Audit: Some Polk Schools Need Overhaul Reading programs, election of superintendent are critized.

Tuesday, February 12, 2002
By Ana Valle-Greene
The Ledger

BARTOW -- Polk County has a solid school system with many outstanding schools, but some schools are in need of a complete overhaul.

Those observations were made in a 297-page "Audit of Educational Effectiveness" presented to the School Board on Monday by SchoolMatch, a national research company that has conducted similar studies on more than 1,000 school districts nationwide.

It is the most comprehensive review of the quality of Polk's school system ever conducted by an independent organization.

"The broad sweep of the data is this is a very good school system -- it's as simple as that," said Tom Tocco, superintendent in Fort Worth, Texas, and one of the consultants on the audit. "But it could be much better."

Softened in academic language were some explosive suggestions, such as completely replacing the faculty of low-performing schools and firing ineffective administrators. No schools were identified, but SchoolMatch officials said a careful reading of the report's section on individual schools would provide a clue.

The audit also suggested an appointed superintendent and more uniformity in instructional programs, particularly reading.

"We found tremendous unevenness all across the district in the quality of reading instruction," Tocco said.

Tocco, who was just named superintendent of the year in Texas by the American Association of School Administrators, said he visited some of the best schools he has ever seen when he was in Polk County with other SchoolMatch consultants in October.

"(But) some of your schools, I was depressed when I left," he said.

Tocco said some of the neediest schools had high numbers of poor, black students, and that needed to be remedied.

With the right allocation of resources, the district's shortcomings can be remedied, said Steven Sundre, SchoolMatch vice president. "Our work is predicated on the belief that all children, of course, can learn."

Board members had little comment on the two-hour presentation. Board Chairman Jim Nelson said he would like to have a chance to discuss the results at a special meeting to be scheduled later.

Monday's presentation culminated work begun in November 1999, when the School Board approved participation in the study, as proposed by Hunt Berryman, chairman of Polk Businesses for WorldClass Education.

More than 40 businesses and community representatives donated money toward the cost of the $150,000 study, which compares Polk with 1,500 school districts that are most similar in terms of demographics.

Recommendations in the audit came in the following areas:

• Issues of appointing the superintendent and setting the leadership and identity of the School District.
• Reading problems.
• Training of personnel and recruitment.
• Unevenness in the quality of instruction and monitoring of schools.
• Need for districtwide implementation of best practices.
• Equity in the use of technology.

The audit noted that Polk County is the largest school district in the nation with an elected superintendent. It's a system that should be changed, the audit's authors say.

A superintendent needs to make tough decisions that are difficult if that person has to stand for election.

"You should remove the politics from education" and change to an appointed superintendent, Tocco said, in what has been a recommendation rejected by Polk voters several times.

"This is in no way a reflection on you as an individual," Tocco told Polk Superintendent Jim Thornhill.

The lack of a centralized focus of instruction from the district office permeates many of the district's deficiencies, Tocco said. That seemed evident in reading, where Tocco said the audit team found too many programs.

He would not advocate any particular reading program, but he said the approach needs to be consistent because reading scores indicate that Polk students are achieving well only in first grade.

After that, scores in comparison with similar school districts drop significantly.

Polk County is doing well in preparing students for college, but only 20 percent go to college, so the academic needs of the other 80 percent must be addressed.

The dropout rate is significant. SchoolMatch calculated that more than 20 percent of students who start ninth grade leave school by their senior year, which is twice the average at school districts similar to Polk.

"A large number of your student body is not being well-served," Sundre said. Because they are not going to college, they need to be prepared academically for other types of training.

Tocco also said he was struck by the number of administrators who are expected to retire in the next two to five years because of a retirement incentive program known as DROP.

"If you don't do some succession planning, you're going to be in big trouble," Tocco said. He also talked about devoting more money to staff training and about recruiting minority faculty members more aggressively.

The budget for training is about one-quarter of 1 percent of the school budget, the report says.

"We've had discussions on all these and we're struggling," said Nelson, the School Board chairman.

Board member Jack English added that is especially the case when it comes to recruiting minorities. "Corporate America needs them as bad as we do," he said, and corporations have more money to offer.

Among points of pride, Tocco and Sundre mentioned the high quality of many school leaders and teachers and school facilities.

Sundre and Tocco said the low level of teacher absences points to great dedication. Individual students in the Class of 2001 were also mentioned as having distinguished themselves in academics.

"We found substantial involvement on the part of the community," Tocco said. "That's a very good starting point. If you have a public willing to participate, you'll have a public willing to do the hard things you have to (to improve)."

A six-member team of current and former superintendents and educational researchers visited 27 Polk schools in October. The schools were not selected for visits beforehand and were chosen to represent a geographic and socioeconomic cross-section of Polk schools, Sundre said.

SchoolMatch reviewed district school policies, interviewed administrators and teachers, examined school records and surveyed parents, teachers and administrators.

The survey showed that the public has positive perceptions of the School District.

"For a School District of this size and this complexity, you folks do really well in terms of the perception in the community as to whether effectiveness is present," Sundre said.

Board member Andrea Whiteley asked Tocco and Sundre whether Florida's grading system of schools corresponded with their assessments.

Tocco said he could not tell, but he did mention Lawton Chiles Middle Academy as a strong school. The Lakeland magnet middle school was graded as a C last school year despite having some of the strongest scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, on which school grades are based.

Another standout school mentioned Monday was Inwood Elementary School in Winter Haven, the only school in Florida with a high number of low-income children to have been graded as an A since the A-Plus accountability plan went into effect in 1999.

Thornhill thanked Sundre and Tocco, saying that it's helpful to have people outside the system analyze it.

"Sometimes you get blinders on when you're in the system," he said. "We appreciate you pointing out the good things and what we need to improve on."