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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
OUSD’s Culture of Consultants continues to waste our educational tax dollars
Metro Views
Viewpoints from the Greater Orange Communities
The failed Orange Unified School District consultant driven OUSD Focus on Results program cost tax payers millions of dollars in local educational tax funds to which OUSD Trustee Wes Poutsma infamously quipped upon voting to approve the bureaucratic boondoggle:
“We’re a $220 million dollar business; we’re going to spend the money somewhere.” -OUSD Trustee Wes Poutsma 9/22/05
Sadly, despite dismal OUSD’s secondary schools state testing scores this year, according to OUSD President Kim Nichols, the OUSD Focus on Results program will be back again this year in a new improved format, although no one is sure what that “new” format will look like.
Unfortunately it appears that the OUSD “we got it, let’s waste it” mentality lives on as the OUSD administration continues it’s Culture of Consultants, this time dumping thousands into “training” by a controversial consultant with apparently big ethical problems. Controversial Educational Consultant Dr. Willard Daggett got $9,000 in speaking fees once this year from OUSD, and now will be getting another $35,000 for a two day workshop for all the OUSD leadership in August 2008. In addition, some OUSD schools are being required to send up to ten teachers to a two day Daggett training in San Diego in February 2008. What do you learn in two days for thousands of educational tax dollars? As one OUSD principal put it to the school’s staff in trying to recruit teaches to go to the Daggett training:
“Symposium participants will learn how to shift the paradigm away from a culture that is centered on teaching to one that is centered on student learning by developing a system that embraces change and a curriculum that meets the current and future needs of all learners.”
Now that is a hefty two day learning experience! Why go to college for four years, then continue your education for your teaching credential, masters degree and more (spending all that time and your own money) when in two days (and at taxpayer expense) you can learn “a curriculum that meets the current and future needs of all learners” . Shouldn’t every teacher in America go?
When government bureaucrats start questioning you for being wasteful, you know you have a problem. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Chester Finn Jr. states in an article critical of Daggett in Investors Business Daily (see link below):
“The educational community is constantly and chronically taken in by any peddler of snake oil or witchcraft that comes down the pike. They just mutter words that educators like to hear. If you use the right buzzwords, you can turn yourself into a millionaire. Most of it is just hocus-pocus”
Daggett has been called to the carpet for numerous misrepresentations by educators and educational organizations like the Phi Delta Kappa Board of Directors (see links below). Yet he continues to rake in millions of educational tax dollars because educators, especially it appears administrators, continue to refuse to do basic research on what they hear, always ready to jump on the next band wagon. In the “Era of Accountability” educational bureaucrats-educrats- continue to be accountable to no one except rubber-stamping school Boards- just like ours in Orange Unified School District.
So despite the dismal secondary test scores coming on the heals of millions of dollars dumped into consultant culture OUSD’s Focus on Results, expect the Orange Unified School Board to approve, without discussion, another $35,000 for an educational consultant who is under fire for being ethically challenged to “train” OUSD administrators and teachers to magically meet the current and future needs of all learners as OUSD tax payers watch their tax dollars magically disappear into thin air. Hocus Pocus!
The Greater Orange Community Organization
_______________________________________________
OUSD Secondary State Scores Take a Nose Dive: VPHS Minus 22 pts
STATE SCORES
2007 Rotten Apple Award for Dr. Daggett
National Issue are Consultants worth it? By Tryce Palmaffy
Article 1
Consultant gets Big Bucks for small bang
Article 2
The Education Rotten Apple Awards for 2002
Article 3
Inconsistencies on Daggett’s Quotes
Article 4
Fact or Fiction: Questions raised after educational consultant visits district during last school year
Article 5
Dishonest Characteristics of the Director of Character Education in Arkansas
Article 6
*Consolidation- A Vital Step to Government Control of Education and the Economy
Article 7
Metro VIEWS
is an open forum to express viewpoints on local Greater Orange issues.
Views expressed in Metro VIEWS are not necessarily the views of the NETWORKS that ECAST or post them.
