What's Terry Grier doing in Houston? He's choosing the best teachers for summer school

See all posts on summer school.

May 11, 2011
Quality of Summer School Teachers Targeted
By Stephen Sawchuk
Education Week

As hundreds of thousands of students soon head off to summer school, several crucial and long-unanswered questions about teacher quality could get a second look: Which teachers get recruited for summer school, and how well does their instruction align to the knowledge and skills children need to master?

A hefty body of evidence documents the phenomenon of “summer learning loss,” but consensus on the attributes of effective summer intervention, especially when it comes to access to high-quality teaching for students most at risk of falling behind, is only starting to emerge.

Now, though, a handful of districts are beginning to wrestle with the topic, thanks in part to an emphasis on both teacher quality and expanded learning in the federal economic-stimulus legislation.

For the upcoming summer session, which will serve approximately 20,000 students, Houston officials plan to recruit top teachers using information from the district’s value-added system.

Several other districts, such as Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and Providence, R.I., have also begun efforts to make summer school engaging for students and attractive to teachers, largely through better alignment of academic and enrichment opportunities. And according to officials at the Baltimore-based National Summer Learning Association, the federal economic-stimulus legislation put about $100 million into summer programs, some of which take a similar approach.

But as school leaders acknowledge, changing the conversation about summer school is still a heavy lift.

“You’re recruiting teachers for the next school year, trying to find the right principals, ordering textbooks, and deep-cleaning schools and reservicing buses,” said Terry Grier, the Houston superintendent. “And then there’s this thing called summer school, and for a lot of folks, it’s an afterthought.”...

The FBI is interested in the SDUSD whiteboard saga

What if all this money had been spent on evaluating and training teachers? You don't need whiteboards to teach. Simply walking around the classroom to look at what kids are doing, or skillfully asking for oral responses, will let teachers know if students are learning the lesson. One of my favorite tricks is NOT to let the smartest kids answer right away. Instead, the teacher waits until quite a few hands are raising before calling on someone. Another technique: ask another student if the first student has answered correctly. Do this even when the first student HAS answered correctly.

Legal Questions on How Schools Chose Their Whiteboard Brand
Emily Alpert
Voice of San Diego
February 25, 2010

...In a recent interview, Grier said he might have said that Promethean boards should be installed in classrooms, but that was a meaningless verbal slip, like the Southern habit of calling every soda a Coke...



Schools' Technology Choice Draws FBI Interest
April 28, 2010
By EMILY ALPERT

The way in which the San Diego Unified School District chose a specific brand of technological tools has drawn the interest of the FBI, according to a local businessman who sued the school district over it.

Pete Spencer, president of a La Mesa company that installs computerized whiteboards, filed a lawsuit against the school district last year alleging it had inappropriately picked a specific brand of boards for its classrooms. Spencer says he was visited this month by the FBI, which is already investigating whiteboard purchases in Florida and Iowa...

San Diego Unified is undertaking a sweeping technological makeover for schools that include classroom sound systems, laptops for each child and computerized whiteboards that can pull up web pages and interactive lessons. Two Promethean resellers, Vector Resources and Logical Choice Technologies, won a $50 million contract to install Promethean whiteboards in San Diego Unified schools last summer under a $2.1 billion bond to renovate and build schools...

After Promethean was chosen, Spencer argued he was unfairly shut out of competing to install the new technology because he didn't have an existing contract to obtain and install Promethean boards. He settled with the school district and the two winning installation companies for $42,000 earlier this year.

Spencer said he was contacted earlier this month by an FBI agent who then visited his office and asked for copies of his legal documents, including the settlement agreement, letters between his attorney and San Diego Unified and the notification the school district published seeking whiteboard installers.

"She said, 'I can't tell you whether we're doing an investigation or not. But I'll take everything you've got,'" Spencer said. FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth verified that the agent that Spencer named exists, but he could not confirm whether an investigation is taking place.

Former Superintendent Terry Grier, now leading the Houston school system, said he had not received any subpoenas or requests for information about the Promethean boards, which were selected during his tenure in San Diego. Neither has San Diego Unified, said its attorney, Mark Bresee.

