.
"We don't get to take our books home, so if we have homework, you have to do it during class before it ends," 15-year-old Candice Pepper, a sophomore, said as she stood with an empty book bag in her hands.
Indianapolis Public Schools officials acknowledge the problem, which they say is the result of several factors.
"The books are on order," said Assistant Superintendent Willie Giles, who oversees the district's high schools. Compounding the problem at Tech is a surge in the number of students taking the tougher Core 40 classes for a diploma this year.
For example, the high school has 75 fewer pre-calculus textbooks than it needs because more students than anticipated signed up. The creation this year of small academies on campus also is playing a role.
"We're in an interesting Catch-22 situation. . . . Electives have shifted," said Tech Campus Administrator Gerry McLeish. "When you start to promote more rigor and academics you have a shift in focus.
"The school ordered nearly 5,000 textbooks in 12 subjects for its more than 2,000 students. Tech is spending $331,500 on textbooks.
Mairie Flood's parents paid more than $150 for textbooks for the 17-year-old junior to use at Tech's Magnet Academy, where she is studying health professions. But in the sixth week of classes, she's only received algebra II, Latin and anatomy books for use in class and at home.
In her English class, students are allowed to sign out books from a classroom set but she said they must return them the next day.
"We pay for them, but we don't get to bring them home," she said. "It doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
To see more of The Indianapolis Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.IndyStar.com.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Indianapolis Star
Students at John Marshall did not receive their textbooks until shortly before Christmas vacation. The Assistant Principal did not order them before being transferred to another school at the close of the 07-08 school year, nor did the new Assistant Principal order them when she came onboard during the summer of 2008. Then, when the textbooks finally did arrive in late Fall, the Bookstore Manager would not hand them out to the students.
ReplyDeleteWillie Giles' professional career in Kansas City appears not so professional.
ReplyDeleteCopied from the October 21, 1995 front page of The Kansas City Star...
Source: CHERYL W. THOMPSON Staff Writer
The acting superintendent of the Kansas City schools approved the hiring of his daughter-in-law, who admitted stealing more than $41,000 from her previous job, The Kansas City Star has learned. Willie Giles, who also is accused of sexually harassing his longtime secretary and using district personnel to help build his new home, signed the paperwork to hire his daughter-in-law, Phylencia Giles, in January 1994, district records show. He also gave her a two-step salary increase - from $67 to ...
Published on October 21, 1995, Page A1, The Kansas City Star
Did the IPS School Board check Willie Giles' background before hiring him as a top-level administrator?
ReplyDeleteMore on Giles from the November 8, 1995 issue of Education Week.
"Superintendent Woes
The Kansas City, Mo., school district has hit more snags in its search for a schools chief. The school board voted late last month to remove the acting superintendent, Willie Giles, after he was accused of sexual harassing a district employee.
The announcement came during the 37,000-student district's search for a replacement for Walter Marks, who was fired earlier this year. (See Education Week, Sept. 27, 1995.)
Mr. Giles has been demoted to his former job as deputy superintendent and suspended with pay while district officials look into the harassment allegations. Mr. Giles was also criticized for hiring his daughter-in-law despite the fact that she had admitted stealing more than $40,000 in a previous job."
A willingness to participate in or ignore illegal or immoral activity is a prerequisite for IPS administrators. Even when they are caught they are "disciplined" by a move to another school, in other districts they'd be terminated.
ReplyDeleteTo all of the teachers:
ReplyDeleteWe have been ignoring immoral activity for a long time and we are just as guilty as Dr. White, Dr. Giles, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Kendrick, and Prudence Bridgewaters. None is the time to fight back. We are at home and they have not authority to trace our emails and blogging. Please tell your faculty members and retired teacher about this opportunity.
Check out that Dr. White's son was also hired as a first year English teacher at Washington Township several years ago when Dr. White was Supt. there. Teaching English at North Central High school- no small feat when you consider that there are can be up to 300+ apps for 1 position in that school district.
ReplyDelete1.I heard thatDr. White's son was fired from Pike.Cananyone confirm?
ReplyDelete2. All of the Kansas City articleson Giles were sent to the local media several years ago. No one in the media seems to think it is important? Why is that?
Mary Louise Bewley needs to be fired, its against IPS policy to blog on IPS time and equipment! We need to have a Board Member bring this up before the Board, then watch the puppets nod their heads in agreement with Dr. White, its a really neat show.
ReplyDeleteHey folks! I think we need to lay of Doc White's kids. They are both good teachers. They can't help who 'Daddy" is. He was not fired. He recently completed his administrative degree and wants to use it. From what I hear, Pike's not hiring administrators.
ReplyDeleteWhat's up with Dr. Johnson and Dr. White?
ReplyDelete"Hey folks! I think we need to lay of Doc White's kids. They are both good teachers."
ReplyDeleteOk, buddy. We don't know who you are, and that's OK. However, it's apparent you are not a teacher from your spelling and your writing voice. You don't know if Dr. White's children are good teachers at all, do you?
