News-Record.com

I am raising my hand as I type. I almost biked to campus today, but decided to walk on the advice of my wife. (She always has my best interests in mind. I mean 24/7, without cessation, she tells me what my best interests are.) On the path I bike, there was an ice slick that would have wiped me out.

And you're still standing. Wives do know better, don't they?

Doug,

Your editorial about Grier was a joke. You failed to metion that SAT scores have not gone up. That has to be one of the ultimate educational measures because it is how our children will be measured to get into college. As for graduation measurements if you really took the time to investigate you would see that numbers are very suspicious. Griers Enron accounting has massaged those numbers.

His management of the last bond was non existent.

It amazes me how Grier knew to draw the line along initiatives which failed and the odd one that has worked. He was not responsible for the HP choice plan but he is responsible for mission possible. Andrews has gone down the toilet under his watch. Smith and Dudley have not improved under his watch. The early college is good but how can you fail if you put the brightest of the brightest together.

As usual this rag disapoints.

We can always count on the News & Record to be cheif apologist and cheerleader for Superintendent Grier. We saw again his "leadership" on display again. He instructed his PR flaks to write this absurd message on their website:
"Due to unforeseen changes with the weather that have negatively impacted road conditions, buses have been instructed to hold at a safe location until further notice. Buses will be released as soon as temperatures rise and road conditions improve – no later than 10 a.m., sooner if possible. Buses will run their engines to maintain heat while being held.

School is not delayed."

I love that, "Unforseen changes in the weather." If by "unforseen changes" they meant "weather that had been forecasted as early as Sunday afternoon, then yes, it was certainly "unforseen." Grier's press conference, in part televised on News 2, gave new meaning to the term "mealy-mouthed." Grier stated that if school had been delayed two hours, the situation would have been worse. Worse how, Doctor Grier? By giving the roads two hours to improve,which they did, the school buses would have been able to complete their routes and not sit in parking lots with the motor running, wasting costly fuel and more importantly wasting everyone's time.

Yes indeed, this is the leadership we have come to know and love by Mr. Grier. This is the leadership the News & Record claims this county will miss. Mr. Grier is in for a rude awakening. In California they have real newspaper editors who are not afraid of calling the baby ugly. I'm thinking Terry will miss his lapdog, er, hometown newspaper.

Wait, it gets better! Fox 8 just reported that according to the weather forecast used by the Guilford Count School System, there was only an "18 to 30" percent chance of precipitation. Fox 8 reported that their meterologist, Van Denton, had weather models reporting up to a 60% chance of freezing rain and drizzle.

So either Grier and Co. are getting their weather forecasts from the Bizarro World, or they are just flat out lying to us. My money is on the latter.

I agree that the school district seriously botched the weather situation Tuesday. There is no excuse for that.
As for Grier's performance, it's hard not to give him credit for a good year in 2007.
The performance measures set for him came from the school board, so I guess you could blame them if you think they were the wrong ones.
As for the areas where the district has not done as well, the system is getting more diverse and poorer overall. More students are on free and reduced lunch. More speak a language other than English.
We are sending more students to school with challenges and special needs.
We can blame Grier for all of the problems if we want, but we as a community own them, too.

As for Grier's performance, it's hard not to give him credit for a good year in 2007.

*************

You are joking, right?

I mean, in 2007, the district badly bungled a number of school construction jobs, most notably the Smith High annex. School discipline reached an all-time low, as numerous high-profile brawls disrupted campuses across the county. SAT scores dropped. And the district's graduation rates were below state and regional averages.

Not that it all was bad news in 2007, but to say it was a "good year" is stretching things.

The editorial mentions construction problems. And, as we also wrote, there are people who would have bought Grier a one-way ticket out of town. I'm assuming you're one of them.

"As we also wrote" -- is someone on the N&R staff leaving anonymous comments on this blog?

And, yes, it's always good to dismiss legitimate criticism with "Well, you just don't like Dr. Grier anyway." Because any criticism of the school board or administration has to be unfounded, right?

Sorry, those two comments are mine. I forgot to type my name in.

Allen,

You wrote, "As for the areas where the district has not done as well, the system is getting more diverse and poorer overall. More students are on free and reduced lunch. More speak a language other than English.
We are sending more students to school with challenges and special needs."

What was your point?

Are you saying the district has not done well because it's more diverse, poor, etc.?

