HS Graduations (Austin, Center, Bowie: how much, transfer, luxury)

[Trainwreck20]

Did anyone go to any AISD graduation this past week? I don't have any kids in public school quite yet, but I went to the Bowie graduation to watch a friend's son graduate at the Erwin Center. I was impressed with the enthusiasm and speaking ability of the AISD superintendent, Dr. Meria Carstarphen, and found the general tone of the Bowie principal (Stephen Kane?) to be right for the occasion.

Anyway, impressed with her speaking ability, I googled her a bit and she seems quite sharp. I also found an article that talked about her hiring:

In the first week of her tenure, Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott announced the closure of Pearce Middle School—a rough start. [...]
“If I could have just been able to have one year or three months just to get out and meet Austin first before having to talk about school closure,” she said, pausing to collect her thoughts. “I think things could have at least gotten off a lot better if I’d had the luxury of that time … but the chips fall as they do. That would’ve been a nice place to restart.”

Having not paid that much attention to school administration up to this point, anyone have thoughts on her? Anyone meet her personally? Did she get a huge dose of grief over the budget issues?

[cwl1994]

Dr. Meria Carstarphen is a great public speaker, there is no question about that. She has to make appearances at I believe 20 different graduations (Bowie being the largest of them) so she knows how to do public appearances.

Much of her time and energy is invested into the poorer schools, such as making East Side Memorial a charter school. Though the poorer schools are the majority of the high schools in AISD she does very little for the schools or Faculty of Anderson or Bowie High school. Teachers at Anderson complain about her constantly and feel that she was unfit for the job because before taking this job she had never worked in Texas. She was the head of a MUCH smaller school district up in Wisconsin. She is friendly and I do see her smiling often though when she visits my campus. She relies heavily on parent participation to make up for the lack of budget deficient. One of my friends used to live up North and went to Anderson feeder schools but they decided to move down south east because her parents jobs were down their and the commute was just getting too long. Being mexican though they were supposed to be able to do the "Majority to Minority transfer" which is where if you are the majority at your high school (she is mexican zoned to Akins, that is a majority) she could transfer back to Anderson (mainly white kids) but because she would have been a richer family at Akins she was not allowed, at first, to transfer. Her mother made repeated appearances at the AISD head quarters to try to get her daughter back where she had already spent the first 9 years of her schooling. I am a supporter of the majority to minority transfer even though it has given many AISD schools a bad name, but everyone deserves a good education if they really want it, but if you have such a policy one should not discriminate who gets on based on their own personal economic status.

[Trainwreck20]

and feel that she was unfit for the job because before taking this job she had never worked in Texas.

I caught a bit of this in my google-searching, but I find that to be a non-issue for me. In fact, it has the appearance (to me) of politically connected and established employees trying to keep someone from rocking the boat. From my understanding of the Texas school board trustees, out of state blood is a good thing.

She was the head of a MUCH smaller school district up in Wisconsin.

I think it was St. Paul, MN, directly before AISD, which had a $636 mil budget with 39,000 students (2011). AISD has a budget of $974 mil and 86,000 students (listed as 16th largest in the U.S.). So St. Paul was smaller, but not small, but any stretch. It is interesting to note that St.P had a 44% higher $/student budget than AISD (~$16,000 and 11,000, respectively). I don't know how much better (or not) that allows you to educate, but it has to be a bit of a shock to pare down your budgeting that much.

She does not appear to have been a superintendent prior to St.P, but looks to have worked in D.C., Tennessee, Spain and Venezuela school systems.

I don't know anything about the transfer program, but just as an aside, how were they going to get their kid to Anderson? Drive her each day, or have her drive?