Why did Chicago hire a North Carolina superintendent embroiled in a testing scandal?

[tonysam]

Good question:

Between August (or September) 2009 and early February 2010, Middleton served as one of the most powerful school officials in Chicago. As a result, she got to be part of the Board of Education's team that presented the "data" arrayed against Gillespie. According to her testimony, she was testifying on behalf of CEO Ron Huberman, who has yet to attend any of the hearings being conducted in his name.

Because the hearings on school turnarounds are one-sided to a shameful degree, nobody got to ask Geraldine Middleton how she could possibly know anything about Gillespie — or any other school in Chicago — since she was only hired by CEO Ron Huberman under a secret but now highly controversial change in decades-old Chicago policies that allowed the CEO to hire "Area Officers" who had no Chicago or Illinois teaching or administrative training or experience.

There is more. When Middleton was hired by Huberman and the Chicago Board of Education in August 2009, Middleton was in the middle of a scandal back in North Caroline involving a common but unsavory response to "data driven management" — cheating to raise scores on standardized tests. One of Middleton's principals had been accused of cheating on the North Caroline PACT tests to provide Middleton with "data" to show how much things were improving. Middleton had been hired to hear the Halifax County school system in order to raise test scores, and she had done so — until the scandal called into question some of the methods used.

Instead of remaining in North Carolina as she had promised to clear the record, Middleton answered the call of Ron Huberman and arrived in Chicago to take one of the higest-paid and most powerful jobs in the Chicago Public Schools.

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[JackintheGreen]

1. It's the Chicago way!

They bring a knife; you bring a gun. They bring a principal with a 35 year misdemeanor for pot possession in college, you bring a superintendent embroiled in a major and pertinent professional scandal.

Gosh. Chicago schools really are the pits if they stopped teaching this stuff.

[hughee99]

3. Exactly, when has scandal ever prevented someone from getting a job in Chicago? n/t

[tonysam]

4. When has scandal ever prevented any superintendent

from getting a job in his or her field? Superintendents get passed around from district to district.

[hughee99]

5. If you can't hire a superintendent with a scandal in their background

Then you won't be able to hire anyone with experience.

[FBaggins]

7. Prevented?

I think it's a prerequisite!

[vegiegals]

2. So she 'resigned" in SC and skipped over to Chicago. whow.....

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1150§ion=Article

......Aug 18, 2009

Halifax County Superintendent Resigns

The troubled school system is now being run as a partnership between the county and the State Department of Education. (Posted: 12:18 PM Aug 18, 2009).

The head of a troubled school system here in Eastern Carolina has resigned for a new job out of state. Geraldine Middleton is leaving as superintendent of the Halifax County school system on September 18th. <2009>.

Earlier this year a superior court judge threatened to force a state takeover of the school system, which has been plagued with low student test scores. Instead the state and the school system entered into a partnership to help Halifax County make improvements in its schools.

Middleton, superinte

[mzteris]

6. how misleading . . .

MiShawna Moore was investigated and found not guilty in SOUTH Carolina of testing improprieties in 2007.

Geraldine Middleton resigned from her post in Halifax North Carolina due to the districts poor performance. Of course if you'd ever been to Halifax County - you'd understand the issues there are nearly insurmountable...

MiShawna Moore was hired in Halifax County as Asst super of curriculum and instruction in 2009.

There was NO "testing scandal" in North Carolina.

this article is basically pure bullsh*t.

[Hannah Bell]

8. sure, it's always "bullshit" when it reflects badly on charters.

if mishawna moore was found "not guilty" in 2007, how come she's still being investigated in 2008?

http://thevoiceforschoolchoice.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/mishawna-moore-denies-cheating-blames-kids-and-oversight/

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:j9woEJKKcCkJ:www.fitsnews.com/2008/09/12/pact-scam-rocks-education-establishment/+MiShawna+Moore&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

School under scrutiny
Test scores plummet after dramatic gains
By Diette Courrégé
The Post and Courier
Originally published 12:00 a.m., September 10, 2008


Sanders-Clyde Elementary, a school lauded for its success in educating low-income students, saw a precipitous drop in its test scores this year, raising questions about a former principal who led the school's transformation and casting doubts on the school's true progress during the past five years.

Charleston County school officials were so concerned with the decline of the school's Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test scores that on Tuesday they asked the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate.

Sanders-Clyde is a school in downtown Charleston that serves some of the poorest students in the county. Most of its children come from the nearby homeless shelter or public housing apartments. Its test scores once were the worst in the county, and its future was so bleak that the county board planned to close it.

Then MiShawna Moore became the school's principal in 2003. She tailored lessons for students, helped their parents pay bills, washed students' clothes and opened the school building on weekends. The school's test scores began to rise.

By 2007, the school outscored state and district averages, far exceeding the progress of schools with students from similar backgrounds. Educators hailed Moore as a model for other principals, the community showered her school with praise, and federal and state awards went to the school in recognition of its achievement. Moore was so successful that she was asked to lead a second downtown school, Fraser Elementary, to duplicate her accomplishments.

This year, the school's PACT results fell sharply in every subject and at every grade level.

This was the first time that the school district monitored the school's testing. District officials took tests away from the school each night and put monitors in classrooms daily. Janet Rose, the district's executive director of assessment and accountability, told The Post and Courier in May that the extra scrutiny would validate the school's scores....

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2008/sep/10/school_under_scrutiny53611/


She simply resigned in the middle of the controversy & got strings pulled to go elsewhere. Cause the public school destruction network supports its own.

Every single "school turnaround miracle" later turns out to be a matter of cherry-picking, special funding, or outright fraud. *Every* single one.

But by that time, the schools are already in private hands & the banksters laughing all the way to the bank.