Dems Heading For A Big Fall?

Surely, ‘twas a great victory! For the first time in more than forty years, a Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, won Virginia’s electors, capturing more than 52% of the vote. Democrat Mark Warner won the U.S. Senate seat by an overwhelming landslide. Democratic candidates won previously Republican House of Representatives seats in the Second, Fifth, and Eleventh congressional districts. Oh yes. For Virginia Democrats, ‘twas a great victory!

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a reception for the Virginia presidential electors sponsored by the local Democratic committees. There was a moderate sized crowd, and it was fascinating for a college Political Science major like me. I always think of the electoral system by which we elect our presidents as an archaic relic of the eighteenth century. But here were eight or nine of Virginia’s electors describing the constitutional function that they had carried out earlier in the day. As the speeches went on, the gathering morphed into a belated election victory party. Everybody was bragging about what a great job they hand done to move Virginia out of the red. Now, all they had to do was concentrate on next year’s House of Delegates races to turn Virginia truly into a blue state. I mumbled under my breath, “We’ll be lucky to keep the State House.”

So why is the maven so discouraged when everybody else is so upbeat? For one thing, I am trying to avoid complacency. It is vital that Virginia Democrats not get into the mindset that the Commonwealth will become a permanently blue state by means of some inevitable historical development. That will not happen. Nothing is inevitable. Virginia will become a blue state only if lots of people put in the kind of time and effort they did this year to get Obama and Warner elected.

I am also not quite secure with the ability of the Virginia Democratic Party to get candidates elected. As I stated two years ago, Let’s Talk about the Democratic Party of Virginia, the Democratic Party does not elect candidates in Virginia. Rather it is the individual candidate committees that elect candidates to office. After this year’s election, I am convinced that I am still right.

The kind of party politics that I grew up with in Brooklyn is long gone. Now campaigns are run by professional political consultants hired by candidates rather than by political parties. One result of this change is that candidates don’t have any real loyalty to the party since they do not have to rely on the party to get elected. They run their own campaigns and raise their own money. The campaign staff they hire and the volunteers they recruit do not feel any loyalty to the party. When the election campaign is over they go back to doing what they were doing before the campaign. They generally do not transfer their talents to the state or local party.

This fall there were separate committees operating to elect Barack Obama as president and Mark Warner as senator. There were also eleven separate committees working to elect or re-elect members of Congress in the eleven congressional districts. They did not necessarily work together with the state Democratic Party or with local Democratic committees. This led to a rather chaotic situation, at least here in the City of Richmond.

At the September meeting of the Richmond City Democratic Committee, it became apparent to me that the committee as an entity was not a major player in the November elections. Rather than urging those present to work within the party for the election of the Democratic slate the message was to volunteer through the Obama or Warner headquarters within the city.

At the same September meeting, the followers of mayoral candidate Dwight Jones had sufficient members present to have the committee vote to endorse Jones for mayor. Although this vote was overturned by the state Democratic Party, the Jones supporters were again able to garner enough votes at an October meeting of the committee. (I am not criticizing Jones for this action. I also had my supporters work to get the committee to endorse my school board candidacy.) What did Jones gain from this endorsement? He was able to portray himself as a Democrat in his campaign literature and his name appeared as part of the Democratic slate on the party’s sample ballots. However, his campaign continued to be run by his own campaign committee.

During the last weeks before the election I tried to contact the Democratic leader for the fourth district (in which I was running) but without success. I e-mailed the members of the Richmond City Democratic Committee residing within the fourth district to find out who was covering the polls on Election Day. The few replies I received indicated that it was the Obama campaign, rather than the Democratic Committee that was staffing the polls on Election Day. I contacted the fourth district leaders for the Obama campaign to try to coordinate Election Day activities. I was told that they had everything under control and did not need my help.

During the final days before the election I found out that there was some kind of screw up with sample ballots and that I wouldn’t be receiving as many as I felt I needed for the election. I was told not to worry because the Obama campaign had lots of sample ballots which would benefit my candidacy. I found out at about 6:00 PM on Election Day that the sample ballots being distributed by Obama volunteers at the polls in the fourth district did not even have my name listed.

During the last weekend of the campaign I also discovered that only two of the six precincts in the fourth district had Democratic Committee members assigned as precinct captains. Fortunately, several of my friends had volunteered to cover the polls for me on Election Day.

I am not setting forth these facts as a complaint. My failure to win the fourth district school board race was not the fault of the Richmond City Democratic Committee. Even if the committee was well organized and worked for my election I would probably have still lost for a multitude of reasons. I do set forth these happenings to point out that the committee is not meeting its stated objective of promoting “Democratic principles through the support and assistance in the election of local, state and national Democratic candidates.”

The 2009 election will be tough for several reasons. First, Republican leaders throughout the country have indicated that winning the Virginia gubernatorial race is the key to the party’s recovery from the 2008 elections. GOP Aiming to Plant Seeds of Its Resurgence in Va. Governor's Race There will be tons of money coming into the Commonwealth and all the stars of the GOP will be working to win our State House.

Second, the Virginia Republican Party is united behind Bob McDonnell as its candidate for governor. The Dems, however, already have two declared candidates and most likely will have a third ere long. So, this spring, while Mr. McDonnell is concentrating on the general election campaign, the Democrats will be bogged down in what may be a divisive primary campaign.

Third, Bob McDonnell has been serving as Virginia’s attorney general for the last three years and is clearly better known to voters in the Commonwealth that any of the potential Democratic nominees. This will give him a clear advantage in the November election.

If Virginia is to truly become a blue state the state Democratic Party must organize itself to provide maximum support for whoever wins the primaries. Local committees, like the Richmond City Democratic Committee, must also organize to assure that the Democratic candidates for all offices are fully supported in their campaigns. We Democrats cannot rely on a charismatic candidate, like Obama or Warner, to turn on the electorate.

One final thing. In this year’s election campaign I saw very little support of one Democratic candidate for another. While individual candidates were happy to run as Democrats because they thought it would help their own candidates, there was only one instance that I am aware of where a Democratic candidate urged the election of all Democrats running for office. The week before the election, I received an automated telephone call from third district representative Bobby Scott urging voters to vote for Barack Obama and the entire Democratic ticket. This has to change.

I’m Back!

It’s been at least six weeks since this maven last spoke to you. During that time the world has changed a great deal:

1- Barak Obama was elected our next president winning a majority of the popular vote and a decisive margin in the Electoral College;

2- The Washington Redskins stopping playing over their heads;

3- The voters of the Commonwealth elected Democrats for President, for Senator, and for a majority of congressional seats for the first time since “Democrat” had an entirely different meaning in Virginia;

4- The American economy went further into free-fall with hundreds of thousands losing their jobs;

5- The James Madison Dukes and the Richmond Spiders are both in the semi-finals of a football division that actually chooses its national champion by playoffs;

6- America’s remaining financial institutions accepted hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer largess and did nothing with the money;

7- The Governor of Illinois, with an unpronounceable name spelled “Blagojevich,” gave an entirely new meaning to “let the free market decide”;

8- The Richmond Renegades played a hockey game in which the their opponent’s players served more penalty minutes than there are minutes in a game;

9- Dwight Jones was elected mayor of River City;

10- Hillary Clinton agreed to serve as our next Secretary of State.

And-- this maven lost his bid to serve on the Richmond School Board.

I could say that the election was close, that I only lost by 2553 votes. But let’s face it, I got thumped. I could blame all kinds of unexpected adversities that plagued my four month campaign. However, the fact is that more people voted for Andrea Graham Scott than voted for me.

Looking back at Election Day, I can say that I would have much preferred to have won. Finishing second is not something to be ashamed of, but it’s no great honor either. I really loved the campaigning and meeting with the voters. I loved the intellectual stimulation of expressing my ideas for fixing Richmond’s public schools. I loved the support I received from so many of my neighbors.

So, what’s next? I will get back to working with the kids in our public schools. They have such great need for a caring adult in their lives. I will continue working to make my neighborhood school one that my neighbors will send their kids to. I will do what I can to make sure that our new mayor and the members of the City Council and School Board give the citizens of Richmond the high-quality government to which they are entitled.

Let’s face it, dear reader; mavening can certainly be a full time job. As for politics—it was great fun, but it was just one of those things.

What This Campaign Is Really About

Now, that we are down to the last five days in the School Board race, this maven is thinking again about how I got here in the first place.

Why am I running?

· I am running for the children of Richmond. Although Richmond Public Schools has made considerable progress in the last four or five years, and although there are particular schools or programs that are outstanding, I am convinced that many of our children are not receiving the quality education to which they are entitled.

· I am also running because my religious upbringing taught me that if I see injustice in the world I am obligated to do something to fix it. To me the fact that the quality of education that children in Richmond receive varies significantly with the school they attend is a significant injustice. The fact that some of our children finish their education in Richmond (either by dropping out or graduating) without receiving the skills they need to make it in the world is also a significant injustice. We need to do better.