Government agencies can only specify a particular brand of products in limited cases that are specified under state law, such as matching other products or coping with an emergency. Doing so can be a quicker alternative to seeking bids for pencils, flooring or other products. But the rules are specific, meant to avoid at least the appearance of favoritism for a chosen company.

The school district argued that it needed to match Promethean to other whiteboards that had already been installed in new schools. Technology chief Darryl LaGace said his staff had earlier evaluated the boards for a smaller installation and found advantages to Promethean over another brand.

But critics say that if all government agencies followed the same reasoning as San Diego Unified, they could simply block companies from competing for business. For instance, the city could equip a few libraries with a chosen product, then insist on matching all other libraries to it...


A reader sent a link to this page:

Montgomery County Councilmember Michael (Mike) Knapp on the Promethean Board purchase made by MCPS COO Larry Bowers: "At a time when we have limited resources, the school system had locked us into certain expenditures we couldn't afford..."

Gazette; Wednesday, September 9, 2009: "3,300 Promethean Boards in Montgomery County Public School buildings. Where did they come from?..."

Did Aspen Group LLC actually help SDUSD in return for $229,000?

Schools don't need Aspen Group to micromanage them. Schools need a whole new culture. I suggest bringing in Patrick Leoncini, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.




Randy Quinn, senior partner
Aspen Group International, LLC

Much Ado About Micromanaging
EMILY ALPERT
Voice of San Diego
August 24, 2009

...After the school board picked the new superintendent, Terry Grier, it brought in a new consultant, the Aspen Group LLC, to keep working on governance issues with them in April 2008. I've tallied up $229,000 in contracts to those consultants since then, plus another $160,000 contract the school board signed with Aspen to work with them for the next school year...

But when school board member Katherine Nakamura told me that the closed meeting today gave them a real opportunity for some honest conversation about their roles and allowing the superintendent to be the superintendent, I had to ask: Wasn't that what all those governance trainings were for? What happened in that closed meeting that wasn't happening in those earlier trainings?

"The issue of Houston maybe clarifies things," she said. "We had some more honest conversations."

Suggestions for Terry Grier as he leaves San Diego for Houston

Photo at left: Terry Grier.
See all Terry Grier posts HERE.

Actually, I just have one suggestion for Mr. Grier: When you want to counteract teacher union excesses, DON'T GET IN BED WITH COMPANIES LIKE ASPEN INTERNATIONAL THAT ARE INTERESTED IN POWER, NOT REFORM.

Aspen International is worse than the teachers union.

Try some real reform--like sitting down and talking to a cross-spectrum of teachers, and getting them to talk to each other and to parents. Take the politics out of schools, and put professionalism in the driver's seat. Also, set up a meaningful evaluation system for teachers. Right now, both teachers and administrators have influence based on their political power, not their professional abilities.



HISD board picks San Diego's Terry Grier
Choice to lead district vows to cut dropout rate
By ERICKA MELLON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 21, 2009, 8:14AM

Houston school trustees united Thursday to name Terry Grier the new superintendent, and now the ambitious San Diego schools chief must win over an unfamiliar and diverse community.

Grier, who has run eight school systems in 25 years, will take over the Houston Independent School District pending final school board approval. State law requires a 21-day waiting period.

“I just think there's a wonderful opportunity here,” Grier said after receiving a standing ovation at HISD headquarters.

The 59-year-old stood with his wife, Nancy, by his side and said he would be “humbled and honored” to lead the nation's seventh-largest school district. He pledged to reduce HISD's dropout rate and said he would help “an already good district become a truly great district.”...

Houston Independent School District statistics:
• Hispanic: 61.1 percent
• Black: 27.8 percent
• Anglo: 7.8 percent
• Asian: 3.2 percent
• Low income: 80.9 percent

Sources: 2008-09 data from HISD

Terry Grier says SUHSD principals not properly evaluated

I agree that school districts need to find a good way to evaluate principals. However, I suspect that the $250,000 the SDUSD board has authorized for this effort will be wasted on people who will simply look for ways to make it legal to continue making arbitrary personnel decisions. I used to have hope that Superintendent Terry Grier would be an agent of change, but his association with the Aspen Group International makes me think he's getting lazy and just wants his job to be easy.