Yes. Poverty brings additional challenges to the classroom. So do larger numbers of non-English-speaking students.

Allen,

What are some examples of additional challenges that poor children bring to the classroom?

How would a person whos local schoo,l where his and his neighbors kids attend, is Northwest know about poverty in a school system?

Come on!!!!

Hypocrites united!

Lack of parental involvement in the classroom. Less supportive home and neighborhood environments ... not always, but often.
Few are likely to be able to afford private tutors and to pay for SAT prep courses.

All High schools have SAT prep courses.

That's true. It's also true that some students and their parents avail themselves of additional help outside of school. Paid help.

Allen,

Your words "As for the areas where the district has not done as well, the system is getting more diverse and poorer overall. "

So you've tried to make a case for why poor children don't do as well in school (your thoughts, not mine), so why do you think "diverse" students don't do as well? (Again, your thoughts, not mine).

The issue of language creates an instant challenge.

The issue of language creates an instant challenge.

Is there independent evidence to confirm that poverty is going up in Guilford County?

It may be true, but is it documented? The school system's measurement - free lunch percentage - is too easily manipulated to be reliable. Generally, it measures how aggressive a school system is at signing people up for free lunch.

Also, what does poverty have to do with the school district's lack of response to discipline problems? Or the construction boondoggles? I can see how increasing poverty may explain some of the academic problems, but they can't explain away every problem.

Allen, I still can't see how you can say Terry Grier had a "good year" in 2007. If you had said he had "mixed results" in 2007, that would've been more accurate - not everything was a failure and there were some successes, but there were too many problems last year that simply were ignored in the N&R's editorial.

Allens judgement is not fact based. If you really look at the facts like composite school results, SAT scores (worse compared to 2005), real AP results (42% pass rate) you can that there is no improvement year over year. Smith and Dudley, no fact, result improvements for the last eight years. Yes, Grier has been responsible for thousands of kids coming out of those schools with nothing and in the meantime he meddled with high point with Allens support. High points schools were never as bad as Smith and Dudley and they still are not today! SHAME!

Allens judgement is based on Grier implementing mission possible and the awards that Grier has won this year. There is no clear evidence that mission possible is yet to work and in Charlotte their Super has already admitted that there it doesnt! Time will tell here.

Meanwhile, GC poster child school Grimsley is just one of several schools where school discipline is going down the toilet. In High point the middle class continue to jump ship. One can only hope that we can now stabailze the situation if Allen doesnt decide to promote another swap plan that doesnt involve his neighbors.

What more can I say.....

As our editorial noted, Grier did not conceive the High Point plan. That idea came from the school board.
You can take issue with the test numbers but fair is fair ... based on the goals the school board set for him, Grier had a very effective year in 2006-07.

But if your goal is to breathe each day, who wouldn't succeed with that?

But aren't you, as the news media, supposed to examine the facts with a critical eye and draw an independent, unbiased conclusion?

Based on the evidence posters here have presented (which you haven't denied or refuted), it's clear that Terry Grier and the Guilford County Schools certainly didn't have a good year in 2007. Your position of "Well, he had a good year because the School Board says he had a good year" reduces the N&R to nothing more than a cheerleader for Dr. Grier and the school board.

I'm not asking you to be a knee-jerk Grier opponent (the way the Rhino Times can be, although sometimes for good reason). What I think the readers would like is a sober, independent look at the facts - and this editorial doesn't meet that standard.

Allen, #1 Grier did not conceive of the HP choice Plan. - You are saying that we pay this guy 350 K a year and he would leave something as controversial and tumultuous and sea-changing as the HP CP in the hands of politcal hacks?
He's either lying about his involvement or it's a disgrace that we pay him this amt. and he doens't participate in the defining moment of his tenure.

#2 Mission Possible. Touted as Grier's great achievement woudn't even exist if it wasn't for a group of parents in SW Guilford Co, actively resisting Dot's quick fix kid shuffle that he tried to pass off as educational policy. Mission Possible grew directly out of discussions where it was stated that the theory was if kids were bused to certain schools the transplanted parents would then advocate for better teachers at the schools where they were bused. The parents said: "Why don't you Dr. Grier advocate for these kids?" "Why don't you get good teachers to go there"? and Grier said "they won't go". We said "try paying them more" and Grier said "Hmmm". Mission Possible came from parents actually forcing Grier to implement change to actually help kids instead of hiding behind numbers.