· Further, I am running because I am deeply concerned with the fact that middle class families are leaving the city to seek what they feel are better educational opportunities for their children. I am worried that if this trend is not reversed, we will end up with a very family-unfriendly city. We must stop this middle class hemorrhage.

· Finally, as a taxpayer, I am running to change the business climate at Richmond Public Schools so that waste and mismanagement of the taxpayers’ money stops.

What I will do? If elected,

· I will work with parents and school principals to make neighborhood schools work for all our children. Our neighborhood schools can be the core around which we build healthy and safe neighborhoods. Getting parents involved in our neighborhood schools will strengthen their ties to the neighborhoods and will improve the learning experience for everybody’s children.

· I will add funding to the Richmond Public School budget for four International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programs. I intend that one of these programs will be implemented in a fourth district school. I have previously explained why I think that the International Baccalaureate approach to learning will teach our children how to think, how to gather information, how to make decisions, how to understand that everything is related, how to communicate and how to relate to a world of different people from different cultures. International Baccalaureate Revisited.

· I will bring accountability to Richmond Public Schools. My twenty five years experience with the Government Accountability Office in Washington has given me the knowledge and skills necessary to uncover and eliminate unlawful and wasteful spending in government programs, including Richmond Public Schools.

· I will involve the entire Richmond community in providing a high quality education to our children. Neither a new Superintendent of Schools nor the nine members of the School Board will be able to make the changes we need to make Richmond Public Schools great. We need the involvement of our next mayor, the city council, the PTAs, the Richmond Education Association, the business community, our three universities, faith and civic groups, parents and those without children to join in this endeavor.

· I will bring new ideas to Richmond. Since my children did not grow up in Richmond, I have experienced what other successful school systems are doing. I have already suggested 1-changing curricular emphasis from teaching children only the facts they need to pass SOLs to teaching them the skills they need to compete in a global market place; 2-further rewarding our teachers and administrators by offering them an optional merit pay system that will enable them to earn larger pay increases each year; 3- creating “hybrid” or contract schools, in which school principals are given greater autonomy to achieve certain goals and have the opportunity to earn greater compensation based on how well their school performs; 4- creating an “Order of Richmond Heroes,” and offering bonuses to quality teachers who will agree to teach in our more difficult schools; 5-extending the school year or the school day to provide more learning time for our children.

Why I am the best candidate

· Unlike other candidates who talk about their “passion for education” or who run on slogans, I have demonstrated my commitment to the children of Richmond by working as a volunteer in Richmond Public Schools for almost as long as I have lived in Richmond. I have worked in Westover Hills, my neighborhood school, and in Carver School, which is located in one of the poorer neighborhoods of our city. My experience has enabled me to understand the issues that school administrators and teachers deal with on a daily basis. I have also been active in Friends of Fourth District Schools, which is working to improve all the schools in the district.

· I have established relationships with others committed to bringing great schools to Richmond. These relationships will help me build community support for making our public schools the best in Virginia.

· I am a uniter. I will work to get all the stakeholders in RPS to understand that they are all in the same boat and must work together for the good of our children. I will convince parents in all economic circumstances that they are not adversaries fighting for a limited piece of the education pie.

· I understand that politics is the art of getting things done. The word “compromise” is part of my vocabulary. I also understand that I do not have all the answers. I will work well with the other members of the school board.

· I am impatient. I am tired of continuous discussions and planning. We know what has worked in other school systems. It’s time to stop planning and start acting.

So, dear reader, that’s what it’s all about. By late Tuesday night we will know which of us the voters of the Fourth District have chosen to represent them on the Richmond School Board. We will also know who they elected to serve them in such lesser offices as president, senator, representative, mayor and councilperson.

Hey, I’m A Democrat

Thursday night, the Richmond City Democratic Committee endorsed this maven for the school board seat in the city’s fourth district. This brings me full circle to my early days of being a Democratic precinct captain in Brooklyn, USA. I don’t know if I hold the record for the political career with the longest interruption, but who cares. I would sure prefer running as a Democrat than as a candidate without a party. And, I’m proud to be running with all the rest of Virginia’s Democrats. Let’s get out there next Tuesday and put this country and city back on the right track.

No Clue

Thursday was the day from hell for this school board candidate. I went to meet the voters at an Oktoberfest at a local retirement residence, then went to a PTA meeting at one of our elementary schools, and ended up at the final candidates’ debate of the campaign. Also scheduled on Thursday was a public meeting at one of Richmond’s high schools to deal with a violence problem and the meeting of the Richmond City Democratic Committee. I really wanted to be at both of those events but just couldn’t make them.

For me, the most eye-opening event was the PTA meeting at J. B. Fisher Elementary School. Fisher is one of the elite elementary schools in the City of Richmond. It is in a middle-class neighborhood that is somewhat isolated from the rest of the city and is one of those open enrollment schools that parents elsewhere in the city try to get their kids into. Well, what opened my eyes was that there were about forty parents attending that meeting. No, dear reader, that is not a typo. There really were about forty parents at that PTA meeting. Now, I often go to PTA meetings at Westover Hills Elementary School, my neighborhood school. Usually, about seven or eight parents show up for those meetings. And, earlier in the week, we candidates were at a PTSA meeting at Huguenot High School. Again, there were less than ten parents at that meeting.

The forty parents at the Fisher PTA meeting prove what I have been saying here for a long time. Middle class parents generally are more involved in their children’s schools. That is why I am so determined to reverse the exodus of middle class families from River City. We need those parents in Richmond’s schools working to make those schools better.

At the debate, my opponent Adria Graham Scott made a remark that suddenly made everything clear to me. Adria is the one that has been getting all the endorsements, has all the professional campaign help and also the big campaign bucks. I don’t remember exactly what the question was, but Adria came out with, “We are lucky in the Fourth District because our parents support our public schools.” Well, my pen dug a big question mark and then an exclamation point into my pad.

Adria, where have you been all these years? Is it possible that J. B. Fisher is the only school in the city you have been in? Is the Fisher neighborhood the only neighborhood you have been in? Because, I know that in most neighborhoods in the Fourth District the parents do not support our neighborhood public schools. In fact as I have said again and again right here, my middle-class neighbors are leaving the city in droves because they don’t support our neighborhood schools. Haven’t you noticed that Adria?

Now, I have been stressing in this campaign that I am the only candidate who understands Richmond Public School’s problems from the inside because I have been working as a volunteer in those schools for more than three years. But, I didn’t realize how much I know and how little Adria Graham Scott and John Lloyd and Jonathan Mallard really know about our schools. (At least Jonathan does realize that our middle class parents do not support our public schools.)

Adria, you need to wake up to the truth. Because, if your endorsements and your campaign staff and your money win you this election you are going to be in for a rude awakening. Since you only know Fisher, you are going to be surprised that most of the schools in the city are not nearly as good. You need to know that Southampton and Westover Hills elementary schools have 67% and 76% respectively of their children on free and reduced lunches, while Thompson Middle School has about 80% receiving subsidized meals. And you need to know that these schools have such high concentrations of free and reduced lunch children because their parents cannot afford to use private schools, home educate their kids or move out of the city. And, if you end up on the school board, you will not only be representing the kids from Fisher Elementary but also the kids from George Washington Carver Elementary, where I volunteer each week. Carver has a free and reduced lunch population of over 95%. Adria, if you’ve never been with these children, you cannot possibly understand the problems they have to overcome to succeed in school. And, Adria, you’re going to have to learn about the injustices that are widespread in Richmond Public Schools, because if you are elected you are going to be dealing with those problems every day for the next four years.

Well, tomorrow will be only the eighth day left before the election and I have to be out campaigning. I’ll be back with more revelations about our political system soon.

Lonely At The Side Of The Road

Just to let you know, I have been running a pretty bare bones campaign for the school board. Not being a long-time resident of Richmond, it has been pretty hard for me to find people who want to contribute to my campaign. So, at the beginning of the summer I purchased only 125 campaign signs (at about four bucks each). I figured I would put them only on major thoroughfares where they would get the most visibility. No need to blanket the whole district I thought.

After the manufacturer sent signs with the wrong color scheme (I guess they didn't realize that red, white and black were only patriotic colors in Nazi Germany) and then finally replaced them, I started planting my signs at strategic locations in the district. But, a not-so-funny thing started happening. As quickly as I put my signs out, they started disappearing. For those of you who live in Richmond, this might ring a little bell in your memory. Wasn’t it just two years ago, in a school-board race, in the very same Fourth District in which I am running, that there was a big sign war? Didn’t a supporter of one candidate take down all the signs of the other candidate? Didn’t the candidate losing signs set up a sting and catch the unsub red handed stealing his signs? (This is apparently not a crime in Richmond because of a strangely worded sign ordinance.)

Now I knew who was probably taking my signs. But, what was I to do about it? After the loss of about 40 signs I decided I was not winning this sign war. So, I adopted the Charleton Heston approach. I decided to stand along the major routes in my district holding up my sign and waving to the crowd. That S.O.B. will have to pry my sign from my “cold dead fingers” if he’s gonna steal one again. So, Monday evening it was the south end of the Nickel Bridge (on which the toll was just raised to $.35). On Tuesday, I stood along Forest Hill Avenue. Wednesday I was at the south end of the Huguenot Bridge (no toll at all). Thursday I took off to attend a PTA meeting and a candidates’ debate. Tonight I tried the Forest Hill exit off the Powhite Parkway.

