The 3-year job/college readiness chart below is prepared from data as follows. Drop out rates from grade 9 multiplied by the % of the remaining students getting a regular diploma. Google the TN (or other state) Report Card and then specify the state itself or the school district or school by name to get the four-year drop out percentage, then multiply what is left by the regular diploma rate. Those are the students who get a regular diploma (74%). In the ACT report multiply the previous % of those with a regular diploma (74%) by the % of students with the regular diplomas ready to learn a job or go to a college successfully (19%). Therefore in Knox County, Tennessee, only 14% of those students who enter into 9th grade leave high school READY TO LEARN A JOB. ACT explains in its report that being ready to learn a job or being ready for college have become the same. As you see in the chart, Tennessee is even worse.

CONSIDER FIRST WHO YOU BELIEVE. Would a person who represents the school system give you a true answer to a question that would make the school system look bad if answered truthfully? Perhaps. Always consider the source and his/her motivation, even if that person has been nominated for sainthood, has 5 PhDs and looks more impressive on paper than Albert Einstein. Follow the money. Follow who pays them and where that money comes from and how. "Confidence peddlers" are aplenty in this world unfortunately.

1. PUBLIC AWARENESS. People don't know about about the poor performance above. Why do you think this information was kept from the public by the school system, by the media and the local newspapers? Why are the media and newspapers not informing the public about our education system spending too much money, while delivering the worst results that will make the majority of our children marginally employed failures? Most of our schools are FAILURE FACTORIES. How can we make the right changes without informing the public repeatedly about the truth in order to have their support? This problem needs urgent action by our legislators and Governor, to get the media and newspapers involved much more to tell the public the full truth and what needs to be done to fix this disaster called public education.

2. PARENTAL CHOICE. One would think that the most important education-objective of Tennessee would be to develop at least 80% of the children from grade 9 in high school with a regular diploma, with specific annual ACT-gain per plan, who the ACT's report shows ready to be successfully trained for a job. Not 11% like in 2011. 80% minimum. Public school districts alone cannot achieve that. If a child is capable of learning but is doing poorly in school, or is in a poorly performing school, should a parent or guardian have the right to transfer that child to a better public, charter or even private school, or home school that child, and have the state transfer the entire per student tax money to the school of parental or guardian choice? Why didn't we have that legal right before? It's our tax dollars we are wasting in most public schools! This situation also needs urgent action by our legislators and Governor.

3. CHARTER SCHOOLS. Public education is a monopoly, the only "game" in town. They have no competition. Competition is the great fixer of poor performance. We need charter schools in the education provider mix. We do not have any in Knox County, Tennessee, although the School Board and superintendent approved one in 2011, the Knoxville Charter Academy, who happen to be 100% controlled by the Islamic Gulen Movement of Turkey through the Iris Foundation front, opening in fall of 2012. Currently, the poorly managed public school districts control the application for and performance monitoring as well as the closing of charter schools, and allow them only in poorly performing areas. In order to maximize charter school performance, they need to be free of a failing organization being their approver and overseer. It would serve us well to have an independent state body under the Commissioner of State Education, staffed with the right management experience to approve and performance-monitor charter schools under Tennessee Law, and allow them to exist in any area with the objective of improving scholastic results. Some states are doing this already. Charter schools are public schools also, but they are controlled and are overseen by an appointed board of professionals instead of the elected district school board. If our schools have to compete for our tax dollars by doing a better job educating our students, and if our students' parents and guardians have a choice to send their child to a better public, charter or private school, then all schools will get the message to improve to survive. That is what produces quality and better educated children. This situation also needs urgent action by our legislators and Governor.

4. A MEASURABLE OBJECTIVE, AN OPERATING PLAN TO ENSURE MEETING THAT OBJECTIVE, AND AN EXPENSE BUDGET THAT IS BASED ON SUCH OPERATING PLAN. The ACT measures what students have learned from grade one to twelve as said before. Should we ask what ACT score will be achieved before boards of education approve hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars in budgets or millions in additional spending? Incorporated in such an operating plan, should we have what every supervisory and management person has to achieve each month of the school year in order to achieve that ACT score goal for the school district? Absolutely. Without such an operating plan on both the school and central management level, how on earth can any of us managing anything determine what the amount of money is that we need for the operating budget? Our superintendent never presents an average consolidated ACT score to be achieved and an operating plan by school to achieve it when he presents a budget for approval. Performance is poor. Expenses are sky rocketing. That is not good management by any measure. This situation also needs urgent action by our legislators and Governor.