Voice of San Diego
Seeking New Ways to Evaluate Principals
EMILY ALPERT
November 18, 2008

The San Diego Unified school board approved a proposal Tuesday night to hire an outside group to help craft evaluation criteria and procedures for school principals, despite complaints about its cost and objections from the principals association.

The proposal to craft new ways to evaluate principals gained more poignancy on the heels of a San Diego Unified report that found the district delinquent in evaluating its principals and administrators. Evaluating staffers has proved thorny in the past: San Diego Unified has twice fended off lawsuits in recent years about improper firings or evaluations of principals, said school board president Katherine Nakamura, who estimated that some administrators had not been evaluated in over a decade.

Superintendent Terry Grier attributed the problem to vague language in the school district agreement with principals that made it unclear how to evaluate principals without avoiding legal peril, and said those agreements need to be renegotiated. Grier said the $250,000 contract with a Colorado-based group would help solve the problem.

"In the long run, if you want us to hold principals accountable," Grier said, "... there has to be a different instrument."

Several stakeholders found the $250,000 contract objectionable in light of the budget crisis looming ahead for San Diego Unified. Administrators Association Executive Director Jeannie Steeg said that the amount was excessive, even though a new evaluation system was "desperately needed." Her comments were echoed by school board member Shelia Jackson, who called the proposal "irresponsible" and insulting to district staffers who Jackson believed could do the same work at a lesser expense...

[Blogger's note: District staffers clearly cannot do the job. Sadly, I don't think the people collecting $250,000 can do the job, either. What is needed is a change in culture.]

Exactly who are these ASPEN Group International folks that Terry Grier brought in to silence SDUSD board members?

SDUSD superintendent Terry Grier (photo) brought in consultants to design a gag rule for board members.

I looked up Aspen Group International and found this:

ASPEN Group International Inc. and American Association of School Administrators present:

"A timely seminar for superintendents who want to lead"

From School Administrator
June 2003

"...This conference will help you, as the district's CEO, and your board work together to form an authentic and respectful relationship characterized by a true trusteeship focused on increasing community support for and understanding of district efforts..

"WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT...

* If your school board members exercised collective self discipline to stay out of interpersonal game-playing, political intrigues and micromanagement?

[Blogger's note: Wonderful! Only administrators--not board members --would be involved in interpersonal game-playing and political intrigues.]

* ...If you could make administrative and operational decisions without seeking approval or being second-guessed and reversed by your board?

[How can voters and parents have any input at all, if board members are not accountable for administrative and operational decisions?]

* If your school board were focused more on student achievement and creating community support and less on operational "stuff"?

[Wait a minute. Isn't "operational stuff" precisely how student achievement is attained? What exactly would the board members focus on?]

...What a utopia! But in your lifetime?

As a matter of fact, YES!

[Public schools are NOT utopias designed for the comfort of the superintendent. They are public entities, and those who operate them must be open and accountable to voters. Conflicts should be resolved by discussion, not gagging board members and keeping voters out of the loop.]

"Many school boards and their CEOs already are experiencing all these benefits of Policy Governance[R], the governing model created by John Carver that has proven to be practical and successful in the public education world by helping superintendents and school board members understand their real roles and how to effectively execute them.

[Since when are board members merely cheerleaders for superintendents? They are bosses, not boosters!}

"This AASA/Aspen Group conference is your opportunity to learn more about Policy Governance[R], how it is being used by superintendents across the nation, and how it can produce results to match its promise in your district. Log on to www.aasa.org or www.aspengroup.org for details about Policy Governance[R] and this important conference.

"$400 for AASA members, $450 for non-members"

[Blogger's note: I agree with the commenter who said these shenanigans are a good reason to vote for John Lee Evans instead of Mitz Lee.]

Shelia Jackson says Katherine Nakamura and Terry Grier played politics

See all Shelia Jackson posts.


School Trustee Calls to Investigate Peer
Voice of San Diego

...Last night, board member Shelia Jackson publicly requested an independent investigation of a campaign meeting called by school board president Katherine Nakamura and Superintendent Terry Grier to inform principals of volunteer opportunities for Proposition S, the $2.1 billion facilities bond slated for the November ballot. E-mails about the meeting from supervisors told principals either "please attend" or that the meeting was mandatory.

