Greater Orange News Service

Once upon a time continues…
OUSD Principal’s husband adds to fairytale

Even as Orange Unified Superintendent Dr. Renae Dreier continues to move OUSD into the twenty first century and skillfully sheds the stodgy image created by former OUSD Superintendent Dr. Thomas Godley of a censorship-ridden self-serving Consultant Culture, many of Godley’s former administrators continue the self-serving philosophy of the former superintendent. In the past, OUSD politicians have sought to use the taxpayer paid communication tools for self-serving agendas. Today self-serving educrats seek to use those communication tools for self-serving career advancement and it is again the responsibility of the community to reveal the real story.

Again we turn our attention to Michelle Moore, Principal of Panorama Elementary School in OUSD and her school’s section in the School News Roll Call OUSD edition (page 14). During the Godley Administration, Moore in the past has used this publication for self-serving cheerleading for the Godley Consultant Culture boondoggle, the multi-million dollar failed Focus on Results program. Moore’s public cheerleading of crediting that failed consultant program with her small private-like upper middle class school’s testing successes was not only an affront to the parents of the students, but false in the face of the clear demographic data based on race, wealth and other empirical data cited by educators and policy makers since standardized testing was begun under No Child Left Behind. It is that demographic data that clearly explains why the scores of the “fairy tale” school Moore works at is not a product of her leadership or a taxpayer money guzzling consultant program (see links below). After debunking Moore’s self-serving Consultant hugging hogwash she wrote in the past OUSD edition of School News Roll Call we now turn to the latest August/September 2009 OUSD Issue of School News Roll Call and the Panorama Elementary School’s section piece written by Principal Michelle Moore’s husband, Dr. Rock Moore.

Dr. Rock Moore (with his name as the writer) pens a lavish tribute to his wife Michelle in the latest School News Roll Call and only identifies himself as her husband in one line buried in the article that states: “Mrs. Moore has asked me to include that she has been happily married to fellow educator, Dr. Rock Moore…”. It is interesting to note what a “fellow educator” means in the Moore family. Currently Dr. Moore is a pastor of a storefront-like church called His House in the Canyons which meets Sundays in the theater of Rancho Santa Margarita Middle School. He also leads a Men’s Study Group on Saturdays that meets at the Ruby Diner restaurant in Rancho Santa Margarita and according to his bio is “instructing a class at the local Christian College”

Dr. Moore’s degree is in Theology. Dr. Moore writes in his church’s website biography that he “left full time ministry to pursue educational interest until God led him back to this area in 1999”. Those educational interests included being the assistant superintendent for the Stockton Gospel Rescue Mission in Stockton and later as an administrator for a short time with Adelanto ESD in San Bernardino and he taught a class at Chapman University.

Dr. Moore also writes about his wife Principal Moore that “she is a successful author, with several publications centered on high student expectations and data driven instruction”. Being always leery of educational buzzwords being bantered around by Educrats and people we see as pseudo-educators, the only publication of the supposedly “several publications” that Dr. Moore writes in OUSD’s School News Roll Call that we could find attributed to "successful author" Michelle Moore is as a “co-author” of a 150 page paperback two chapter syllabus-like “book” called Active Teaching and Active Learning Strategies: Creating a Blueprint for Success. The “book” is a collection of long established teaching techniques and lists of state-standards teaching lessons and contains no real original educational thought one would expect from being touted as an educational publication. Who did "successful author" Moore co-author the book with? None other than husband Dr Rock Moore. The “book” is self-published by the pair as Rock and Michelle Moore MiRoc Publishing using an AOL Publishing Program and self-publishing Trafford Publishing. Trafford specializes in “on-demand” boutique self- publishing used by those who want to tell the world they are “authors”. The “book” was edited by Adrian Ober, Office manage at OUSD’s McPherson Middle School.

In the August/September 2009 OUSD Issue of School News Roll Dr. Moore also writes about Principal Michelle Moore “Moore has enjoyed speaking on both the national and international levels on contemporary educational themes”. However, again the only records we could find of Principal Moore “speaking” was with her husband presenting workshops together. The workshops for the National Social Studies Association include presenting a workshop at the 2003 National Social Studies Conference in Las Vegas and in 2002 in Toronto, Canada, not exactly an international educational stage.

Unlike his "successful author" wife however, we did find some independent writings from Rock Moore. Aside from a mediocre uninspiring education article during his doctorial work called School Leadership that Promotes a Dynamic School Culture (for National University) Dr. Rock Moore wrote a 396 page evangelical Christian book called Living Obedient in a Disobedient World. Published in 2009 by Revival Nation Publishing, a Christian boutique publishing company that lists 25 Christian evangelistic “authors’ they publish.
The publisher writes on its website what its publishing goals are:
"Our goal is to give authors who have a great writing style, a dynamic message and whose desire is to see the body of Christ edified in their work, and ultimately see lost souls won for the Kingdom, an opportunity to have their work published".

Moore advertises his book for sale on the His House in the Canyons website ($20.00) and also has a “commercial” for it on Tangle, an online community for Christians (you can buy it for $13.00 on the internet or read it for free from Google Books).

Ironically in their joint self-publication the Moores write about truth and trust:

“To clarify, trust derives from the word trost, and embraces the notions associated with comfort. Trust implies instinctive, unquestionable belief in another person or agency. Thusly, in a tandem relationship, trust exists when one fully believes in the integrity or character of another. Hence, when there is a high level of trust, the questioning of others motives or hidden agendas are diminished.”

Perhaps the Dr. Rock Moore and "successful author" Michelle Moore should take this part of their own writing to heart and perhaps Dr. Dreier needs to remember that the Greater Orange Communities have an "instinctive, unquestionable belief" in her as the OUSD Superintendent to make sure that what is in the OUSD Issue of School News Roll Call is above reproach and far beyond fairytales of the past.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
August/September 2009 OUSD Issue of School News Roll(see page 14):
Click on FAIRYTALE

Information on the Moore families book: SUCESSFUL AUTHORS

Information on Trafford Publishing: WEB PUBLISH

Trafford Publishing Costs from website: COST

His House in the Canyons Church website STOREFRONT CHURCH

Revival Publishing

Panorama Elementary School- Michele Moore’s Fairytale School : Moore's Fairytale