So, what’s it like standing on the side of the road, holding up a campaign sign and trying to look friendly. At first, I felt kind of foolish. Then, when a few people started honking at me it felt better (although I am not quite sure that the honks were in support or because they thought I was an escapee from an asylum). From the practical side, I can see and be seen by a lot more potential voters than walking from house to house or up and down stairs to knock on doors. Of course, I don’t know whether or not they will actually remember me at the polls next Tuesday.

Mostly it’s lonely. I try to make eye-contact with drivers or passengers as they go by. But that gets harder as the sun goes down and it starts getting darker. I know they can still see me (or at least my sign) with their headlights on, but it’s not the same. All I see coming toward me are cars that are dark on the inside. I feel more and more alone out on the side of the road even though lots of cars are rolling by. Finally, when I’m not sure I can be seen any more I take my sign and go home.

I’ll do it again Monday and every evening rush hour between now and the election. The lonely candidate at the side of the road.

What I said to the Dems

On Thursday night, the Richmond Democratic Committee is scheduled to endorse candidates for the otherwise non-partisan city elections on November 4. I am hoping that, unlike the other groups that have endorsed candidates in the fourth district school board race, the Democratic Committee will base its decision on who will do the best job for the children of Richmond. Below is the questionnaire from the committee that I submitted.

1. What is your political affiliation?

__X_ Democrat ___Independent ___Republican

2. Why are you seeking the endorsement of the Richmond City Democratic Committee?
I have been a Democrat all my life. (The legend being spread that my parents hung a picture of FDR over my crib may or may not be true.) I grew my political teeth working as a Young Democrat for the Monroe Democratic Club in Brooklyn, New York. I always had the fantasy of running for office, but family responsibility led me to take a job with the Federal Government where political activity is illegal. Now that I have finally become a candidate, it would make things complete if I were running with Democratic endorsement. It would make all those mornings after crying about Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Don Beyer and Mary Sue Terry a little easier to deal with.

3. What do you see as the greatest strength and greatest weakness of Richmond Public Schools?
Strengths:
The biggest success stories in Richmond’s public schools occur within the schools themselves. In the last three years I have seen dedicated, excellent teachers and administrators, working with volunteers from the community, make learning work for children from the a wide range of economic backgrounds. My success stories are the individual students who come to school every day and are thriving in Richmond Public Schools.

Weaknesses:
The biggest failure of Richmond Public Schools is its continuing inability to convince middle-class parents that their children can receive a quality public education in the City of Richmond. In the Fourth District, where I live, when most middle class children reach school age their parents do one of four things: 1- If they can afford it, they enroll their child in private school; 2- If they can afford it, they choose to home-school their child; 3- If they know the rules of the game, they use Richmond Public Schools’ open enrollment policy to put their kid into one of Richmond’s elite public schools; or 4- They move out of the city. Based on the demographics of my neighborhood, I would say that option 4 is the most popular.

This lack of confidence by middle-class parents is bad both for the school system and for the city. Over the last several years the enrollment in Richmond Public Schools has dropped by an average of 500 students per year. The Superintendent’s proposed budget for 2009 showed this trend continuing into the future. The result has been that we have a student body that is of a lower economic status than the city population as a whole. Further, because most of our middle class parents with young children now live in Chesterfield or Hanover or Henrico, the demographics of the city are becoming distorted. If this middle class bleeding continues the population of the City of Richmond will become divided between only the rich and the poor and only between the young and the old. (For more details see my blog, James River Maven, http://jamesrivermaven.blogspot.com/2008/07/am-i-obsessed-with-middle-class-parents.html)

4. How can the Mayor, City Council, and School Board work together to improve our schools?
Under state law, responsibility for running the schools is vested exclusively in the school board and the superintendent it hires. The mayor has no formal role. The role of the City Council is to make sure that the school system is adequately funded.

The mayor should function as a cheerleader for and as a marketer of Richmond Public Schools. The mayor should use his political leadership to rally the citizens of Richmond to support a world-class school system for our city. He should offer all his aid and support to the school board and the superintendent. And, if the superintendent or the board are not adequately fulfilling their jobs, he should call them in, with no reporters present, to give them a “pep-talk.”

The Council needs to provide the funding that RPS actually needs, not imposing a ceiling in advance as it has in the recent past. Also, since many of the problems facing Richmond children academically result from problems they face outside of school, the Council must make sure that the City provides adequate services to families so that all our children start school prepared to learn.

The kind of cooperation needed to make sure that RPS works for all children in the city, regardless of their ethnicity or economic situation, requires a mayor, council members and board members who are more interested in getting things done than in satisfying their egos. Next year, it is crucial that all the parties stop playing politics and get on with the task of building new schools and renovating our older schools so that our children can learn in the best environment we can provide for them.

5. What qualifications do you want to see in School Board Chair and Superintendent of Schools?
The chair must be a leader and a uniter. We cannot afford another school board term in which factions on the board are fighting each other to the detriment of our children. We also need nine school board members who understand that they are not always “right” and that governing often means compromise. (I intend to end the Fourth District “monopoly” on board chairs. I will not seek the chair.)

I set forth the qualifications necessary in a superintendent on my blog, James River Maven, last spring. I said:

Our next superintendent must be a leader. The superintendent needs the ability to get the myriad employees of RPS to follow her agenda. She has to be the motivator that gets everyone to work at their full potential. Leadership ability should be demonstrated by success in some leadership position either in academics, business or the military.

Our next superintendent must understand organizations. RPS is often accused of having too much bureaucracy. The superintendent needs to be able to analyze the RPS organization and eliminate those positions that are unnecessary in giving our children an excellent education.

Our next superintendent must be committed to accountability. The attitude of employees in any institution is set at the top. The superintendent must not only be honest himself, but also convey to everybody who works for RPS that their job is a public trust. He must make it clear that he will not tolerate any employee who uses taxpayer money improperly.

Our next superintendent must understand the Richmond problem. A significant number of parents in the City of Richmond have indicated their lack of confidence in RPS by leaving the city to find a better educational opportunity for their children elsewhere. The superintendent must be able to deal with this problem first by making RPS a superior school system and second by convincing parents that their children will thrive here.

Our next superintendent must understand our school population. Seventy percent of RPS students come from families with economic difficulties. The superintendent must understand the challenges that these children face in obtaining their education and must have a plan for how to help them reach their full potential.

Our next superintendent must have a vision for RPS. She must be able to articulate her vision of where she expects RPS to be going in the next two years, the next five years and the next ten years. She must be able to convince the taxpayers that their investment in RPS will pay off in class after class of productive young citizens. She must show us the route to greatness.

Our next superintendent must be a unifier. Making RPS into a world-class educational system requires the participation of teachers, parents, civic and faith groups and the business and academic communities. The superintendent must be able to unite these various stakeholders in a common purpose—the education of our children. He must also be able to work productively with the school board, the city council and our next mayor.

6. What is your number one priority to improve Richmond Public Schools?
Our number one priority must be to stop the abandonment of RPS by our middle class families. This will require us to revitalize our neighborhood schools and to reverse an unfortunate attitude that has arisen with the school choice movement. Traditionally education of our children was an undertaking of the entire community. The community raised the funds, built a school, hired teachers and participated in making sure their children were receiving a high quality education. The community and the school reinforced each other. In my part of town, for example, the Westover Hills neighborhood and the Westover Hills School grew together. Under school choice, however, education has become just another commodity that families “shop” for. If parents are unhappy with their neighborhood school they look elsewhere for their child’s education. In my neighborhood that means that most of them move out of the city.

My goal is to reverse this trend by convincing parents that they have the power to take ownership of their neighborhood school and make sure it works for their children. Just as parents in the Munford, Fox, Fisher, and Holton zones have done, I will work with the parents of the fourth district to reclaim their neighborhood schools as their own. I would also help any other member of the school board to use these tactics in their districts. We can revitalize the city by building stronger communities around our neighborhood schools.


7. What do you propose to do to decrease violence in Richmond Public Schools?
Violence in the schools is not solely an RPS issue. Usually the tendency to violence originates in our neighborhoods and migrates into the schools. Therefore, we need to have a multifaceted approach to solving the problem. First, we need to assure that the RPS “Standards of Conduct” are strictly enforced. We should not tolerate teachers, school administrators or central office administrators who think that enforcement of these standards is optional. Second, we must engage in violence reduction programs in which RPS, Richmond Police Department, other city agencies, private groups like Communities in Schools and outside contractors work cooperatively. We should use as a model the agreement that was entered into this summer by RPS, Richmond Police Department and the Center for Neighborhood Enterprises to establish a Violence-Free Zone Safe School Initiative at George Wythe High School. The Memorandum of Understanding setting up this program can be examined as an attachment to the School Board’s August 4, 2008 agenda. http://www.richmond.k12.va.us/schoolboardnew/index.htm


8. What do you propose to improve the services that the Richmond Public Schools provides to children with special needs?
The first thing we must do is to make all of our school buildings ADA compliant. Too many years have gone by since the court order was issued mandating that RPS do this. Unfortunately, political bickering among the mayor, council and school board has resulted in this objective not being fulfilled. We can no longer delay. Second, we must make sure that RPS is fully compliant with all federal and state requirements in providing services to special needs children. We also have to adopt the attitude that special needs children are entitled to as high a quality education as the other children in our city.

