IOWALIVE NET WORKER’S EXPERIENCE WITH IOWA ’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS

 The following 14 steps, an Iowalive net worker experienced with Iowa’s public schools, show how a staunch school supporter learned both he and the public were grossly duped into believing Iowa schools were the best in the nation, and the Cedar Rapids school district was the best in the state.  It is the intention of this discussion to raise awareness of the pathetic condition of K-12 public education in Iowa , so that it can be greatly improved.  Without such awareness, improvement cannot occur.                  

                   14 STEPS FROM ADMIRATION TO DISTRUST OF IOWA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

 The following are a 14 step historical, and a personal account, of how Iowalive net worker Dick Fredericks’ progressed from strongly admiring Iowa schools to totally distrusting them, because of seeing facts and numbers the schools and media hid and never reported.   Briefly, the 14 steps describe how Dick:

  1. Believed and used Cedar Rapids school district academic performance claims as one of three prime factors for accepting a position at Collins and moving to Cedar Rapids .
  2. Recruited other employees to join Rockwell-Collins and touted academic performance of the Cedar Rapids school district as one of three compelling reasons  for families to move to Cedar Rapids
  3. Annually questioned Cedar Rapids school officials and received assurance it was the best school district in Iowa —and believed them
  4. Was trained and became a leader in using numbers to measure and report an organization’s performance levels at Rockwell-Collins
  5. Joined a group, shortly following his retirement and after defeat of a school bond issue, to rigorously investigate school performance to justify the need for another bond issue
  6. Was denied access to school records—and ultimately he and others filed and won an out-of- court settlement of open records lawsuit against the school district.
  7. Persevered and obtained the thick “black book” of school records showing Cedar Rapids test scores were falling—but The Gazette and school officials attacked and tried to discredit Dick and the group for reporting the falling test scores contained in the “black book”.
  8. Learned and exposed that Cedar Rapids school officials were not even testing any of about 600 high school students at Metro High School
  9. Learned from surrounding states, about “ Iowa ’s dirty little secret” of excluding low test scores from school performance reports.
  10. Contacted other states and learned Iowa had adopted the lowest student Proficiency Standard in the Midwest which is used as the Iowa NCLB  standard, as posted on website:  http://www.iowalive.net/iowa%20proficiency%20std.htm
  11. Was vindicated to see NCLB and NAEP prove in 2004-05 that Iowa had indeed fallen to a ranking no better than about half the states in education—as he and others had testified to state legislators back in 2002.
  12. Researched and found the current 2008 Cedar Rapids school superintendent completely failed to meet four-year academic improvement objectives and was given a bonus, or buyout, of $82,498 in salary increases and bonuses for idly standing by while all 4 high schools, plus 5 other schools--plus the district, all received the dubious honor of being placed on the “In Need of Assistance” list.  In addition, 17 other CR schools have fallen from the “Satisfactory Performance” list and are now on the “Watch” List.  Now, 53% of CR schools are on the Watch List and a total of 81% of the ghetto CR district’s schools are on either the “In Need of Assistance” or “Watch” Lists.  Is a government takeover next?
  13. Researched Department of Education records and learned the Cedar Rapids school district now ranks 234th out of 341 Iowa school district’s (bottom 30%) that test 4th and 8th graders in reading and math—as posted on website:  http://www.iowalive.net/rankings%2005-07.htm  .
  14. No longer believes school district officials or newspaper reports of Iowa school performance as they hide the decline in student achievement and mind development posted on website: http://www.iowalive.net/65%20&%20mind%20chart.htm

DICK’S PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF PROGRESSING FROM ADMIRATION TO DISTRUST

 After being born, raised and educated in the Ohio public school system and graduating in 1950, I graduated from OSU in 1954. The following 2 years were spent in the military in Germany . The next 8 years I began my career in the business world in Ohio . In 1962 I was offered a position with Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids but I chose to remain in Ohio . Two years later, I was again offered a position at Collins and I accepted. My acceptance was based on three major considerations, 1) The reputation of Collins, 2) the stability and progressiveness of the city of Cedar Rapids and 3) the incredible superior ranking of the Cedar Rapids public school system, as told to me during my interviews and then confirmed by Ohio school officials in early 1964. I did not ask for, nor did I feel I needed to ask for, official certification of what I was told.