5. FOCUS ON THE RIGHT OPERATING RATIOS TO SUCCEED. Has the increased education spending over the years ever increase the ACT score achieved, showing that our children are leaving high schools with increasing knowledge to be able to learn a job? It did not. The biggest reason: a bloated central management organization ALWAYS creates failure regardless of the money pumped into it, because they become self-protective. Money is power and power in the absence of laws creates corruption and/or job security for unneeded overhead people. Good Ole' Boys' networks. At a recent presentation organized by the school system to tell the public how great a job they are doing, one individual associated with them made a speech focusing on Central Management not being bloated and is being staffed correctly. Even the school district's own published figures show them bloated, and the real staffing figures for central management are far larger than what they present. The false statements by individuals in leadership positions to save the status quo at any cost is not a characteristic of a well run, professional organization that creates good results. The results are bad. The chart below shows how bad our student-to-administrator ratios are in every county around us, with Knox County, Tennessee being by far the worst, based on the figures that they provided to the local newspaper (Knoxville News Sentinel). The reference used for normal ratios is an impeccable source, far above anyone in expertise in this district. When we do not have clear laws actually defining normal operating ratios, the system will be abused, money wasted, and the results can be nothing but poor. This situation also needs urgent action by our legislators and Governor to:
(1) define what employees constitute central management (those who do not take 100% direction and performance evaluation by the office of the principal in a school, but are listed as school system/district employees), and
(2) set normal limits in both head count and budgeted dollars for central management in every district (1% of total district employees), in accordance with the reference provided below by Drs. Lunenburg and Ornstein.



MINOR QUESTIONS:

Does a new vs. restored school building matter if we keep graduating unemployable children from it?

What percentage will the new school building improve the test results of children over the same building if it is not new but restored?

At what point is the education spending stopped in a school and the school is closed, transferring the few better performing students to better schools? If we graduate more than 80% unemployable children from it? Should it stop for a school when the school produces more than 90% who cannot even learn a job?

Why does district and school management deserve a job if they keep delivering such bad results for 2 years? How about 4 years?! More than 10 years, like we do in Knox County, Tennessee and elsewhere in the state, at a cost per student greater than the best 20 nations in the world when their cost of living is higher?







The USA dropped to 32nd of 65 nations in 2009 (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/60/46619703.pdf, page 8), and to 52nd of 138 nations per the World Economic Council report (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GITR_Report_2011.pdf, page 344) in 2011 in high school science and math. Do you think that such drops do not matter, your child will be successful whatever we do and such dropping performance will have no impact on our country's economy?

Tennessee is close to the USA bottom in ACT (50th www.act.org/newsroom/data/2011/states.html ) and NAEP national tests, and spends more dollars/student/year than the top 20 performers in the world. Knox County, TN is the same. Should we just keep paying our school districts more millions of tax payer dollars each year?

The USA became the second largest spender per student per year in the world in 2011 (http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecd ) producing the above results. Do you think that matters at all?




The ACT Readiness Brief says that: "Results of a new ACT study provide empirical evidence that, whether planning to enter college or workforce training programs after graduation, high school students need to be educated to a comparable level of readiness in reading and mathematics. Graduates need this level of readiness if they are to succeed in college-level courses without remediation and to enter workforce training programs ready to learn job-specific skills."

This simply means that the figures that ACT presents as college readiness percentage of those who have a regular high school diploma also is an indication of what percentage of students are ready to learn a job or to be trained for a job. Job requirements have increased over the years because of the impact of software and robotic technology, that has been and will continue replacing low end jobs. At the same time, we also graduated students from our high schools with less and less knowledge, especially in basic math. We all have seen that with young people behind cash registers not being able to make change, and employers have been complaining about high school graduates not meeting their needs in English communications and basic math for almost a decade. To put it into perspective, Tennessee schools are one of the worst in the USA on the average, and the USA slipped to 52nd place in math and science tests of 15 year olds internationally. That has reduced work force readiness for employers and it also reduced the scientists and engineers we need who graduated with advanced degrees, who are necessary for our industries to develop competitive products. As a result, we have lost entire industries to foreign competition and we are losing market share to foreign suppliers in 111 of 114 key industries. http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/ReadinessBrief.pdf








Assume that those entering the Knox County, Tennessee 9th grade are represented as 100 students. 2010 TN Report Card: 14% drop out (x0.86), 85% of the remaining graduate with a regular diploma (x0.85), and only 19% of the remaining are ready to learn a job (2011 Knox County ACT Report) that you saw above, 100%x0.86x0.85x0.19 = 0.14 or 14%.

ONLY 14% of freshman entering our county high schools come out ready to learn a job. Tennessee the state is worse at only 11%. That means that 86-89% are NOT ready to learn a job according to the ACT report above. Is a regular diploma from Knox County Schools worth much when 81% of those with a regular diploma are NOT ready to learn a job? What IS the point in having such a diploma?? Should our political leaders make changes to ensure that all kids with a regular high school diploma are ready to learn a job under the ACT standards?

ANOTHER BIG QUESTION IS: how much does it cost us in tax dollars to develop ONE student out of high school who is ready to learn a job according to ACT? Well, get ready for a huge shock.





Add to this the life-time indirect cost of unemployment and social support services for the 86% who left high school without being ready to learn a job. And 81% of those HAVE a regular diploma! A few, perhaps 10% of the 86% MAY get the two-year remedial training needed at parental expense, that the high school should have provided. Our political leaders and Governor must change this.

* The Knox County, TN school district shows only $8500/year per student expense. When one adds capital and interest and legal expenses for the school system, the figure goes above $10K/student.

** We are paying for all students, including those who are not ready to learn a job. Therefore, the 14% job-ready students in Knox County, Tennessee are only one 7.1th of the total students (100% divided by 14% = 7.1). The state of Tennessee situation is worse.