9. What do you propose to increase student achievement in the Richmond Public Schools?
--We must place higher demands on our administrators, teachers and students. As shown in the TD article today on Richmond Community and Open high schools and the Franklin Military Academy, treating the SOLs as minimums rather than as the prime goal of our schools leads to a higher level of student achievement. We must change our curricular emphasis from teaching only the facts required by the SOLs to teaching our children the skills they need to function in our Twenty First Century world. Our children need to be prepared to compete on a global scale. We need to give them the critical thinking skills they need to succeed. Most of the content of what we teach our children today will be just a historic curiosity in fifteen or twenty years. So we have to teach our children how to think, how to gather information, how to make decisions, how to understand that everything is related, how to communicate, and how to relate to a world of different people from different cultures. To accomplish this change we need to provide training to our teachers to equip them to teach with the changed emphasis.

--To further reward our educational professionals, I propose that we consider offering RPS administrators and teachers a pay system in which pay increases are based on performance rather than on college degrees and longevity. Let me be clear, I do not propose that compensation be based on student SOL scores. There are far too many factors other than teacher performance that affect how well students do on SOLs. We need to develop a system in which we can measure how much progress students are making in a particular year by comparing where they are in September to where they are in June. We also need to handicap the system so that teachers in schools with concentrated poverty can compete fairly with teachers in schools that are primarily middle class.

This would be a voluntary system for teachers and administrators working for RPS. Teachers would be given the option of staying in a compensation system based on longevity and degrees or moving to the merit system in which pay raises would not be guaranteed but would be significantly higher than on the longevity scale.

I invite the Richmond Education Association to participate with the School Board in designing this new compensation system. A voluntary system like this was recently implemented in Prince Georges County, Maryland, with the cooperation of its teachers union.

--To assure that children in all neighborhoods in the city receive the same high quality education, I propose the creation of an “Order of Richmond Heroes” composed of high quality teachers who agree to teach in our more difficult schools. We would offer a cash bonus to those teachers who agree to move to these schools and stay there for at least three years. Only teachers who have demonstrated high levels of performance, either in RPS or other school systems, would be eligible to apply.

--To provide school principals with greater incentives, I propose that we experiment with making some of our schools into hybrid schools, being somewhere between regular public schools and charter schools. I envision schools in which principals enter into contracts with RPS to achieve a certain level of improvement over a fixed time period and are given increased independence to achieve that goal. The compensation of participating principals would be based on how well the students in their schools perform.

It may be that the nine members of the School Board will decide not to implement these suggestions. However, we at least need to discuss them. The futures of our children are far too precious to consider any proposal to be “off the table.”

Speaking of Endorsements

Let’s get this straight. I am upset that I did not get the endorsement of the REA, or the Crusade for Voters or the Coalition for a Greater Richmond. If they had endorsed me, I would be a lot closer to winning this election. And don’t forget that those endorsements came with money or campaign help, which I can sorely use. So, it’s not a matter of sour grapes when I say that I would much rather have the endorsements I have than the ones I have lost. Because, dear reader, my endorsements are from people who know me and have worked with me and have watched me during my years of involvement in Richmond Public Schools. None of my endorsements come from guessing the preferred answer to a questionnaire or smiling the right way at an interview. I got all my endorsements the old fashioned way.

George Braxton. It is not a secret that when George decided not to run for reelection to the School Board he asked me to run for his seat. George and I have been cooperating on behalf of the children of Richmond as long as I have lived in Richmond. I have provided him support when he was right and criticism when he was wrong. He knows my ideas and my dedication, so it really is meaningful to me when George says:

Bert is the only candidate ready and able to take over the board seat in January. He demonstrates a keen understanding of education policy and his volunteer activities have let him see Richmond Public Schools from the inside.

Erin Bishop. I met Erin Bishop when I joined Friends of Fourth District Schools. Along with other members of the FoFDS Board of Directors, we have worked hard to support the schools and children of the Fourth District. Erin has said about me:

I have worked with Bert Berlin on school issues for the past three years. He is not a politician--he is truly committed to improving our schools. I like his ideas, and I admire his dedication. We would be lucky to have his service to our School Board!

I’d rather have Erin on my side than the whole REA.

Rev. Benjamin Campbell. Ben Campbell is one of the spiritual leaders of the Richmond area. Three years ago he started Metro Richmond at Prayer. He is the co-chair of the Micah Initiative. He is a trustee of the Richmond Public School Foundation and was chosen to be on the search committee for the new Superintendent. Ben and I have known each other since I became a Micah volunteer. In Ben’s words:

Bert Berlin is a thoughtful and determined man, a good listener, a serious volunteer, who is willing to put himself out for the children and public schools of Richmond. He’s the kind of person we all need on the School Board.

Tom Klein: Tom Klein is my connection to the business community. He is currently Chair of the Richmond Business Council of the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce and heads its education committee. Tom and I have known each other since I moved to Richmond and when he learned I was running for the School Board, he asked to join my “team.” Tom says:

I support Bert Berlin because he is the best equipped to advocate for the changes needed to make the Richmond Public Schools the destination of choice for all school age children. Bert has been supporting the schools well before it was known that there was an open School Board seat.

Mieko Manual Timmons: Mieko is one of the city-wide coordinators for the Micah Initiative. She has also served on the Richmond Council of PTAs. Mieko and I, along with Mary Hetzel, worked together to form a new Micah Initiative project at Carver Elementary School with volunteers from my congregation. Mieko says,

I enthusiastically support Bert Berlin for the 4th District School Board Representative because he has demonstrated passion and commitment for our children in Richmond Public Schools for years, as a volunteer and strong advocate. He has worked well with school officials, parents, and students. He has gained their trust through hard work and consistency. With a vote of confidence from the School Board Chairman, that confirms for me that he must be the right person for the job. I also commend him for his dedication to public service.

Tichi Pinkney-Epps: Tichi is the past president of the Richmond Council of PTAs. I met her last year at a breakfast sponsored by Hope in the Cities. Since then, we have been cooperating on making Richmond Public Schools a much better school system. Whether or not I win the election, I expect to continue working with Tichi to mobilize the Richmond community to provide a great education for the children of Richmond. Tichi says:

I have had the opportunity to engage with Bert on many issues regarding public education in the City of Richmond. I believe he will be an asset because of his open-mind and profound ability to see the issues from all sides without deference to personal bias and special interest.

So, I ask you loyal reader, who would you rather have endorsing your candidacy? The REA, the Crusade and the Coalition, or George and Erin and Ben and Tom and Mieko and Tichi? For me this is a no brainer. Who needs the money and the campaign support when I have friends like these?

No City For Old Men

This maven is becoming the Rodney Dangerfield of Richmond. I simply cannot get any respect. (R-E-S-P-E-C-T, for you Aretha fans.) As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the Richmond Education Association, our local teacher’s union, did not endorse me for election to the School Board. That is after I spent several hours filling out their questionnaire and was interviewed by a panel of three teachers who, quite frankly, had no idea what I was talking about when I said that Richmond’s biggest problem was our disappearing middle class. So, who did the REA pick as their choice for the fourth district school board seat? Adrea Graham Scott—at least twenty years younger than me, female, African American, well-spoken, and just plain nice.

Then, there is the Richmond Crusade for Voters. I participated in the Crusade’s candidate forum. The maveness and I joined the Crusade. The maveness and I attended the Crusade’s annual banquet (at a cost of $100). We had a great time and met a whole bunch of good people. So, I figured when the Crusade called me in for an interview this was my big chance. Another interview, another panel who really didn’t understand the point I was making. So, who did the Crusade endorse for the fourth district seat? Adrea Graham Scott—at least twenty years younger than me, female, African American, well-spoken, and just plain nice. Another “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” for the Maven.

Maven, I’m beginning to detect a pattern here.

Wait devoted reader. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Then, I received a call from the Coalition for a Greater Richmond. These are the good government guys. These are the guys who are searching for new leadership for the Metro Richmond area. They wanted to interview me. So, eagerly I went off to talk to them. Guess what, dear reader. For the first time in this process I felt that this panel actually understood my concerns about Richmond’s middle class bleeding off to the suburbs to find better schools for their kids. I explained my plans to deal with this problem. I went home from the interview feeling really good. Then, just last Friday came a letter from the Coalition. I held it in my hands like a high school senior anxious to find out if my favorite college had accepted me. I peeled open the letter slowly, like Charley peeling open a Wanka Bar looking for the golden ticket. I read the letter. The Coalition endorsed. . . Adrea Graham Scott—at least twenty years younger than me, female, African American, well-spoken, and just plain nice.