 My career path flourished and I reluctantly accepted a transfer to southern California which lasted 6 years, however, my transfer back to Cedar Rapids was not difficult to accept because of the very same 3 reasons that brought me to Iowa in the first place. My two youngest children were still attending primary and secondary public schools and their education was still foremost in my mind.

 My assignments continued to grow within Rockwell Collins and I assumed leadership of a major portion of the Rockwell Collins Human Resource Department, which included Staffing and Recruitment. Throughout the remainder of the 80’s my Department Managers and I met each year with the staff of the Cedar Rapids Public School System to obtain information that would allow us to present the latest school ranking to prospective employees who were considering moving to Cedar Rapids and joining Rockwell Collins. Year after year, we were provided assurances that not only did Iowa retain the number one ranking of the 50 states, Cedar Rapids remained the number one school district within the state of Iowa .

The last six years at Rockwell Collins my responsibility included being appointed to the role of Executive Director of Organization Effectiveness. It was during my final six years that I came to fully recognize the importance of being able to quantify performance improvement with numbers as a measure of accomplishment. Therefore, the need for numbers became paramount in my life, as evidenced by this quote:

 " W. T. (Lord) Kelvin (1891) Popular Lectures and Addresses “....WHEN YOU CAN MEASURE WHAT YOU ARE SPEAKING ABOUT AND CAN EXPRESS IT IN NUMBERS, YOU KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT IT, BUT WHEN YOU CANNOT EXPRESS IT IN NUMBERS YOUR KNOWLEDGE IS OF A MEAGRE AND UNSATISFACTORY KIND.”

During the first five years following my retirement from Rockwell Collins in 1994, I sought ways in which I could continue to be an advocate of the Cedar Rapids Public School System. I had worked closely with George Benning, a Vice President in Rockwell Collins Engineering during the late 80’s and early 90’s to establish and maintain an active employee mentoring program to work with Math and Science students, as well as teachers in the classroom, on Rockwell time and at its expense.

 In the late 90’s, following a defeat of a School Bond Issue, I offered to assist the Cedar Rapids school district in passing a second Bond Issue. As a result of that effort, I and others decided to prepare ourselves with an up-to-date understanding of Cedar Rapids school district performance.  After initially being denied access to pertinent public records, which disappointed and confused our group, we were finally given access to data that both shocked and angered us. The data provided us was numerical which immediately proved that what we and the general public were being told--and what the numbers reflected were totally different.

 Our group became the Iowalive network and changed course when we recognized the public needed to be made aware of the student achievement decline, so the decline could first be stopped and then reversed. A Web site was created and methods were designed to use numbers as a means of defining performance.  By early 2000 our research of school data revealed that not only was Iowa no longer the number one state for public education, Cedar Rapids had fallen to the bottom half of all Iowa public school districts.

Further research over the next several years, even before the Federal Government passed the No Child Left Behind Act, pointed out that the decline in Iowa and Cedar Rapids public education had actually begun with New Math in the mid to late 60’s. Constructivism was then created to falsely blame the continuing decline on student socio-economic conditions.  Numbers remain Iowalive’s mainstay on web site http://iowalive.net/  to show that measurements can be made and understood by all—despite school deception.

 Not only was there an attempt after NCLB became a law, to deceive the public as to the true nature of the decline in public school student achievement, some of the same officials who provided us false assurances in the 80’s and 90’s that Iowa and Cedar Rapids were number one in the USA, knew for a fact, that was an untrue statement.

 The question arises--without honest supporting documentation, will I ever again believe statements of progress by the local school system? The answer is NO , the schools have earned my continuing distrust! ! !  As a result of the above actions by school district employees, I must live with the fact of the many prospective employment candidates who were told an untruth when they were interviewed for employment with Rockwell Collins. The greatest loss, however, was suffered by the students, who have in the past and are now, receiving an inferior education. For the generations that used the system over the past four + decades, unfortunately many will never recover. Obviously, the other big loser is the Iowa taxpayer.

 Dick Fredericks

3220 Strawn Road

Palo , Iowa    52324