The Cleveland Plan Refreshed

Year two for Dr. Morgan looks suspiciously like Year Zero

This past week gave us the first opportunity for public comment at school board meetings in the new 2024-2025 school year. My wife, Stacey Steggert, was very excited to get a slot to speak about her concerns with the new, district-wide, imposed with a boot on the neck, English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. Each month, there are thirteen public speaking slots and for the August 20th meeting, only six slots were used. I encourage you to get speaking slots and let the school board know what’s on your mind. The following is the text from my wife’s allotted three minutes:

Public Comment August 20, 2024

Stacey Steggert, PHD

I want to share some concerns about the new ELA curriculum. 

The new HMH into literature curriculum that was adopted this year manufactures and perpetuates inequity.

According to HMH’s implementation study, there was not a statistically significant difference in the percentage of Black students scoring proficient or better on the State of Texas assessment. The report states there was a “marginally significant difference” at the 0.1 level, but for reasons your data department can talk about in detail, significance is a binary condition. In ed research we do not consider .1 to be statistically significant. For Black students the difference in scores could have been equally as likely to be due to random chance as it could be due to this curriculum. This curriculum makes no significant difference in achievement outcomes for Black students. It does, however correspond to a significant difference in the number of white students scoring proficient or better.

What’s more, according to the Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative at  NYU Steinhardt, this curriculum has been found to be both culturally insufficient and culturally destructive. This report was shared with District admin and the Board prior to the start of the school year. Why, despite having received this report, was the decision made to move forward with this curriculum?

I want to share some of NYU Steinhardt’s findings. HMH Into Reading was found to be culturally insufficient for grade 1 and culturally destructive for grades 3 and 5 in the representation domain. It was found to be culturally destructive for grades 1, 3, and 5 in the social justice and teachers’ materials domains.

The report defines culturally destructive as, “The curriculum likely reinforces stereotypes and portrays people of color in inferior and destructive ways. The curriculum likely centers White or Eurocentric ideas and culture throughout the majority of the text. Microaggressions, biases, and deficit perspectives are prevalent. The curriculum is likely disconnected from students’ lives and provides zero to very few opportunities for teachers to practice cultural responsiveness. There is no guidance on engaging diverse learners or culturally responsive teaching in the teachers’ materials. There is no guidance about connecting the curriculum to students’ 

It is alarming that the District is insisting on lockstep instruction. Teachers who used to teach whole novels like Elie Weisel's Night are no longer permitted to teach whole books, only excerpts. It is even more alarming that teachers are going to be monitored by central administration and will be written up if they are found to be using alternative curricular materials. The District is essentially demanding that teachers act in ways that are culturally destructive, harmful to Black and Brown students, and will be punished if they stand up for kids and use materials that speak to their students lived experiences. 

This curriculum perpetuates the normalization of cultural dominance characterized by racism and institutional violence.

I think she does a really great job of packing in a lot of information in three minutes and sounding clear enough for an audience to understand. She got some applause and a full thirty-two seconds of silence while Dr. Morgan and Board Chair Sara Elaqad tried to figure out what just happened to them. The following speaker was also upset about the ELA curriculum, among other things.

Her name was Tammy Dickerson and she is an intervention specialist. She is concerned about wasteful spending in the district (ma’am, come have coffee with me and we can chat the day away about these spendthrifts), bad building administration and the grievances she’s filed, the need for portals to report the building waste, the need for more special education supports and another intervention specialist, need for a special education liaison, how neither she nor her neighbors can afford Dr. Morgan’s levy, and (I quote) it being “time to show out,” for this school board.

After public comment ended, my wife started to exit the building, talking with a former student of hers who was there to talk about CMSD partnership opportunities with the Natural History Museum, when she heard her name being called and she realized she was being chased down by a district flunky. Said flunky was Erin Frew (you pay her $165,000 for being yet another administrator called Office, Schools on the central office list) and she had been dispatched by Dr. Morgan and the board to explain all the many things my wife misunderstands about the new ELA curriculum. She beclowned herself, in front of a witness, in a way that makes me wonder how many times the exchange, as relayed by Stacey Steggert, has played on an endless loop in Erin Frew’s head at three in the morning.

“Erin Frew said she wanted to clear up some things. She said that she wasn’t sure where I was getting my information, but that it was not true that teachers would be disciplined for using supplementary materials (I had said alternative curriculum). She said teachers could still read novels as supplementary materials. I asked her what time they would have to do that. She said there was time built in for novels. I asked if that meant teachers did not have to use the curriculum. She said that they did. I asked if they would be written up if they did not use the curriculum. She said they would be supported first. I asked what if they continued to not use the curriculum. She said that they would be written up at that point. I responded that what I had said was correct: teachers had to use a harmful curriculum or be written up. She said she did not think the curriculum was harmful. I referenced the NYU Steinhardt study. She said they did a lot of their own research, and that there was not very much research on culturally responsive curriculum (do a Google and then laugh). I reminded her about HMH’s own implementation study. She said that the HMH study did not find that the curriculum was harmful. I reminded her that it benefitted one group of students and did not benefit another group of students, which is the definition of inequity. And I think inequity is harmful. I thanked her for her time and left.”

