Lorain City Schools- the meeting- ODE and Conclusions

PART ONE-–https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/lorain-city-schools-the-meeting-they-said/
PART TWO–https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/lorain-city-schools-the-meeting-they-said-part-two/

PART THREE-http://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/lorain-city-schools-the-meeting-they-said-professional-development/

PART FOURhttps://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/lorain-city-schools-the-meeting-they-said-the-ode-the-district-plan/

NOTE: I thought I would be able to finish this up today but the length of the post and the fact that people are less likely to read lengthy posts means part 6 will be the conclusions 🙂

Ohio Department of Education.
As I looked at the “grant parameters” of the Professional Development I was a little concerned. As regular readers know I have been involved with non- profits and grant applications for more years than I care to remember .The parameters of grants I have had experience with are usually pretty tight and require an accountability.

The parameters of the Professional Development definition with their retreats by Lorain City Schools met those parameters.

But the taxpayer and admittedly surface dweller ( me) was a little concerned that it may be the granting authority etc that needed to be looked at . To that end I sent the following email to the ODE to determine how “programs/ events/ meeting etc were tracked or if indeed they were and by whom.

TO THE ODE
I have been researching through a public records request and meeting with Lorain City Schools some expenditures by Lorain City Schools . Please understand I do not find anything illegal or even unethical in their usage of the funds but all monies that I have questioned as to the usage come under the Professional Development headings and federal monies Title 1 Sub A School Improvement and Title 11A Professional Development. Lorain City Schools are not alone in the spending of grant monies in this regard, this is being done statewide.

I have read the very loose parameters of the NCLB’s Professional Development Definition and I have a concern, which I am sure is shared by other taxpayers. Perhaps you can answer me – when “professionals- e.g.. administrators etc. attend these retreats and meetings and have highly paid motivational speakers come to “motivate” – how is the success of those retreats and motivational speakers tracked? What constitutes a successful “Professional Development” outcome? What is the litmus test for worthiness of these meetings and retreats etc.?
My concern is we the taxpayer are enabling these grants with our taxes and personally I would think there needs to be a tightening up on the parameters set in your grant funding . However I would like your perspective on this . I will be using any correspondence in a series of articles fyi. Thank you Loraine Ritchey

Therein lies the journey- I spoke to various people at the ODE and as of writing I have not heard back from Mr. Galloway the Communication Director.
However it seems from various conversations that the “district” determines whether the meeting/ speaker / event is succesful there is not one iota of formal tracking as to success as it equates to the trickle down of “the Professional Development” of teachers and indeed to the students.

This sent me on a further journey as a taxpayer as to the funding sources of Title 1 and Title 11 grants under the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the No Child Left Behind Act
Remember readers this is OUR tax money being spent –

From what I can tell if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -2009 which there was and is an awful of money being “stimulated” – 275 Billion – and a lot of that going to education.
http://www.recovery.gov

and under the No Child Left Behind Act -2002
revision in 2006 from Margaret Spellings, the then US Secretary of Education – “Improving Teacher Quality State Grants – Non-Regulatory Guidance”

“Thanks to your tireless efforts, we are increasing educational excellence. The goal of leaving no child behind will soon become a reality.”

Well we are 8 years on from the enacting of NCLB – how has that worked for us here in Lorain Ohio?????? You tell me !

http://www.ode.state.oh.us/reportcardfiles/2009-2010/DIST/044263.pdf

As to the confirmation possibly to my question as to who tracks the success?

Except for explicit statutory requirements, State and local recipients are free to implement Title II, Part A activities based on their own reasonable interpretations of the law.

That means ,if I am reading correctly, the district determines the “success” of their “events/meeting/ programs/and speakers. All across the USA people are deciding how to spend the educational dollars and how they relate to “professional development” and seemingly they are also the ones deciding whether their decisions constituted good decision-making.

I am drawing some conclusions that the USA is in big trouble almost equal to the amount of money we are throwing at programs and grants and it all starts with the tip of the iceberg at the local level.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/us-falls-in-world-education-rankings_n_793185.html

To be continued
…………………………………………..