Now, trusted reader, I am ready to admit that there seems to be a pattern here. This maven is in a batting slump. I am 0 for 3. No hits, no runs, who knows how many errors.

So, let’s analyze this. If I were a group endorsing a candidate for the Richmond School Board, who would I choose? Would I choose a curmudgeonly grandfather who has actually worked in the schools for the past three years, who understands from the inside what problems the schools face, who has been studying and writing about Richmond Public Schools, who has concrete proposals for making the schools better (especially here in the Fourth District), who has relationships with many of the VIPs in Richmond (mayoral candidates, city council members, school board members), and who knows how to get things done? Or would I choose somebody who is at least twenty years younger than me, female, African American, well-spoken, and just plain nice, but who does not have my experience, and runs a campaign based on slogans rather than plans (“I’m passionate about parental choice” “Great Schools Build Great Communities”)? So, who would I choose? What does Adria Graham Scott have that this maven doesn’t have?

Well, for one thing, she is a woman and I am a man. Can there be some form of gender discrimination going on here? Well, I hope not. Of course, Adria is African American and I am Caucasian. I would hate to think that in the year 2008 any group in Richmond would base its endorsement on the color of a candidate’s skin, so I will not accept that this is a matter of race. Adria is well spoken, but so am I. Adria is just plain nice and I often let my anger get the best of me. Well, maybe it is the nice versus nasty that wins her the endorsements.

Wait, Maven, what about the she’s “at least twenty years younger than me?” Let’s face it, Maven, she’s young and you’re old.

Stop right there, reader. This maven does not feel old! For weeks I’ve been walking around the Fourth District, up and down lots of stairs, talking to my neighbors. In the words of James Brown, “I feel good!” I am motivated. I feel like I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. It’s almost like I’m on a mission. So don’t tell me I’m old!

Maven, how old are you?

Eureka! That’s it, dear reader. I figured it out. It’s not gender, it’s not skin-color, and it’s not even my temper. No, it’s all about the future. Let’s face it; I am sixty-four years old. At the end of my school board term, I’ll be sixty-eight. I expect that if I feel I am accomplishing something I’ll run for another term on the School Board. But that will be it. I have no expectation, and neither does anybody else, that I’ll ever run for City Council, or the General Assembly, or mayor, or even the Congress. I have no future.

But Adria is all future. When Kathy Graziano is ready to retire, I can see Adria running for City Council. If there is a vacancy in the House of Delegates or the State Senate, I can see Adria running for those seats. I would not be in the least bit surprised if one day Adria became mayor of our fair city. And, from what I have learned about her during this campaign, I would be proud to support her in any of those endeavors.

But, devoted reader, the trouble is not the future. The trouble is now. Frankly, with regard to Richmond Public Schools, Adria does the talk but not the walk. Richmond Public Schools is not where her experience lies. Before George Braxton announced his retirement, Adria was certainly a good parent, but the general educational welfare of the children of Richmond was hardly on her radar. In short, this is not Adria's time.

So, now I understand. The REA and the Crusade and the Coalition did not endorse Adria Graham Scott as the best candidate for the School Board in 2008. Rather, they endorsed her for her potentially shiny future. They all want to jump on the band wagon and to be able to say “we endorsed her back then.”

Hey, out there, I’ve had a great time writing this. I finally understand what Paul McCartney meant when he wrote these words back in 1967:

"Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I'm sixty-four?"

REA Rejects Maven

The local teachers union—the Richmond Education Association—has chosen not to endorse the maven in the school board election this year. Who did they choose? Well, I bet it was either John Lloyd, or Jonathan Mallard, or Adria Graham Scott. The REA will make their choice public next week.

I guess I should be bitter. I guess I should complain of discrimination. If they chose Jonathan, I should yell “age discrimination”; if they chose Adria, I should yell “sex discrimination;” if they chose John—well, John is as old and as male as me, so I don’t know what I should yell. But you know as the old saying goes, you can lead the REA to water but…

So what did the REA turn down? I am publishing the REA questionnaire and my responses so you can know.


"1. At a time when expectations for student achievement are increasing and funding resources appear very limited, what actions would you take as a School Board member to encourage and promote student achievement?

First, I am not willing to accept that resources are necessarily limited. When I am on the School Board I will work for adequate funding for Richmond Public Schools. Over the last two years, the mayor and the city council have imposed budget limits on RPS, which have actually lowered the percentage of the city’s annual budget that goes to our schools. I do not consider the School Board to be bound by any future funding limit from the council and mayor. Under state law it is the responsibility of the School Board, not the council or mayor, to prepare the budget for the school system. When the School Board submits a budget based on an arbitrary ceiling imposed by the mayor and council rather than one based on the true needs of our students, it is abdicating its statutory responsibility.

Regardless of the funding available, I intend to establish higher expectations for our students. We must have more rigorous course curricula. We must have more gifted and talented programs. We must have more honors courses in high school. We must no longer be satisfied with our children graduating high school. Our goal for them must be to continue their educations past high school. I have heard some people in this city say that because of their disadvantaged backgrounds many of our students are unable to perform at a higher level. I cannot accept this. We must understand the difficulties many of our children face from growing up in poverty. However, we must never accept poverty as an excuse. I believe that children will perform at the level we set for them. If we ask them to merely pass SOLs that is what they will do. On the other hand, if we insist that they excel, I am convinced they will do so.

2. Are you familiar with the RPS Operating Budget for 2008-2009? If so, are there areas or programs you believe can be reduced or eliminated in order to create a budget savings or free money for other programs or projects? Are there areas or programs you would consider off-limits to budget cuts? Are there areas/programs that you consider underfunded?

I have reviewed the RPS operating budget. Quite frankly, it is hard to tell from the budget what areas or programs money is being spent on. I see RPS spending broken down by Object Class (like salaries, benefits, supplies and materials). I see the budgets for each individual school. I see a long list of budgeted expenditures broken down by the office that spends them. But I don’t see much in the way of program descriptions. I see detailed organizational charts, but no indication of what each box on the chart does. I will have to do more research to determine whether there are programs that can be reduced.

There is one line that I have serious difficulties with—internal audit. I do not know why RPS needs an internal auditor. It also doesn’t seem to me that the internal audit function is working. The one thing that an internal auditor should be doing is making sure that an external auditor does not find serious instances of mismanagement. Obviously, the internal audit function at RPS has not done that. Internal audit is funded at $445,000 for fiscal year 2009, an increase of $22,000 over last year. I’m not sure it is worth it. (The City Council has authorized a study of whether the RPS auditing function should be incorporated into the City Auditor’s office).

I’m also not quite sure what we are getting for the half million dollars we will be spending on New Direction start-up costs.

Since our school administrators and our teachers are the most precious asset that we have in RPS, I would consider any cut in salary or benefits to them to be off-limits. RPS must show our teaching professionals that we appreciate all that they do for us. We cannot consider cutting their compensation.

I intend to add to the RPS budget for next year funding for four International Baccalaureate primary years programs, to be instituted at two elementary schools north of the river and two south of the river. The IB primary years program will teach our children critical thinking skills and show them how everything in the world is interconnected. It will better prepare them for the complex world they will face fifteen or twenty years from now. The IB programs will not be honors or magnet programs. They will be full school programs and all children attending the neighborhood school will be IB students. These full school IB programs are working successfully throughout the country.

I am also open to trying other things. In deciding where RPS goes next, we need to look at such things as extending the school day by an hour each day to provide more learning time, extending the school year to provide more learning time, offering bonuses to teachers to teach in the schools that have the highest concentration of students receiving free or reduced lunches, making pre-K available to all children in Richmond, and providing incentives to students for staying in school and for learning.

3. a) Are you familiar with the Richmond Public Schools Capital Improvement Program Budget FY2008 – 2012 and the Capital Improvement Projects Ordinance No. 2007-59-108? a) Do you believe that this program budget will address all of the school maintenance, renovation and replacement needs of Richmond Public Schools? Explain your response. b) As a member of the School Board what will you do to make sure this plan is implemented?

a- I have studied the capital improvement budget and the ordinance. However, without examining every building in the district, I cannot possibly know whether adequate funding has been budgeted to cover all the needs of the system. I must trust that the incumbent board, RPS administration and their contractors have adequately assessed the district’s capital needs.

Having spent most of my career at the Government Accountability Office examining the operations of large organizations, I know that there are often significant changes made between planning and completion of projects. I assume that as we go forward with these capital improvements we will find that the program budget probably underestimates some of the costs.

b- In the ordinance, the City Council has assigned to the mayor and the Chief Administrative Officer responsibility for implementing the capital budget. Therefore, as a member of the board I can make sure that the plan is fully implemented only by watching and by using the board’s political influence to keep pressure on the Administration. If there is insufficient progress I will ask the citizens of Richmond to pressure the mayor to get the job done.