Viewpoints from the Greater Orange Communities
The failed Orange Unified School District consultant driven OUSD Focus on Results program cost tax payers millions of dollars in local educational tax funds to which OUSD Trustee Wes Poutsma infamously quipped upon voting to approve the bureaucratic boondoggle:
“We’re a $220 million dollar business; we’re going to spend the money somewhere.” -OUSD Trustee Wes Poutsma 9/22/05
Sadly, despite dismal OUSD’s secondary schools state testing scores this year, according to OUSD President Kim Nichols, the OUSD Focus on Results program will be back again this year in a new improved format, although no one is sure what that “new” format will look like.
Unfortunately it appears that the OUSD “we got it, let’s waste it” mentality lives on as the OUSD administration continues it’s Culture of Consultants, this time dumping thousands into “training” by a controversial consultant with apparently big ethical problems. Controversial Educational Consultant Dr. Willard Daggett got $9,000 in speaking fees once this year from OUSD, and now will be getting another $35,000 for a two day workshop for all the OUSD leadership in August 2008. In addition, some OUSD schools are being required to send up to ten teachers to a two day Daggett training in San Diego in February 2008. What do you learn in two days for thousands of educational tax dollars? As one OUSD principal put it to the school’s staff in trying to recruit teaches to go to the Daggett training:
“Symposium participants will learn how to shift the paradigm away from a culture that is centered on teaching to one that is centered on student learning by developing a system that embraces change and a curriculum that meets the current and future needs of all learners.”
Now that is a hefty two day learning experience! Why go to college for four years, then continue your education for your teaching credential, masters degree and more (spending all that time and your own money) when in two days (and at taxpayer expense) you can learn “a curriculum that meets the current and future needs of all learners” . Shouldn’t every teacher in America go?
When government bureaucrats start questioning you for being wasteful, you know you have a problem. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Chester Finn Jr. states in an article critical of Daggett in Investors Business Daily (see link below):
“The educational community is constantly and chronically taken in by any peddler of snake oil or witchcraft that comes down the pike. They just mutter words that educators like to hear. If you use the right buzzwords, you can turn yourself into a millionaire. Most of it is just hocus-pocus”
Daggett has been called to the carpet for numerous misrepresentations by educators and educational organizations like the Phi Delta Kappa Board of Directors (see links below). Yet he continues to rake in millions of educational tax dollars because educators, especially it appears administrators, continue to refuse to do basic research on what they hear, always ready to jump on the next band wagon. In the “Era of Accountability” educational bureaucrats-educrats- continue to be accountable to no one except rubber-stamping school Boards- just like ours in Orange Unified School District.
So despite the dismal secondary test scores coming on the heals of millions of dollars dumped into consultant culture OUSD’s Focus on Results, expect the Orange Unified School Board to approve, without discussion, another $35,000 for an educational consultant who is under fire for being ethically challenged to “train” OUSD administrators and teachers to magically meet the current and future needs of all learners as OUSD tax payers watch their tax dollars magically disappear into thin air. Hocus Pocus!
The Greater Orange Community Organization
_______________________________________________
OUSD Secondary State Scores Take a Nose Dive: VPHS Minus 22 pts
STATE SCORES
2007 Rotten Apple Award for Dr. Daggett
National Issue are Consultants worth it? By Tryce Palmaffy
Article 1
Consultant gets Big Bucks for small bang
Article 2
The Education Rotten Apple Awards for 2002
Article 3
Inconsistencies on Daggett’s Quotes
Article 4
Fact or Fiction: Questions raised after educational consultant visits district during last school year
Article 5
Dishonest Characteristics of the Director of Character Education in Arkansas
Article 6
*Consolidation- A Vital Step to Government Control of Education and the Economy
Article 7
Metro VIEWS
is an open forum to express viewpoints on local Greater Orange issues.
Views expressed in Metro VIEWS are not necessarily the views of the NETWORKS that ECAST or post them.