Bond opponent John Stump later argued that the meeting, held at no charge at the Girl Scouts Headquarters in Balboa Park, violated a city policy that prohibits city-subsidized facilities to be used for political activities.

Jackson said Nakamura might have violated another section of the governance policies that requires trustees to serve the interests of the school district above other advocacy or interest groups, and that Grier might have failed to prevent an activity that "endangers the organization’s public image or credibility," in violation of another policy.

Jackson’s request follows a public kerfuffle over a back-to-school conference championed by Jackson. The conference did not have board approval, but Jackson had used a district procurement card to buy supplies for the event. She later reimbursed San Diego Unified. Grier had requested an investigation of the expenditures, but didn't announce it publicly.


-- EMILY ALPERT
October 15, 2008

Free speech now allowed by San Diego Unified board members

I'm wondering if the odd and short-lived plan to silence dissent was concocted by recently-hired SDUSD bigwigs Mark Bresee (chief counsel) and Terry Grier (superintendent). I know Mark Bresee is opposed to openness and honesty on school boards. I now suspect that Mark Bresee's hiring was done at the behest of Terry Grier, who apparently is in sync with Mr. Bresee on this issue. The two of them are apparently fans of Aspen Group International, LLC, which provided the consultants who "helped" the board write the rule.

School Board Reverses Public-Criticism Rule
Voice of San Diego

The San Diego Unified school board voted tonight to abolish a policy that barred its members from publicly making negative comments about their superintendent and staff after the policy received heavy criticism. The board also removed a policy that dissuades them from undermining board decisions when speaking publicly.

One member of the public, League of Women Voters of San Diego Co-President Norma Damashek, said tonight that the policies "short-circuit transparency and accountability in public meetings" and "deprive us of the opportunity to hear the views of our public representatives." The rule was earlier criticized by attorneys from the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the statewide open government group Californians Aware...

School board member Luis Acle was the only member to vote against removing the rule.


-- EMILY ALPERT
October 14, 2008

What teachers want

I agree with SDUSD's superintendent Terry Grier that teachers with more skills should be lured to poor-performing schools with higher pay. The California Teachers Association disagrees.

In today's edition of Voice of San Diego Emily Alpert writes:

"...[Superintendent] Grier has not broached the idea with the union, but he often includes articles about differential pay in his weekly updates to San Diego Unified staff. [Teachers union president Camile] Zombro called differential pay "an abhorrent idea" that doesn't address the real problem of "intolerable working conditions" at schools in low-income neighborhoods..."

Terry Grier gets an "A" for coming up with the idea of higher pay for harder jobs

Emily Alpert at Voice of San Diego reports that SDUSD superintendent Terry Grier is a proponent of an idea that I have supported for a long time: pay more to teachers at less-desirable schools in order to attract better, more experienced teachers."...Grier's plans included a controversial move to use a county-paid supplement to teacher salaries to pay bonuses for teachers in "hard-to-staff" schools, Jewell said. He was overruled.

"'The teachers were up in arms," [North Carolina union leader Mark] Jewell said. "We viewed it as a tax on the teachers.'..."

Attorney Mark Bresee leaves as a recall effort comes to a vote

See all Terry Grier posts.
See all Mark Bresee posts.

[Photo: SDUSD Superintendent Terry Grier]

Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County has experienced criminal indictments of administrators for using public funds to play politics, and soon it will hold a recall election for two board members.

We have bad behavior by school administrators and board members in San Diego county, too, but our District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis, seems not to be interested, except in very bizarre circumstances.

Still, events are converging for a possible legal blow-up here.

Orange County Department of Education lawyer Mark Bresee has come back to San Diego. He'll be an in-house lawyer for SDUSD. A few years ago he helped out Chula Vista Elementary School District by submitting phony documents to the Office of Administrative Hearings. What will he do this time? I guess that depends on what SDUSD's new superintendent wants him to do.

What is Terry Grier thinking?

Grier has shown so much courage until now. But it seems that insurance companies, not the education code and the law of the land, control school district legal departments. Perhaps Terry Grier hasn't figured out how much damage these insurance companies and the Council of School Attorneys have done to education. I would advise him to hire a lawyer who has worked for students or employees. That kind of lawyer would give better advice and would be more likely to stay within the law.