4. In the last five years, two high schools and two middle schools were consolidated, three elementary schools were closed, and two alternative programs were moved into existing school buildings. Do you support further restructuring which could include the closing of additional schools and changes in attendance zones?

The School Board is responsible for making sure that the taxpayer’s dollar is being spent lawfully and efficiently. If it is clear that restructuring will save money, I will support it. The disruption of restructuring can be minimized by tying school closing and zoning changes to the construction of new facilities or renovation of existing facilities. Without having studied the performance of every school in the system, I cannot now address specific needed restructuring changes.

5. Do you believe that there is a correlation between staff morale and student achievement? If so, what would you do as a board member to improve the morale of RPS employees?

There is certainly a connection between teacher morale and student achievement. If a teacher does not look forward to going to school each day; is not enthusiastic about helping students to learn; feels unappreciated by administration, parents or students, it has to affect student performance. Both my wife and daughter are teachers and I know that their students learn better when their teachers are “up” for the day. I have seen this in classrooms both at Westover Hills and Carver schools. When a teacher is having a good day and is really enthusiastic about teaching, the students sense this and they catch the enthusiasm. When, however, the day is not going well, the students sense this and they have more difficulty learning.

When I am on the School Board, I intend to spend as much time as possible in the elementary, middle and high schools in the fourth district. I intend to interact with teachers and let them know that I appreciate what an important job they are doing. I will also be there to listen to them so that I can really appreciate their concerns. I will work with school administrators to establish some kind of awards or recognition programs for teachers. It is not enough to wait for one week per year to show teachers that we appreciate them.

6. Health insurance costs have been rising for many years, and the costs to RPS employees for their share of health care premiums are becoming prohibitive. Would you support maintaining the same benefits for employees without increasing the cost to employees?

To me, any increase in health care costs for employees is equivalent to a cut in salary. Therefore I will support the same benefits without increased costs for employees.

7. In your opinion, is the administration of RPS structured in such a way as to optimize both its efficiency and effectiveness? If not, what changes do you believe would lead to a more efficient and effective administration?

After carefully examining the RPs organization charts included in the 2009 school budget, I can honestly say that I can’t answer the question. However, I understand from School Board Vice Chair Lisa Dawson that RPS is finally getting around to hiring a consultant to do the staff audit recommended last fall by the Crupi Report. This study will inform the School Board whether particular functions and positions within the RPS structure are providing adequate value to merit being funded in the future.

Further, as I stated on my blog “Our next superintendent must understand organizations. RPS is often accused of having too much bureaucracy. The superintendent needs to be able to analyze the RPS organization and eliminate those positions that are unnecessary in giving our children an excellent education.” Assuming that the next superintendent is chosen after I am on the board, I will try to assure that the successful candidate has that skill.

8. The REA believes that the RPS Standards of Student Conduct contains appropriate standards for student behavior, as well as fair and suitable responses to violations of the code. What actions do you believe should be taken when the building administration does not enforce the RPS Standards of Student Conduct? What actions do you believe should be taken when the central administration does not enforce the RPS Standards of Student Conduct?

All RPS policy must be followed both within schools and at central administration. The job expectations for all school administrators and all employees at central administration must make it clear that the board expects that the Standards of Student Conduct will be enforced. There must be some disincentives described for those who refuse to enforce these or other policies.

We need to experiment with incentive programs to discourage unacceptable behavior in school. When my wife was teaching at Langston Hughes Middle School in Fairfax County, she planned and implemented an experiment called “Panthers on Track.” Using money supplied both by the School Board and by the private sector, Panthers on Track provided a May out-of-school reward for those students who had a certain number of points by a cut-off date. Each child in the school started the year with sixty points and would lose points for each disciplinary problem. For those children who did not have the requisite points the reward day was spent attending presentations by police or guidance counselors, making up missing work, or spending time setting goals. During the first year of Panthers on Track, the number of school incidents requiring discipline decreased by half.

9. What motivated you to seek election to the Richmond School Board?

First, when I was a child, my father had a severe case of Multiple Sclerosis. He was unable to work. My mother had to stay home to care for him so she also couldn’t work. If it were not for my grandfather, who provided housing and financial support, we would have had to go on welfare. Coming from this poverty situation, I am convinced that had I not received a high quality public school education I would never have achieved what I did in my life. I thus owe a debt to my parent’s generation for providing me with a first-class public school education. Now that I am retired, I have time to pay that debt forward by working to make sure that all the children of Richmond receive a high quality education to prepare them for achieving their life goals.

Second, since I have been in Richmond I have volunteered in the schools as a Micah volunteer at Westover Hills Elementary, as a CAG member at Westover Hills, and as the Micah team captain for my congregation at Carver Elementary. I have watched excellent, dedicated teachers enabling their students to learn. I have worked with individual students helping them overcome their learning difficulties. Now, it is time for me to move into a position where I will be able to help more than just a few children.

Finally, I have two grandchildren living in Richmond, the oldest of which will start RPS in 2009. So, I have a selfish reason for wanting to make sure that the education we give our children is the best possible.

For me, providing a world-class education to all the students of this city, regardless of ethnicity or economic situation, is a matter of social justice. This city’s future is its children and I am committed to making sure we provide them with the skills they need to compete in the world they will face in ten or fifteen years.

10. Like most school districts, Richmond is experiencing a teacher shortage as many veteran teachers are retiring and teachers with less than five years of experience are resigning to go elsewhere, while the supply of new teachers remains low. What ideas do you have for retaining experienced teachers and for attracting and retaining new teachers?

First, we must make sure that RPS’s compensation package for teachers is as good as the surrounding jurisdictions. We cannot attract teachers if we don’t pay as much as our competitors.

Second, we must demonstrate to our teachers that we value them by treating them as the professionals they are. We must show them recognition for the miracles they perform on a daily basis. We need to create something like an “order of Richmond heroes” for those of our teachers who choose to teach in our more difficult schools. Everybody in the city, from the mayor on down, has to make honoring teachers a high priority. We need to make each week “teacher appreciation week.”

We must also provide more help to our younger teachers. We must use our experienced teachers or retired teachers as coaches. We need to provide as many professional development opportunities to our teachers as we can. There will probably be some beginning teachers who discover in their first two years that teaching is not the right career for them. However, we must make sure that none of them abandons teaching because we didn’t provide them with the help they need to succeed.

As I indicated in my answer to question 5, I intend to spend as much time as I am able interacting with the teachers in Fourth District schools. I will demonstrate to them as best I can that I really appreciate what they are doing for our children.

11. Describe what you believe should be the relationship between the Richmond School Board and the Richmond Education Association.

In most areas, the School Board and the REA should be partners. As I indicated in the statement declaring my candidacy, the School Board shouldn’t make decisions or implement new programs without consulting with the REA.

I attended two of the public meetings for the board’s New Direction last fall and I was very upset to learn that teachers knew almost nothing about the plan. How can the board plan an entirely new framework for our public schools without involving teachers in the decision making? How can the board implement a proposal that will require teachers to do much more work without talking to the teachers first?

When I am on the board, I will make sure that we get REA input on matters we consider before making decisions.

12. The perception exists that cronyism is rampant in RPS. If so, do you view it as a problem and how would you address it?

I’m not sure whether the perception of cronyism is accurate. If it does exist in RPS, it certainly is a problem. Every position in central administration and every position in each school should be filled on the basis of merit, not on the basis of who you know. If the problem is real, we must make it clear to everybody with authority to hire personnel that decisions must be based on merit. We cannot afford the public perception that hiring or promotion decisions in RPS are made on other than a merit basis.

13. Richmond must compete with surrounding school districts (Henrico, Hanover, Chesterfield, etc.) to employ personnel. Do you believe that Richmond must maintain competitive salary schedules in order to retain and attract employees? What would you do as a member of the School Board to ensure that this happens?

I certainly agree that Richmond Public Schools must maintain competitive compensations packages in order to retain and recruit personnel. As a member of the Board, I will examine the compensation packages of surrounding jurisdictions to assure that we remain competitive.

14. Are you familiar with the current salary schedules for Richmond Public Schools employees? If so, do you think any adjustments need to be made in these schedules? Please explain your answer.

The current salary schedule for teachers is very strange. If my math doesn’t fail me, teachers spend two years in step 4, four years in step 5, three years in step 6, two years in step 8, seven years in step 13, two years in step 15 and reach step 20 after thirty two years of service. This makes no sense to me. Time in step requirements should be fairly uniform over the salary schedule. Freezing teachers with eighteen years experience in a single step for seven years can’t possibly be good for morale.

15. Some people believe that teacher compensation should be based upon how well their students score on certain standardized tests, such as the SOL assessments. What thoughts do you have concerning pay for performance and merit pay plans?

Generally, I support merit pay systems. I believe they provide incentives to employees to perform better.

