Candidate for GISD Board

A candidate for the GISD Board has emerged that appears to want to take on the "real" issues facing the students in Georgetown.

Francis Jackson has filed as a candidate for Place 4 on the GISD Board of Trustees.

In an interview with the Wilcosun on February 26, 2020, he articulated his concerns and approaches to change the Board and administration focus.

He is running on a platform of “well-thought-out change.” “Georgetown is in trouble,” he said, citing the district’s multi-year decline in the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) program.

Mr. Jackson is outspoken about Superintendent Fred Brent’s salary — $319,534 in 2018-19. He said it’s too high for a district of 12,000 students. “He’s the 24th highest-paid superintendent in Texas,” Mr. Jackson noted, citing data from the Texas Education Agency.

He also believes that the superintendent and senior administrator's pay should depend on meeting or surpassing state averages on STAR scores. This is a transparent way to hold them accountable.

For those citizens in the GISD, this candidate provides an opportunity to vote for a person with a focus on accountability, both for student achievement and financially.

Incentive Pay for GISD Teachers?

Is it time for GISD to implement an incentive pay system to reward the most effective teachers who raise the skills of their students? Overall, merit pay is a win for students and those who teach them.

Frisco’s move to teacher merit pay means a strong district will get even stronger.The Dallas Morning News

Frisco ISD, a high-performing school district, is moving toward an incentive pay system to reward its best teachers based on student performance, classroom observation and the qualifications of teachers. Districts everywhere need to take this approach.

Georgetown Schools Need Help!

The following letter was published in the Wilco Sun on February 2, 2020. It describes the sorry state of Georgetown schools and the resources that are available to help improve those schools.

"I am writing to continue the conversation of Eric Robinson and the Reverend Ron Swain regarding the pitiful state of public education in Georgetown, with six schools out of 16 being given a rating of F and four schools being given a rating of D, a rapid drop from no schools with an F rating in 2015.

Education is the civil rights issue of our time as it is the gateway to our goal as a country of equal opportunity. I think it is past time for Georgetown citizens to evaluate the current leadership in the school board and system superintendent to determine where leadership changes are urgently needed.

Dr. Swain noted the criticality of reading as the most important learning tool. Research has shown that children who can’t read at grade level by seventh grade will fail, and when they fail, they drop out of school. And when they drop out of school, it is much more likely that they will join a gang and eventually get into serious trouble.

School leadership might learn something from the Waco Independent School District, which publicized the need for volunteers who would read during lunchtime with children who were reading below their grade level. My wife and I volunteered and were given brief training and then regularly lunched with three third graders who read at 2.0 and three fifth graders who read at the 3.5 level. The school provided the reading materials and periodic testing to measure improvement and to gradually increase the reading material as the children’s reading skills improved.

It was a remarkable and wonderful experience. I made six new friends and was thrilled to see how this small amount of individual attention allowed my third graders to increase from 2.0 to 2.6 in their reading skills in the first two months of our time together. Volunteers were recruited from churches and civic groups or individuals who had heard about this opportunity. Today most of the public schools in Waco have such a volunteer program.

Georgetown is lucky to be the home of Sun City, where 14,000 retired “volunteers” live and could potentially be reading practice tutors.

Two extraordinary movies on the “civil rights” of a good education that I would highly recommend are Miss Virginia, an award-winning movie that documents a remarkable true story, and Waiting for Superman, another award-winning movie about the seven Harlem Academies (charter schools in New York City) and how inter-city children who are properly taught can have a 96 percent graduation rate, with 90 percent going to college with test scores comparable to private schools in wealthy suburbs.

WALTER L. BRADLEY, Ph.D."

Thank Goodness Texas Opted Out of Common Core

The state of Texas opted out of Common Core as a philosophy and curricula several years ago. It has been a disaster nationwide as the 2019 results have been published.

For the third time in a row since Common Core was fully phased in nationwide, U.S. student test scores on the nation’s broadest and most respected test have dropped, a reversal of an upward trend between 1990 and 2015. Further, the class of 2019, the first to experience all four high school years under Common Core, is the worst-prepared for college in 15 years, according to a new report.

Georgetown ISD needs to focus on teaching students how to read, write cursive, and perform mathematics. They have 4 failing schools that need the attention of the school board and the superintendent.

Purge all elements of common core that have snuck into the curricula and teaching process would be a good first step and the nationwide results cited above show that it is a failed experiment in educating the nations young people.

Read the entire report at the link. 

Excuses for Poor GISD Performance

The GISD superintendent has publicly admitted that GISD students "have not been performing". What is going on here? Is this blame shifting? Is it not the superintendent, staff and teachers who are responsible for student performance? Don't blame the students!

Then the superintendent tries to blame the "State of Texas" on shifting performance targets.

It makes no difference what the "targets" are if the students are fundamentally being taught reading, writing, history and arithmetic!

The superintendent has admitted he and GISD staff and teachers have not been focused on the subjects that would ensure good state test results. They were focused on more qualitative aspects of instructions instead of quantitative measures of learning such as test scores.

The Georgetown ISD superintendent is paid almost $350,000 per year. Are the children and community receiving value equal or greater than that pay? That is a relevant question that needs to be asked and answered.

The superintendent's 2018/19 contract can be found on the GISD website. Looking at the compensation part of the contract the following pay and benefits are identified.

This salary is more that twice that of the Texas Governor according to the 2018 Book of the States. ($153,750)

Recall that GISD recently received a grade of "B" from the Texas Education Agency. Three of GISD schools were rated F and three were rated D.

 Why are there are no incentives provided in the superintendent's contract to improve those grades? Should there be?

Get involved with your school system, including the school board if you want to see improvements. Hold them accountable!

Texas Education Agency Report Card for GISD

Even though GISD improved overall from a score of 80 to a score of 83, the district still has 4 failing schools, 2 elementary and 2 middle schools.

Click to enlarge

It is time to hold the school board and superintendent accountable for this dismal performance - even Austin schools are better overall!