I found this article on the KPCC (Public Radio in Southern California) website.
by Susan Valot
June 23, 2008

"Voters in South Orange County will head to the polls on Tuesday. They're deciding in a special election whether to recall two Capistrano Unified School District board members. KPCC's Susan Valot says it's a battle that's been building for a while.

"Susan Valot: Three years ago, a group of parents unhappy with the Capistrano Unified School District board tried to collect enough signatures to recall all seven board members. That effort failed when the number of verified signatures fell short.

"Last year, voters replaced three of the seven board members with candidates supported by the CUSD Recall Committee. Now, that group's trying to recall long-time board members Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke. Rancho Santa Margarita City Councilman Tony Beall is part of the recall effort.

"Tony Beall: They have created a culture of corruption in our school district..."

Terry Grier on teachers union

Terry Grier (above) became Superintendent of San Diego Unified School District in 2008.

"I don't dislike anyone over there (in the teachers union.) In fact, I have great respect and admiration for all of them. They find themselves in a hard position. You've not heard me say some of the things about them that you've heard them say about me. Nor do I think you will."
--Terry Grier

Voice of San Diego
May 24, 2008

Terry Grier and Martin Haberman want to find out who can solve problems

UPDATE APRIL 13, 2010: San Diego Unified bows to pressure from employees to eliminate Haberman interviews.

UPDATE APRIL 12, 2010: There is a rumor going around at this time to the effect that Terry Grier was fired from San Diego Unified School District. The rumor is false. Terry Grier left because Houston offered him more money, and because he felt stymied by the teachers union and its opposition to effective teacher evaluation and followup.

Photo: Terry Grier

See all Terry Grier posts and updates HERE.

Photo: Martin Haberman (below)


Terry Grier of San Diego Unified is requiring principals to interview to keep their jobs. The interviews are designed to measure problem-solving ability, and were developed by Martin Haberman (see below).Haberman's Career Dedicated to Quality Public Education
By Kathy Quirk

University of Wisconsin
Martin Haberman

Martin Haberman, distinguished professor emeritus of curriculum and instruction in UWM's School of Education, discovered his life's work while standing in a draft board line in New York City waiting to take a 30-word vocabulary test...

"If you passed the 30-word vocabulary test, you could stay in college. If you failed it you went into the army and would be very likely to go to Korea, where 58,000 service people were wounded or killed."

...Among "the 500 naked guys standing in line" waiting to be processed and tested, he found that those most likely to fail the vocabulary test were Puerto Ricans, African Americans and poor whites. The experience taught him two valuable lessons: "a sound basic education could save your life; and "the fundamental inequities in the American public education system are life threatening..."

Terry Grier and Jim Groth: will they become fast friends?

CTA's San Diego director Jim Groth has made friends with superintendents in Chula Vista Elementary School District by helping them get away with illegal actions.

But somehow I don't think Jim is going to get along quite as well with San Diego Unified School District's new superintendent, Terry Grier.

Why? Because it sounds to me like Terry Grier cares about kids, and believes in rewarding good teachers. That's not an agenda that will please the California Teachers Assocation.

Perhaps Mr. Grier could break the ice by asking Jim about his days at CVESD. And by passing on a great big hello from me.

Terry Grier is a good choice for San Diego Unified School District

I'm impressed with the San Diego Unified school board for selecting Terry Grier as its new superintendent.

For years I have advocated paying teachers more at the worst schools in order to attract the best teachers.

Grier instituted this precise system in North Carolina.

I wrote to Superintendent Lowell Billings of Chula Vista Elementary School District with this suggestion, but I never got a response. Last month I finally had a chance to ask him what happened to my emails. "You just forward them all to your lawyers?" I asked. "Yes, well, actually I forward them to Tom Cruz (Assistant Superintendent for human resources), and he forwards them to the lawyers."

I guess Stutz law firm didn't like my idea, either. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that they didn't care. Stutz seems to prefer litigating against kids to working for kids.

Dan Shinoff once said, when he served on the board of his kids' private school, that he did it because he wanted to "give back." Nice spin, Dan. Wasn't it about your kids, Mr. Shinoff, rather than other people's children? Wasn't it more about exerting control than practicing altruism?