However, I have serious reservations about measuring teacher merit by the achievements of their students, especially on standardized tests. There are too many factors other than teacher quality that affect student performance. This year at Carver, I worked with one girl who was trying to cope with watching her uncle die of gunshot wounds, another child who was living with her grandmother because both her parents had “passed,” and another child who was kept out of class for two weeks just before SOLs because her vaccinations were not complete. Obviously, how these children perform on standardized tests depends on a lot more things than their teacher’s skills.

Merit pay for RPS teachers would make sense only if the system is “handicapped” to take into account the difficulties that many students experience for many years because they have not been properly prepared before beginning school. A teacher who has a class of 18 students, all of whom receive free or reduced lunch, cannot be fairly measured against a teacher who has a class of students, none of whom need meal subsidies.

I read that Prince Georges County, Maryland, and its education association have agreed on a merit pay provision in their contract. I also understand that the District of Columbia has merit pay provisions in its teacher’s contract. I have heard that these are based on teacher choice. Teachers can opt to remain subject to a seniority system for salary promotion. Or, they can opt to participate in the merit pay system, which will allow for more rapid salary promotion for those teachers that excel.

16. The Standards of Learning and Standards of Accreditation are having an enormous impact on student instruction. Do you believe that RPS should be doing more to insure greater success for all of our students?

Clearly RPS should be doing more to promote the success of all our children. However, I am concerned that our SOL-based curriculum is not teaching our children what they need to know.

Because they are multiple-choice tests, the SOLs require our children to learn facts. They are “what” and “where” and “when” tests; they are not “how” and “why” tests. We should be teaching our children skills, not facts, but the SOLs push us in another direction.

We need to prepare our children to compete on a global scale. Teaching them facts makes no sense because most of what we teach our children today will be just historic curiosities in fifteen or twenty years. We have to teach our children how to think, how to gather information, how to make decisions, how to understand that everything is related, how to communicate (even though I cannot even imagine the technology they will use for communication) and how to relate to a world of different people from different cultures.

Our teachers need to find a way to prepare our children for the SOL tests they must take and at the same time give them the tools to succeed later in life. We need to teach our children the skills they will need to function fifteen or twenty years from now. If we teach them how, they will be able to find the facts they need to know electronically or, if they still exist, in books. At the rate knowledge is expanding we can never teach our children all the “facts” they need to know. We need to teach them to think.

17. For a number of years, RPS has had difficulty finding qualified substitutes to place in the classrooms when regular teachers must be absent from their jobs. As a solution, current employees are often asked to teach the students of absent teachers in addition to their own class. Do you believe that those employees should receive additional compensation for assuming the extra workload?

I believe that teachers or other school professionals who are asked to serve as substitutes should be compensated for the extra work that they do in dealing with the additional students.

However, this is only a Band-Aid approach. We need to fix the substitute problem. We must make sure that we pay substitutes enough to attract them. We also need to do some serious marketing. We need to dispel the belief among potential substitute teachers that RPS is not a good place to work. We also need to make use of student teachers as potential substitutes. Further, students in our three local universities could make excellent substitutes. We need to work with the universities to find a way to use these students as substitute teachers.

18. Do you support outsourcing RPS school services by contracting for these services from private, for-profit companies? (Such as, transportation, school security and custodial services.)

As a taxpayer in the City of Richmond I am in favor of procuring services at the lowest possible cost so long as the services are performed competently. If, in fact, the private sector can provide those services as well and more cheaply then we can do them in house, we have an obligation to outsource. On the other hand, as someone who has spent his entire career as a government employee, I question whether the private sector can really provide services as well and as economically as public employees.

19. Should RPS provide training to educational support professionals to become licensed teachers and/or to advance to other higher positions?

Yes, RPS should provide training to educational support professionals to help them become licensed teachers or to advance to higher positions. Money spent improving the qualifications and abilities of staff is always a good investment. It also shows that RPS cares about its employees. Further, because these individuals are already working for RPS, it is more likely that they will continue their careers at RPS.

20. Truancy is a major issue in Richmond Public Schools. The city now has the responsibility for addressing truancy. The program has not been successful and the truancy rate is increasing again. As a School Board member, what will you do to address this very serious problem?

Truancy is a serious problem. However, to deal with it we need to determine its underlying causes. I think that truancy at the secondary school level may be caused, in part, by a student’s unsuccessful experience in elementary school. If a student feels he is not succeeding in school or that she is stupid, that child is not going to want to be in school where his or her negative perceptions might be shown to be true. Providing a better elementary school experience for children will make them more anxious to go to middle school and high school.

If on the other hand, a child is truant because he doesn’t have adequate clothing, or has inadequate health care, or she has to babysit for a sibling, we are facing entirely different problems. We need to have greater support from Communities in Schools or similar organizations to deal with those non-academic problems that make it less likely that our children will attend and succeed in school. These are not problems that our schools are designed to deal with. Richmond needs to minimize these problems for our children if we expect them to stay and succeed in school.

We need to consider incentive programs to get our students to come to school and concentrate on their studies. I have read of some schools that actually promise students a cash payment at the end of the year if they meet attendance requirements and they perform well academically. We might combine this with a team approach in which the rewards are given to all members of a succeeding team. This will provide peer pressure on all the children in the team to attend school and do their best.

21. Are you familiar with the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also referred to as “No Child Left Behind”? If so, what is your understanding of this law?

As I indicated recently in my blog , I am very much opposed to the No-child-left-behind law. “I am convinced it was planned by people who are opposed to public education. With its constantly escalating requirements it seems deliberately designed to make public school systems fail.” No-child—
· encourages teachers to teach to the test,
· assumes that the only factor that determines a child’s success is the school,
· places its emphasis only on reading, writing and math, which discourages schools and teachers from teaching other subjects,
· makes no allowance for students who do not speak English,
· is based on the assumption that standardized tests can actually measure student learning, and
· makes it harder for some school districts to hire “qualified” teachers.

We can only hope that the Congress, in its wisdom, will make significant changes before extending the law. In the meantime, as I suggested in my answer to question 16, we must help our teachers to teach in a way that guarantees our students do well on their standardized tests and at the same time teach them the skills they need to survive in the future world they will face when they finish college.


So, trusted reader, I ask you, why would REA choose someone else? I trust the voters of the fourth district will disagree.

Middle Class Obsession Revisited

Well, the maven was in too much of a hurry yesterday. I left out one more important reason why we need to attract more Richmond parents to enroll their children in our neighborhood schools. That reason is money.

As I said back in March,

The City of Richmond receives less state education payments per student than do our neighboring jurisdictions of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico. The major reason for this disparity is that Richmond has so few children enrolled in its public schools compared to its population and tax base. Thus, under the state’s “composite index of local ability-to-pay,” Richmond appears to “need” less funding per student. If our school enrollment continues to drop, as projected by RPS, we will get less and less money from the state.
You Got Trouble Folks! Right Here In River City

What the state funding formula means is that despite the fact that Richmond needs to spend more per student than our neighboring school districts because we have far more special-needs students and because the 70% of our children receiving federally subsidized meals need a lot more school services than do their middle-class counterparts in the suburbs, we are actually receiving less state education funds per student than Chesterfield, Hanover or Henrico counties. The state formula rewards the school districts that have higher student enrollment even if those jurisdictions don’t really need to spend more money per student.

There are two ways that we citizens of Richmond can deal with this grossly unfair state allocation formula. First, we must urge our state senators and delegates to change the funding formula in the General Assembly so that such need factors as number of special needs students and percentage of poverty students is included in the formula. Second, we can do what is necessary to attract to Richmond Public Schools the children in our city whose parents are considering other options for their education. Simply from the standpoint of receiving adequate education funding from the state, we cannot afford to allow any more of our parents to opt out of Richmond Public Schools.

Am I Obsessed With Middle Class Parents?

My baby son—thirty years old, six foot four inches tall—is acting as my Jiminy Cricket. He told me that he thinks my concentration on attracting middle class parents to RPS as a key issue in the school board campaign goes against my commitment to social and economic justice. He thinks that I should concentrate on fixing our schools for the students who are already in attendance. He also worries that the parents of students who already attend RPS will think that I don’t care about their children.

Well, Ethan, I hear you loud and clear. However, there is method to my apparent madness. For several reasons, I know that we must convince all parents in Richmond that they are stake holders in RPS if we are to make it into the first-class school system it needs to be.

First, as I have said before (The Next Superintendent) we need to look at Richmond Public Schools as a business. “At one end we take in young minds ready to learn; at the other end we produce young men and women who are prepared to deal with their life goals, whether in college, in the business world or in the military.” As with any business, in order to succeed RPS has to have a great product and to market it to all its prospective customers. And just like Coca Cola, which will never be happy until it controls 100% of the soft drink market, we should never be satisfied until we attract all the children in Richmond to RPS.

Second, as I have also said before (An Open Letter to Doug and Jackie and Paul and Bill and . . . ), the continued hemorrhaging of our middle class parents to the suburbs to find what they perceive of as a better education for their children is not healthy for our city. Further, the continued use by parents of the RPS open enrollment policy to avoid sending their children to their neighborhood school is not healthy for the neighborhoods of Richmond. As I said in my open letter to mayoral candidates back in March,

Providing great schools for our children is not just a matter of economic and racial justice. It is vital to the overall health of the city. A city with a population composed of just the old and the young, with nobody in between, is not healthy. A city population of just the affluent and the poor, with no middle class, is likewise unhealthy. When the middle class leaves a city it takes with it a significant part of the tax base.