I do not know Dr. White's son or anything about his son's teaching abilities; however, his daughter arrived at her current assignment in IPS on a Performance Improvement Plan (known as a PIP among the teaching ranks). That does not speak well of her teaching abilities. Perhaps she's improved her performance in the classroom.
QUOTE: "What's up with Dr. Johnson and Dr. White?"
ReplyDeleteThey traveled together to China or Taiwan to recruit teachers to instruct IPS students in the Chinese language. I find that amazing. IPS is recruiting Chinese teachers when a majority of our students cannot pass the English/Language Arts section of the ISTEP.
Any comments regarding Lawrence Yarrell at Northwest High ?
ReplyDeleteI'll be glad to comment on Lawrence Yarrell at Northwest High School... He spends his time yelling at students AND teachers over the PA system. I can't begin to count the number of times we heard him yell at the stuents about dress code and being in class on time. Here's a thought... how about following through on the threats you make to the kids, Mr. Yarrell? Go ahead and suspend them when they aren't in class.... go ahead and put them out for not being in dress code. It does no good to yell about it on the PA and then not follow through. A couple of weeks of hall sweeps EVERY PERIOD and dress code checks EVERY PERIOD would send the message that we mean business.... but when you only enforce these things for a couple days, then ignore it for several weeks until you get a direective from downtown to improve it, and THEN try and enforce it again, you are not going to make any lasting progress on those matters.
ReplyDeleteHe also, when he decides he doesn't like something a teacher is doing in his/her classroom, harasses that teacher continually, saying "I just want you to improve" while at the same time not giving any type of support on helping that teacher imrove whatever it is that HE feels is wrong. Also, he decides what he wants as an outcome, and regardless of whether the teacher does or does not improve whatever he has singled out, he goes ahead with whatever he wants to do anyway.
In short, he has "little man syndrome"..... I was told by someone who would know that he was called "Little Napoleon" when he was employed in the Pike School District. I hope that the downtown administration will see that he has totally demoralized the staff at Northwest... there are many of us who are desperately looking for positions at other schools so that we don't have to return to Northwest and work another year for this man who has NO idea on how to manage a staff and NO business being a building principal.
I've heard that Lawrence Yarrell was fired by Pike , any confirmation of this ?
ReplyDeleteI've heard that he was also fired from Lawence.
ReplyDeleteRe: Larry Yarrell
ReplyDeleteI don't know if Yarrell was fired by Pike or Lawrence or not; however, I do know that he personally and to my face laughed about sending a teacher on a PIP from his school to mine. He told me to "consider it an early Christmas present."
Yarrell himself put this teacher on a PIP, but he violated IPS policy by shuffling him off to another school. Then, he had balls enough to laugh about it to my face. What a little jerk!
Also, my position required that I be at Northwest one day per month for a meeting. Yes, I remember distinctly that Yarrell spent an extraordinary amount of time on the PA yelling directives to students to 'go to class', 'clear the halls', 'I'm gonna suspend anybody caught in the halls', etc. I suspected then that he was 'all talk and no action'. His PA announcements were not essential and seemed to be more for the benefit of the adults in the building than for the kids.
I usually term these physically short men as suffering from the George Jefferson syndrome.
He's just another cocky little IPS bush league administrator who could never be hired in a successful school corporation. He's gonna be with us until he retires because he's risen as high as he can on the educational ladder.
I'm sorry that you guys have to work under this man's lack of leadership skills.
Re: Re: Larry Yarrell
ReplyDeleteIt is not just a lack of leadership skills but rather a lack of common sense, honesty, integrity,courage,professionalism , common human courtesy, respect for others, ....
In short he appears to be a clone of someone else we know.... maybe even worse.
Kim White is not a good teacher. One year she did not even go to here inclusion class that she was suppose to co-teach with another teacher. The principal was informed of this, but did nothing because of whom her daddy is. She always comes up with pet projects that will keep her out of the classroom.
ReplyDeleteRumor has it the teacher that Dr. White and Dr Johnson hired while they vacationed in China (on IPS tax payer dime) was already teaching at. (ok wait for it) IUPUI.
ReplyDeleteAlso it would have been very easy to find a teacher qualified to teach Chinese here in the USA, a quick trip on the internet would reveal that San Francisco has many teachers whose first lanuage is Manderine Chinese.
I yell and scream at my students,fellow teachers, lie, cheat, steal, and will backstab everyone, except my God "administrators". I was disbarred for illegal and immoral actions, have two hour lunches, always late to school, leave early, and only work on pet projects for my administrator's license. I am going to ask to be a TOSA with Bridgewaters and run her errands to finish up my license. Do you think I will fit in with the other adminsitrators in IPS? Oh, I do suck up to only the brass and Dr. White.
ReplyDeleteAnon.....6:05 Is your name Deb Leser?? She could not have finished most of her courses without sitting in her office at Manual working on her course work during the work day.
ReplyDeleteGreat Article
ReplyDeleteGo Projects for Engineering Students of Computer Science
FInal Year Project Centers in Chennai
JavaScript Training in Chennai
JavaScript Training in Chennai