Next, I did not at all mean to say the Skyline community itself was responsible for losing principals, and apologize for my misleading choice of words. Rather, that the position has not been a stable one due to external forces and that unless the district truly supports the school and principal, Skyline will end up repeating history. People are not going to be jumping to fill that position, given the repeated difficulties at the school. Case in point: the past year.

Interim Superintendent Mayor and the school board made the decision to let this most recent principal go after one year. The people at the school didn’t chew him up and spit him out; some were strong supporters and others less so. The district now says that he wasn’t properly vetted, but that would have been downtown’s, not the school’s fault.

His predecessor was at the school for nearly two years. She was brought in as an interim 1 1/2 months into the school year. Her placement was supposed to be followed by a properly conducted principal search later that year. But Wendy G. and State Administrator #2 made sure that wasn’t to be, and decided to install her as the permanent. She was an inexperienced principal & former elementary school teacher who was busy pursuing a PhD during the time she was trying to manage a 2000+ student school. The school and its test scores suffered because of a lack of attention and good decisions.

Before that, Amy Hansen abandoned Skyline only two weeks before the school year started (Aug. 06), after serving for four years. The principal before that lasted six years.

This bad run of principals at Skyline seems like a combination of lousy upper level management and bad luck, rather any chewing and spitting “the school” has done.

As a teacher in Wendy G’s network for years, I can assure you that she has made no friends at my school. And, this must be said, my school has some very dynamic, upbeat professionals; many found her condescending and dishonest.

Please read this article about her:
http://rog.typepad.com/home/2004/09/shes_back_wendy.html

With regard to New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), I am very skeptical of this program. Why? Well, compare it to Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Program (PLI). NLNS is very much like the Teach for America version of administration, as applicants are administrating–without the proper preparation or completed training– in schools while doing their classwork. The PLI is a longer program that encourages its soon-to-be school leaders to learn first, then administrate after degree completion. I think our kids, schools, and teachers deserve better than being an experimental test tube with NLNS.

Also, the courses NLNS takes are from CSU East Bay, whereas PLI’ers get a Berkeley education. I have had friends from both programs, and it appears that the PLI gets a far superior education, yet they don’t have the absurdly big financial muscle NLNS does (akin to TFA).

Finally, I have heard of several of these young, inexperienced, unprepared NLNS administrators not being effective. I was at the Board Meeting two months ago when myriad Castlemont teachers were lamenting about their NLNS principal, Susan Ryan.

That is what the State of California – including Jack O’Connell was looking for – a unanimous vote. Without a unanimous vote, the State was having trouble with the return of power to Oakland. Because Tony’s plans will involve huge shifts in money from one set of schools to another, Jack and Company wanted to make sure the whole Board was on board and that the State office of Education would not have to deal with a mutiny.

The State can point back to the residents of the City of Oakland and say that each and every elected official voted for the Tony Plan. Takes the State out of the middle, let’s Tony work the Plan that Jack built and so we have a same-old, same-old district with a great deal more money in the schools where students are at far below basic and below basic on the standardized tests and a great deal less money where students are advanced.

What is interesting to me is that the Plan will not work as Tony wants it. He should have listened and learned to what Edward Velasquez is doing with his district, because it’s working. What Tony has offered up, is the same plan he put in place in Emeryville that is not working – I think their schools have an API of somewhere close to 600 and about 22% of the district budget is spent on Administration and Consultants.

And, please, if you have any doubts, ask in a public forum each and every member of the School Board, but do it soon before they get together and create their unity statement.

The meeting for a vote was held. All School Board members were locked up until they had an unanimous Tony vote. For those Board members who wanted to go with the panel recommendations, there were threats of all sorts.

That is why we saw the shifting of School Board power a week or two before the vote. That was when the decision was made and the alliances were built to hire Tony. It is also why there was a shift in power, because some School Board Members wanted our district to change their Machiavellian politics and others voted for the status quo.

Oakland Teacher, you sound like you ought to be an OEA negotiator. Oh, yes, that’s right, you guys are in negotiations.

Must all things hinge on salary? I think we’ve all seen well-paid failures. Superintendents, principals and yes, by golly, teachers.