From the PD --
Bedford schools Superintendent Martha "Marty" Motsco has been named the 2008 winner of the Superin tendent's Out standing Per formance Award in Ohio by the Cleveland-based Martha Holden Jennings Foundation. Under her leadership the past 11 years, the school system has made significant improvement in academic achievement, especially in reading and math. She will receive a $20,000 award to be used for a project of her choosing in Bedford.
Click here to see our test scores over the past several years. For years our district has been at the bottom of the "Continuous Improvement" rating.
Would you say a significant improvement in academic achievement has been made?
I wouldnt classify that as significant improvement, no.
ReplyDeleteBen thanks for taking the time to look.
ReplyDeleteI believe we have been in the top 10 in spending for students during the last several years. Yet we are continuously at the bottom of continuous improvement.
Our school takes in approx. $53 million dollars a year. Motsco, a retired teacher collecting a pension, makes over $123,000 per year plus benefits.
I strongly believe we hae the ability to have much better schools than we do - much of our money is being spent towards high salaries of administrators and low salries for new teachers right out of college.
One school board member, Joe Mestnik, continues babbling about - churning. This is the label he has placed on families moving in and out of the district. While he and our board have ben complaining about this perceived problems oer the past several years - nothing has been done. OUr boared members continually point out that students who have been in our district longer - perform better.
Personally I beliee they like hiding behind this excuse.
EG - The federal NCLB allows students to be in a district for 1 year before they are counted on the districts scores. In Ohio a new student is counted against the district after 90 days.
Even though one would expect a board member to be aware of this - none of our board was aware of this. The board was also made aware of this gap several years ago, but did nothing about it.
We have a levy coming up - AGAIN! They are already starting their campaign of propoganda on the residents through the use of our local papers - Bedford Sun Banner & Bedford Times Register. Because of their lack of objective & accurate reporting these two publications do more harm than good in our communities. These papers pretty much print what the schools tell them to write.
Until the political leaders of the communities that make up our district accept that the students are not broken but the administration is - we will continue floundering at the bottom.