Another frustrating thing is the N&R refusing and resisting any efforts to hold frank discussions about Grier and his policies etc. I mean, you did publish LTE's and we should thank our lucky stars for that. But, there as always been a reluctance and passive aggression on the part of all of the N&R editors to provide a forum on this issue. (I mean look, we're having a discussion about these important issues on a thread about the weather for god's sake- on both you and Doug's blog, although this thread is about slip sliding away which is what ya'll have done over and over. )

Allen, going to ask you straight-up. Why did you not post on the Grier editorial instead of or in addition to one about the weather?

I did not post on the Grier editorial because I had nothing new to add to it.
But I probably should have asked for reactions in "Your Voice at the Table."
This thread WAS about the weather, as you write, but the comments took it somewhere else.
If you go back and read the editorial, it makes clear, in objective terms, Grier's accomplishments and his failures.

I did not post on the Grier editorial because I had nothing new to add to it.
But I probably should have asked for reactions in "Your Voice at the Table."
This thread WAS about the weather, as you write, but the comments took it somewhere else.
If you go back and read the editorial, it makes clear, in objective terms, Grier's accomplishments and his failures.

Sorry for the accidental anonymous postings. I was so eager to respond that I forgot to type in my name.

Allen, since I've caught you in an "eager" mood, (wait, I think a lightening bolt jsut struck outside my window) any comment on my first post from this morning above-the one that's actually about something?

Savage:
On your first question, Grier isn't lying. Board Chairman Alan Duncan has confirmed that the choice plan came from the board.
On your second point that Mission Possible was suggested by parents ... let me get this straight, you're criticizing Grier for listening to parents?

So, you're finally acknowledging the choice plan was all political chicanery and didn't involve our 350K educational professional at all. BOY, NOBODY EVER KNEW THAT BEFORE. Maybe some newpaper editors might owe the citizen's who resisted some "attaboys"

I'm not criticizing Grier for listening to parents. I'm pointing out that a band of parents had to do this instead of YOU-one of the most high profile opinion makers in the County. All the while having to abide passive aggression and charges of incipient, smoldering racsim on our parts by people like you and Action Greensboro etc.

Look, we know you got suckered into Dot's attempted makeover of her school (which she only did for the benefit of black people, of course). She played you and Action G-Boro like a fiddle, like many other white populists have done in the past pointing out they were helping minorities while having a different agenda all the while.

Grier has a great knack of taking credit for good things and washing his hands of bad. Any real leader would take responsibity for all things that happen under his watch. The fact that he accepts this excuse instead of taking responsibilty is yet another indication of the worth of the man.

The failure of Allen Johnson and the N+R to recognise the above is another sign of what a weak service for true journalism they do. The N+R fails this community by accepting and glorifying such pathetic results and leadership!

In your eyes, it seems, Grier can do no good.
If something goes right, he's stealing credit from someone else.
If it goes wrong, it's his fault entirely.
I'll be curious to see what you think of his successor.

So Allen, lets speculate, what the heck, it's a cold night. If Grier had zilch to do with the HPCP, what do you surmise he was doing all those hrs. back in 2002-2004, pocketing +/- 1K per diem, while certain boardmembers were studying lotteries and planning "capture the white kid"?

Possibilites:
a) Chop House
b) Chop House
c.) Chop House
d.) Chop House with David Hoggard waving at Grier through the window because he likes him.
e) Rancho Mirage
f) Rancho Mirage while giving educational lectures on being innovative
g) Writing education journal articles on being innovative...and diverse.

ps. I think I saw Grier today at Torrey Pines on ESPN but I'm not sure.

Grier enters fresh from The Chop House, finding Dot and Mendenhall in a giddy mood.

"Hey kids, still at it, huh"?

"Terry, what do you think about this"? We move the kids out of that Southwest school to our school with a...Lottery?"

"I told you, I don't want to know".

"Come on, what do you think?"

"Yeah, yeah, Dot, that sounds like a winner? "

"We need your input, Doc".

"Sorry, gotta go pack for that education conference in Virginia. I'm getting some award".

"Oh, well have a good trip". "We'll get this sucker done yet".

"Oh, Dot, you know some Supers in other places with the same amount of kids get paid more than me".