If we want to have a city that is vibrant and safe and a wonderful place to live, we must invest in our public schools. How can we attract people to live in Richmond if we do not have great schools? How do we attract businesses to Richmond? Do we tell them this is a great place to work but advise them that their employees should live in the counties because our schools just aren’t that good?

Third, I am concerned that if middle-class parents are not committed to Richmond Public Schools, the number or people advocating on behalf of our public school children will decrease further in the future. As I said here at the end of April, if the number of students attending Richmond Public Schools continues to decrease by about five hundred student each year,

it means that the number of voters in the city who consider adequate funding of the public schools to be in their own best interest is shrinking. How many of the current members of the City Council represent a district in which the quality of and funding for Richmond Public Schools is really a make-it or break-it issue? Will the winning candidate for mayor in November really need to capture the parent vote to be elected?”
School Issues: The Playing Field

Fourth, there is a practical reason. I am convinced that strong parental involvement is necessary to make our neighborhood schools work.

GreatSchools.net, beside ranking schools on student academic achievement, also ranks schools based on parent assessment of several factors, including parent involvement. In describing what the parent involvement ranking means, GreatSchools.net says:

Evaluate the quantity and quality of parent involvement. In a highly rated school, parents play important leadership roles on the school site council, PTA and in other organizations. A school with strong parent involvement attracts a large percentage of parents to school functions. The school offers a variety of opportunities for parent participation, such as school events, classroom projects and schoolwide committees. Parents are respectful of teachers and the principal, and the teachers and principal seek out and value input from parents.

Let’s look at the three elementary schools in district four (sorry about my obsession with district four, but that’s the place I live and understand best). The latest data published on the RPS website shows the approximate economic background of the students of our schools. At Westover Hills, about 76% of the students are receiving federally subsidized meals. At Southhampton, 67% of the students are receiving subsidized meals. At Fisher, only 27% of the students receive subsidized meals. On GreatSchool.net, the three schools are rated on parent involvement as Westover Hills, 2 out of 5; Southampton, 4 out of 5; and Fisher 5 out of 5.

These figures are not surprising. I believe that most middle-class parents have more time available to get involved in their child’s school than do most parents who are not earning as much. Let me make it very clear, I am not suggesting that less affluent parents care less about their kids than do those with greater income. I don’t believe for a second that a parent’s concern for his or her babies varies with income.

I know that if we can get middle class parents in the Westover Hills zone to commit to their neighborhood school that parent involvement will go up. The same is true for Southampton. The experiences of such north side schools as Munford, Fox and Holton make this clear. And, when parental involvement goes up the educational experience of all children at that school will improve significantly.

So this is why I spend so much effort trying to win over middle class parents. We must make them see themselves as stake holders in RPS. Once we are able to convince all the parents in the city that what happens in our public schools matters to them, I know that every child in our schools will benefit.

Neighborhood Schools: TheThree Ps

The first time I wrote to School Board Chair George Braxton I said,

In the years I have lived in Richmond, I have noticed a very strange demographic pattern. About half the people in my neighborhood are empty-nesters like my wife and me. Most of the rest of my neighbors are young couples, either without children or with pre-school-age children. When children in my neighborhood reach school age, their parents do one of three things: 1- they move out of Richmond to Chesterfield or Henrico counties; 2- they send their children to private school; or 3- they home-school their children. I think that the only children who attend public school are those whose parents cannot afford any of the other options.

Two days each week, I tutor at Westover Hills School. In both of the classes I work in, all the children are African-American. In fact, almost all of the children in the school are African-American. I have looked at the statistics on the Richmond City Public Schools website, and I find that in most of Richmond's public schools African-Americans constitute 80% or more of the student body. My experience, and those statistics, indicates to me that although more than thirty years has passed since the end of "massive resistance," Richmond still has segregated schools. This segregation is not the result of the law but of the perception by those parents who can afford other options that their children cannot receive a quality education in Richmond public schools.

What I find particularly troubling with regard to Richmond's segregated schools is that no one seems to talk about them. I hear a lot of talk about building new school buildings or how many children are passing SOLs. But nobody talks about whether children can get a quality education in segregated schools. Nobody talks about how to overcome the perception by middle class parents that keeps them from sending their children to Richmond public schools.

I think that not much has changed since I sent that e-letter. I have discovered that there is another tool that middle class parents use to keep their children out of neighborhood schools—Richmond Public Schools’ open enrollment policy. Aside from that, it is still clear to me that the parents living in Westover Hills, my neighborhood, do not send their children to Westover Hills Elementary School, and that the parents in neighborhoods like Stratford Hills and Southampton do not send their children to Southampton Elementary School, their neighborhood school. It seems that the only fourth district neighborhood school that is being used by residents of its neighborhood is Fisher.

About two years ago, Fourth District City Councilperson, Kathy Graziano, invited residents of the Fourth District to “take back our schools.” I had real difficulty with the “take back” language, which I thought suggested that our schools had somehow been stolen from us. Nonetheless, I answered her call and became involved with what became Friends of Fourth District Schools (FoFDS). FoFDS has been quite successful in other aspects, but we still have not cracked the parent confidence problem.

So, what is it that stands between fourth district middle class parents and our neighborhood schools? I have heard—

I don’t want my child to stand out in class because she is different from the other children.

I can’t risk my child’s future on an experiment.

The other children in the class are low achievers. They will bring my child down to their level.

I’m concerned that my child will not be safe in the neighborhood school.

If my child goes to RPS he will never get into a good college.

As a father who has guided all three of his children through public schools (and later through public colleges) in Virginia, I can understand these concerns. The lives of our babies are precious and we want only what is best for them. But, I wonder how many of these concerns are based on reality. I wonder how many parents have even walked into their neighborhood school to see if their fears and concerns are valid. Most important, I wonder whether parents are looking at their neighborhood school with themselves in the equation.

In certain neighborhoods in the city parents have united to make their neighborhood school work for their children. I know, for example, that the parents in my daughter's neighborhood on the north side of Richmond have decided to make Linwood Holton work as their neighborhood school. Now, Holton has become a superior school with a diverse student population. It is working. It is working because of the partnership between the principal of Holton and the parents of the neighborhood.

Recently, at a school board meeting, I spoke with a member of the board from the north side of the river. We spoke about the Patrick Henry charter school and about public schools in general. She asked me why we "south siders" couldn't do what the parents in Munford, Fox and Holton have done. She said that all we had to do was put together a group of determined parents to go into our neighborhood school and simply inform the principal that we were enrolling our children and that we expected him or her to make the education experience work for our kids. We need to enroll several of our children, join the PTA and make sure that the school works for us.

So here is my plan for "Parents Partnering with Principals.” Parents of four year olds who will be starting school in September 2009: form a group and visit Westover Hills or Southampton and tell the principal that you intend to enroll your child in their school. Tell her that you expect that she will do what is necessary to see that your child receives a quality education in her school. I will go with you. I will support you. You parents of three years olds: start doing the same thing. You have an extra year to get things together and make things work. Parents of two year olds: ditto. Join your neighborhood school’s PTA. It is never too early.

What I really don’t understand is what we have to lose. We in Richmond pay a lot more in taxes than our neighbors in the counties, whether we are homeowners and pay tax as part of our monthly mortgage payments or are renters and the cost of the tax is passed on to us by our landlords in our rent. Our tax payments entitle us to certain services from the city, the most important of which is a top quality public education for our children. You parents have chosen to live in the City of Richmond for a reason. Does it make sense for you not to use your neighborhood school? To me it’s like paying to be a member of a swim club and never using the pool. It makes no sense.

Parents have made neighborhood schools work for them in the cases of Munford, Fox, Fisher and Holton. Are we not capable of doing the same thing? Parent, you need to get involved in Friends of Fourth District Schools and work together with other parents. Get your neighborhood association actively involved in making your neighborhood school work. We have three good elementary schools in the fourth district. We can make them even better and we can make them work for our children if we are only willing to try. It’s all a matter of the three P’s: Parents Partnering with Principals.

One more thing, and this is addressed to Richmond’s business community. You need to get more involved in Richmond’s neighborhood schools. I don’t understand how you can expect Richmond to reach its full potential as a great city if we don’t have great schools. How do you expect to attract other businesses to the city? Do you tell them that Richmond is a great place to do business but that their employees need to live in the counties if they want good schools for their children?

And, finally, to those of you in the real estate business: Wouldn’t it be nice if you could start listing houses in Southampton and Stratford Hills and Westover Hills and Forest Hills and other fourth district communities as being within walking distance of great neighborhood schools? Wouldn’t it be nice to start showing these homes to young couples and tell them that the neighborhood is family-friendly because of the neighborhood school? Get involved, you can make it happen.