March 29, 1999

Dr. John Murphy

Desegregation Monitoring Committee

Eighth Floor

1211 McGee Street

Kansas City, MO 64106

Dear John:

The next time you come to Kansas City, I would like to meet with you to discuss my growing frustration with the failure of the DMC to address the major issues that face the KCMSD and your seeming inability to devote the time necessary to make progress toward solving those issues. I would like to meet with you before I ask the Court for a status conference to discuss these matters.

As you know, the DMC called four days of meetings a year ago, starting on March 31, 1998, because of concerns of the DMC, the AFT, and the plaintiffs. Those concerns centered on the failure of the KCMSD, in the six months since the DMC had acquired authority over the day-to-day administration of the school district, to make adequate progress in developing a plan to reform teaching and learning in the KCMSD. As a result of those meetings, the KCMSD, with substantial in-put from the parties, began working on accountability, assessment and professional development plans to be completed by early or mid-summer for implementation (especially the professional development plan) as principals and teachers returned to work before the 1998-99 school year.

Those plans were not developed until January, 1999 and even then the parties, consultants, and even the DMC ended up crafting more of the significant material in those plans than did the KCMSD. In spite of assurances in those plans, filed with the Court on January 29, 1999, that further steps toward implementation would be taken with sixty (60) days, no steps have been taken and the plans remain unused. The curriculum remains largely not implemented two years after it was adopted and three years after it was first piloted. Professional development has not been modified to conform to the plan. And it now appears that nothing much significant will or even can be done to implement the plans yet this year.

The reasons KCMSD has not made significant progress in the last eighteen years are two-fold. The KCMSD lacks talented staff to effect the reforms needed and the DMC has failed to fill that void by exercising the authority it has been given.

The lack of talent in the central administration is illustrated by recent revelations concerning KCMSD’s high priority literacy program, supposedly the most important effort the KCMSD was undertaking this year. On Wednesday Evelyn Belser-Kocher described how her office distributed two reading instruments to schools last fall with explicit instructions for their use by classroom teachers. It now appears that in some substantial – but unknown – number of schools, those directions were not followed and much of the value of the reading/literacy program was lost. When I asked Carolyn Davidson if she knew which of the schools she supervised had failed to implement properly KCMSD’s highest priority reform for this year, she said that she did not and that she had not monitored principals as to their implementation of this program.

This failure illustrates the huge barriers to reform facing the KCMSD that result from poorly trained and supervised principals. The heart of improvement efforts in the KCMSD is in the hands of principals and the four Instructional Directors who supervise them and, for the most part, those hands are not adequate to the task.

The KCMSD, in the opinion of many, including me, does not have sufficient, much less qualified, personnel to: a) complete the "next steps" needed to implement the accountability and assessment plans; b) reform professional development and implement the PD plan that was essentially written for the KCMSD last fall when it proved unable to write its own (in fact, Michael Charles, said on Wednesday by Ms. Davidson to remain director of PD, was absent from the meeting called to resolve the blockages preventing the implementation of the PD plan, blockages for which he is largely responsible even though you and I were told by Dr. Chase last October that he was being removed from PD responsibility); or c) to create useful and effective programs and instruments for evaluating teachers, principals, and Instructional Directors.

In fact, the KCMSD lacks leadership capable of formulating and articulating a comprehensive approach for assuring district-wide implementation of effective reforms that will lead to consistent classroom use of the new curriculum and the new teaching and classroom practices required by that curriculum, as well as use of assessment and accountability tools that aid improvements in teaching and learning. Further, the KCMD lacks supervisory talent capable of evaluating administrators, including principals, and teachers and guiding and mentoring principals to assist them in becoming more effective leaders of reform efforts in their schools.

It seems to me that it is the responsibility of the DMC to exercise the authority that it possesses to address these wrongs. The DMC’s charge from the Court was to use its strong hand to guide the District toward improving academic performance for all students while closing, at least partially, the achievement gap between black and white students. This the DMC has not done. Since no one outside the KCMSD believes the KCMSD itself is capable of implementing the major reforms needed, including especially the recruitment, selection, and retention of capable personnel, the DMC should be focusing its efforts and energies on these major personnel and reforms issues. Instead, the DMC is consumed by minutiae, such as the Sylan reading improvement program, while the truly important issues are not addressed.

It even seems that the DMC is considering seeking a "receivership" for the KCMSD from the Court and on Thursday some DMC member(s) are said to have met with Jim Nutter and Ed Newsome to discuss that issue. The DMC does not need to seek a formal receivership. It already possesses more authority in the orders creating the DMC than it could possibly obtain by asking for a formal receivership. The existing orders were neither appealed nor even contested by the KCMSD and are thus final and fully effective. A request for a formal receivership would only cause the KCMSD to contest the issue. There does not seem to be a sufficient legal basis for a complete receivership and the DMC could well end up with less authority than it now enjoys but has failed to exercise.

John, you have the authority, knowledge, and ability to lead the DMC in the full use of its powers to cause the KCMSD to implement the educational reforms needed, and on which there is wide agreement. You only lack the time and will to devote to the tasks. Your commitment to the Court, when you accepted the appointment, was that you would make this your primary undertaking and that you would devote virtually your full-time professional effort to it. It is not too late to meet that obligation. Your professional reputation would be well served if, over the next year, you acted as the quasi-superintendent you have the authority to be and took the dramatic actions needed for the KCMSD to become the outstanding urban school district it has the budget and infrastructure to become. It only lacks talented leadership, leadership you are capable of providing.

I would like to be as fully supportive and helpful as I can be in your efforts to fulfill these obligations.

Yours very truly,

Arthur Benson

/AB

ec: Desegregation Monitoring Committee

Mr. Scott Raisher

Ms. Kathy Walter-Mack

Mr. Michael Delaney

Mr. Charles Brown