New school board member Kathy Lennon, elected in August, attends a school board meeting in September.Maybe it’s time to start a recall effort on new school board member Kathy Lennon.
Lennon, just a few months ago, campaigned for change in the administration of Hamilton County Schools after a year of chaos that included misrepresented countywide test scores, poorly handled grant money for iZone schools that didn’t improve and the hazing rape of high school basketball players. In Facebook campaign postings in August, she sought votes “to ignite change” in Hamilton County schools.
Now she wants to keep the status quo.
Last week, Lennon, a self-described former parochial school policy wonk and businesswoman, suddenly decided to embrace an established pillar of our failed school system – long-time Hamilton County administrator Kirk Kelley.
As the Board of Education prepared to take a vote on hiring a search firm to find a new superintendent and change agent for our schools, Lennon made a motion to hire Kelly as the new permanent superintendent. Kelly now serves as interim superintendent.
This is the same Kirk Kelly who, as assistant superintendent of accountability and data, was in charge of accountability at the very time our school leaders were not using that iZone grant money well for our lowest performing schools and not correctly representing our children’s test scores to the board and the public. Kelly was, for decades, one of the system’s central office leaders during the years while our school system fell to new lows.
Lows like this:
– A full 60 percent of our third-graders cannot read at their grade level and about 60 percent of our high school graduates are not jobs-ready for Chattanooga area employers.
– Our students, systemwide, tested below the state average in nine of the 10 tested TCAP categories by as many as 16.7 percentage points.
– Only 30 percent of our teachers score as highly effective, and trail far behind similar rankings in other major school systems in the state.
Given all that, is it any wonder that five of our schools – those iZone schools that we mismanaged with poor planning and poor spending habits – have consistently scored so badly on standardized tests that state officials are now threatening to take them over?
But those rankings are not the big tragedy.
The collective price of these school failures and school board failures are the resultant marred lives of 25,800 students – the 60 percent being cheated of a complete education.
Think of the lost and lowered wages for those failed students. Think of the lost productivity (and, yes, lost tax revenue) in Hamilton County. Think of the local employers who say we have some 15,000 jobs unfilled by local residents because they can’t find educationally qualified applicants.
If you want to think of it in dollars-and-cents terms, those losses – year by year – would far surpass even the school system’s nearly $400 million annual budget.
Yet now the woman who campaigned for change wants to promote one of the managers who helped get us here.
Members did not vote on the Kelly question last week. School board members David Testerman and Joe Galloway echoed Lennon’s support of Kelly’s leadership, but the board could not vote on the motion since it had not notified the public of the move at least 15 days in advance, as required by policy.
A counter motion was quickly brought by school board member Greg Martin to have the board select a search firm to find the district’s next leader, and the board unanimously voted in support. (Yes, you read that right unanimously. So even Lennon, who wants to promote Kelly as superintendent, voted to hire a search firm. Go figure.)
That vote was followed by another vote to select a firm.
Please do not misunderstand: Kirk Kelly is a wonderful, caring, kind, nice, well-intentioned man. We have no doubt that he is good at spread sheets of data. And he is a genuine gentleman.
But our 43,000 students need more than a superintendent promoted from inside. In fact, to be clear, we believe there is no local candidate already working in our public school system who should be promoted to this position.
We owe our students more than central office job security – which is what Kelly’s hiring (and any other in-house hire) would represent.
The Hamilton County Schools – from the central office to the classrooms – need a good housecleaning.
Hamilton County school board members have only one employee that truly answers to them – the superintendent.
Board members: Get a search firm, let the firm do its job, then make this hire your legacy.
Voters: Hold this board accountable, even if it takes some recall elections.