Speaking of the new ELA curriculum in practice

The CMSD calendar for the 2024-2025 school year came home in backpacks this week. I didn’t really look at it but did leave it on the floor of the minivan to be thrown away at a later date. We started back to school on Monday and my sons are now in the 5th grade. They got assigned to the teacher we really wanted. The boys were not eager for school to start. They are not thrilled to be staying after school every day while Stacey and I run our new after school program, CIS Plus. Our school hasn’t been able to assign Chromebooks yet, and my son with Dyslexia experienced a lot of frustration being asked to write paragraphs without his IEP stipulated speech-to-text program. Teachers offered to scribe for him, but the classrooms are so full of students now, all with their own needs, that offers to scribe are nice but impractical.

On Friday, the other twin told us what he had done for ELA in the new curriculum required workbook. This son scored an 820 on the Reading OST for 4th grade (highest score is 846) and spent his time circling or maybe it was highlighting, vowel sounds. In 5th grade. Because that is what the curriculum demands and if his teacher does not follow the script she will be supported and then punished. There used to be differentiation. Every time we have asked our school to give our children more education, it has been given. I have recruited other families to come to Campus International School because their children could get more if it was needed. One need not have an individualized education plan, to get an actual individualized education with this supportive building administration and very capable teaching staff.

During the Eric Gordon years, I got my daughter subject acceleration and then multiple grade acceleration when it was demonstrated that she needed it. My sons have had grade acceleration. But in Dr. Morgan’s Year Zero, my extremely bright children are circling vowel sounds in the 5th grade. When my daughter was flipping through the calendar and landed on the page pictured above, she laughed and read it out loud to me. Then we both laughed until it started to hurt. I used to talk about the opportunities in this school district as something so wonderful that I was fortunate to be able to give to my children. Now I wonder how much longer I can inflict this upon them.

Speaking of other things that are failing

If you automatically guessed that this heading was about Communications Officer, Candice Grose (you pay her $159,500), you should win a prize from the PBIS prize box that we can no longer afford due to building budget cuts. Anyhoo, Candice had a rough back to school week. When Dr. Morgan chose to kick off his back-to-school visits at Adlai Stevenson, it reminded me of the grandmother who spoke at public comment last spring begging for help for her grandson. So, I asked about her.

Communications expert, Candice, let her first impulse be the delete button. Moments later she brought it back so that other, more supportive people could fluff up Dr. Morgan. The thing is, both accounts are from men from Memphis, where Candice originates, and both appear to be related to her in some way. Meanwhile, I thought it was time to ask the well-paid school district lawyer (you pay hm $189,500) Andrew Roman, to have a word with Candice about how social media posts and their comments are public record and deleting them is against the law.

I’m being very generous when I say “communications team” as I have heard from multiple sources that Candice’s incompetence has driven most of the old communications staff away. So much so that Candice now has to pay freelancers to perform simple duties that the communications staff used to do. Not that Candice would be all that upset because now she gets to dole out taxpayer money to her friends from Chicago. Remember, we do have a CMSD television station, and we used to have someone to run it. CMSD has always hired SHAPE to handle the extra video recording work, especially around graduation time. The additional freelancers are a further sign of her incompetence, and one wonders just how the Alma Group selected her to interview for this position.

Candice also just deleted another post by another concerned CMSD family member.

It would seem that many CMSD family members are concerned about school safety. I wonder if Dr. Morgan knows about these concerns. Or does Candice delete them all like she is in the I Love Lucy candy factory scene, just unable to truly keep up? Candice should really take a look at the standards for running the public school district social media accounts. And where is her direct supervisor, Lisa Farmer (I know, an everyday question for the folks at 1111 Superior) who heads up the External Affairs division and is paid, by you, $193,500? The next time both Lisa and Candice overlap in the office (fingers crossed that it happens) they should both take a look at this very simple guide.

Speaking of buildings and gross

Remember at that last school board meeting of the 2023-2024 school year when the school board patted itself on the back for renaming a district owned building in honor of a former school district luminary? That was the Pinkney Building, and his family should ask to have the name rescinded. While Dr. Morgan and his $2 million dollar ELT spend their working days in the lakeview building at 1111 Superior, people who are forced to set foot in the Arnold Pinkney building have views that look like this:

This is, apparently, what all gussied up for the new school year and the school board meeting looks like. There are plastic cups of pink liquid in the bathrooms that I hope are soap but could also be new car coolant. What an honor it is.

Speaking of house keeping

Last Saturday I started a public discussion group on Facebook called, Publicly Cleveland Conversations. We already have 270’ish members and it has been nice to show some of this blog information to a wider audience. I’ve also learned some new things, like Andrew Koonce is no longer a Network Leader. However, Dr. Morgan saw fit to put him in charge of another school as principal, because that worked out so well for Black male students before. I’m also getting lots of new tidbits and tips to check out which has led to a lot more public record requests.

If you haven’t already, I invite you to join the Facebook group, or just read it from time to time, anonymously. I always accept private messages there, or DMs on TwitterX, and email messages. If you comment on this blog, please be aware that it is public, and everyone can see your name and comments.

Through the Facebook discussion, I found out that Substack sends some auto replies to people who get the blog through their email. The message asks you to pledge money toward my Substack and that it may not always be free to read. That is not true and does not come from me. I do this for free because I need to get this information out there. That you read, share, and laugh at the gallows humor, well that’s all the payment I ever want. Although, I would love it if you would post links from my blog onto relevant social media posts. Share this information. Sign up for public comment armed with this information.