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Questions Remain In SAT Controversy
The Moore County Board of Education understandably hopes it has achieved “closure” with the conclusions and actions it announced Thursday at the end of its investigation into misuse of remediation funds.
The board can hardly be blamed for wishing the whole controversy would go away, at least for a while. The atmosphere has grown too harsh and hostile and wild-eyed, and this would be a good time for all involved to step back, take a deep breath and attempt to restore their perspective. Some of Superintendent Pat Russo’s more rabid enemies clearly need to do that.
On a human level, you have to credit the members of the board for the many tension-filled hours they put into trying to resolve the issue fairly and professionally. They are, after all, not paid employees but civic-minded volunteers. They didn’t ask to be plunged into such a stressful mess when they ran for office. At this juncture, they deserve to be cut a little slack.
And, though some doubting Thomases (including this newspaper) had questioned whether school board attorney Richard Schwartz could perform an objective investigation, he appears to have done just that.
Still, critics of Russo and the board are not likely to roll over and play dead, considering the momentum they now have going for them. For many of them, the SAT revelations only served as a catalyst for negative feelings that had already simmered for years.
Making things easier for those critics is the fact that Thursday’s climactic and dramatic meeting left important questions unaddressed or inadequately unanswered.
Here are some of them:
Will the board extend Russo’s contract? The board’s decision not to fire its chief executive is the right one, based on the evidence that has so far surfaced. He and some people under him made mistakes, and he appropriately apologized for those mistakes in public. Taken alone, they do not represent a capital offense. Remaining to be dealt with, though, is the question of whether or not to tack another couple of years to the two that already remain on the superintendent’s employment contract.
In pondering this decision, the board will be aware that a failure to renew the contract within the next few months would amount to a signal that Russo needs to start looking around for a new job and they need to start the long and tedious and unwelcome process of looking around for a new superintendent. On the other hand, voting for renewal in the current atmosphere would likely come back to haunt those board members who seek re-election next year.
What were the vague and unspecified “personnel actions” that the board says it has taken against Russo and others as a result of its investigation? Personnel actions are confidential under state law. But the board is, in effect, simply saying, “Trust us. We took care of this.”
What about the policy issues involved? More than $100,000 in state money was wrongly channeled into inappropriate efforts to pump up SAT scores. That’s not pocket change. How could that have happened? Have heads been knocked together and procedures re-examined to make sure it doesn’t happen again?
How will that misspent $100,000 — or however much it ends up being — be paid back to the state? Will other, more legitimate, programs suffer? Will the taxpayers have to pick up the tab?
What about the Accountability Model? In hindsight, this mathematical formula used to measure progress in the school system, agreed on by the school board and the county commissioners before Russo ever arrived on the scene, was clearly a mistake.
In particular, the inclusion in that formula of cumulative SAT scores — which were never intended as a valid measure of schools or school systems —opened the door to abuses. And some people within the system lost no time walking through that door. Isn’t it now time to modify, rethink, or trash the model and replace it with something that encourages and empowers teachers to worry about numbers less and students more?
What about Russo’s management style? In its statement, the board made only a glancing reference to this central issue when it said, “The board is also fully aware of concerns that have been expressed relating to pressures brought on by management style. ...” Maybe it was appropriate not to dwell further on this matter during this particular inquiry, which needed to focus on the SAT issue. But in the minds of many, it remains a central concern that won’t soon be shrugged off. |
