“Too often, the parents of these successful students have regarded any reform aimed at furthering equity at BHS as a threat to their student’s interest, and because they are more powerful, their interests have determined the direction of the school,” he said, urging the board to approve the superintendent’s recommendations, explaining that the changes proposed were “sound and supported by a wide body of educational research.”

and when? Probably Slemp, right?

Ms. Menard,

I’m a little bit skeptical that you read Mr. Huyett’s face correctly for this reason:

As nearly as I can tell, a redesign has been a back-burner agenda item inside the administration for (Mr. Slemp says) pretty much his entire tenure. When an initial redesign plan was put forward in early 2009 it was quite similar in many ways to the current “Principal’s Plan”.

Critically, that initial plan was put forward by Mr. Huyett and Mr. Slemp acting jointly. This suggests that, perhaps, Mr. Huyett does not in fact “wonder just how mentally unstable Slemp is.”

The plan approved back then was to proceed with a plan from earlier discussions of a redesign, but with some changes. One change is that implementation would be sought for 2010-2011 rather than 2009-2010. This extension of the time-line was for the purpose of conducting more community outreach (which has been done) and collecting better evidence of the need (which has been done). Another change, taking advantage of the extra time, was to back away from the goal of a block-scheduled day and consider alternatives (which has been done).

In those senses, at the very least, the recent “Principal’s Plan” is simply the promised follow-through on the Huyett/Slemp initiative, approved by the board with but one dissenting vote in early 2009.

You could be right, of course. Perhaps Mr. Huyett has lost confidence in Mr. Slemp or has for some other reason decided at this late date to distance himself from the effort. I don’t see evidence of that beyond your claim to read that in Mr. Huyett’s facial expressions but I also don’t think it would be right to glibly dismiss your claim. As I said: you could be right.

references:

daily cal article, feb 2009

http://www.dailycal.org/article/104320/berkeley_school_board_approves_compromise_redesign

daily planet, feb 19, 2009 issue

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-02-19/article/32299?headline=School-Board-Approves-BHS-Redesign-Plan

A part of which I think is especially worth quoting more fully:

Berkeley High math teacher Jessica Quindel read out a statement from one of her former professors at UC Berkeley, Pedro Noguera, who is now a professor and the executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University.

In his statement, Noguera recalled leading a study at Berkeley High called the Diversity Project from 1996-2000, which identified the underlying causes of the achievement gap and recommended changes that might help to reduce it. He said that relatively few of the recommendations were implemented by the district or the high school largely because the school already worked well for some students, particularly high-achieving white and Asian students from affluent backgrounds.

“Too often, the parents of these successful students have regarded any reform aimed at furthering equity at BHS as a threat to their student’s interest, and because they are more powerful, their interests have determined the direction of the school,” he said, urging the board to approve the superintendent’s recommendations, explaining that the changes proposed were “sound and supported by a wide body of educational research.”

Clearly this political charade has gone on long enough! Along with the tactic of pitting community members against community members while the bureaucrats still get paid on Friday.

Folks are gonna have to stomach yet another Slemp hour long “dog and pony show” tomorrow night. Last year I watched the new Supt intensely study Slemp as Slemp told lie after lie during one of his rare board performances. Seemed pretty obvious from the Supt facial messages he was starting to wonder just how mentally unstable Slemp is.