"Well, we'll see what we can do, right Sue?"

Allen, You said:

In your eyes, it seems, Grier can do no good.

I said:

Grier has a great knack of taking credit for good things and washing his hands of bad.

I did not say he has not done some good things.

You say:

He has eight productive years.

I say.

Show me the facts.

You say.........erm....

All of the posters on the message board make excellent points. Allen Johnson can only trot out the same tired cliches that Terry Grier states time and time again to justify his outrageous salary. Now, due to some strange but powerful hold Grier seems to wield over the School Board, he will be allowed to double dip until July 1. He'll draw his outrageous salary from GC and get his $1000 per diem from his new gig in San Diego. And when he travels, will he pay his own expenses? Get real. In retrospect it's incredible that Grier would leave GC at all. He's got everyone, from the board of education to the editorial board at his pet paper bamboozled. I can only hope the next newspaper that covers Grier's shennanigans will hold him accountable. I've got plenty of issues with the Rhino Times but at least they have the guts to tell the truth. The N&R has wimped out for years on this topic.

Another article today about Terry Grier doing what's best for Terry Grier. A novel concept. Only twenty months after leaving the Charlotte interviews and triumphantly returning to Guilford Co. saying his place and dedication were here and re-affirming my belief in him and altruism in general.

Now,Terry, didn't you say that we were your only interest.

And didn't we give you all the raises, that boards and taxpayers can give.

Just when we thought we'd given you enough.

You tell us you're leaving. I guess we'll have to be tough....

Some come on
come on
come on
come on

TAKE IT ! Take another little piece of my heart now, Terry.

TAKE IT" ! Take another little piece of my heart.

BREAK IT! Break another little piece of my heart now, Terry.

You know you can break it, if it makes you feel good.

This school year it will be especially hard for schools to met AYP, or "adequate yearly progress, " a No Child Left Behind Act measure of student achievement, says district numbers guru Gongshu Zhang. It's not that students aren't improving, he says. It's that the state has increased the standards so much this year, they will be tough to meet.

This is why he is outtahere. he knows ha hasnt improved enough.

These is reality.

You say:

He has eight productive years.

I say.

Show me the facts.

You say.........erm....

***************

Allen's justification is "Well, the School Board says Terry Grier is doing a good job and that's good enough for us."

Dr. Grier is a charismatic figure and his Cult of Personality extends over the N&R's editorial board. I just hope the next superintendent gets a more critical, objective view.

Just Saying:

As we have pointed out, time and again, Grier has his strengths and his faults.

But you seem to find absolutely zero that he has accomplished here.

Who is offering the more balanced, honest, assessment?

My guess is, if Grier one day walked on water you'd fault him for getting the soles of his shoes wet.

Nice line, but you would be wrong.

Don't confuse me or a lot of other people with the Grier haters. He has done some good things, like lowering the dropout rates and increasing business support for the schools. I particularly like the program where the AP students can win a car.

But that doesn't mean we should whitewash the problems or pretend that GCS has had a "good year," to quote you.

School discipline is at a crisis level in many schools. We've seen countless stories of full-scale riots, police called to campus, teachers and principals injured, etc. Yet the GCS administration has done less than nothing. In fact, they've contributed to the problem by insisting that schools not suspend or punish too many students.

Academics have been a mixed bag at best. Some scores go up, some go down. One year, the results are good, the next year, they're bad. But there hasn't been much in the way of consistent improvement.

Then there are the numerous construction boondoggles. And the various conflicts that have undermined community support for the schools. And the latest controversy with Grier double-dipping on his salary for the next few months.

So if you want to say Grier's track record has been "mixed," I can deal with that. But please don't pretend he's done such a great job (as several editorials in recent weeks have claimed), when the facts simply don't support that claim.

I agree, but the discipline issue is as much a community problem as it is a schools problem.

What should the schools do that they're not doing?

I agree, but the discipline issue is as much a community problem as it is a schools problem.

What should the schools do that they're not doing?

I agree, but the discipline issue is as much a community problem as it is a schools problem.

What should the schools do that they're not doing?

Never mind; I give up. If you really have to ask that question, well....someone else can take this one.

I think I'll go talk to my cat. I'll probably have about as much success, but at least I won't get quite as frustrated.

Hope your kitty's not a Grier fan ... for his sake.

Just Saying, don't sell short talking to your cat. Dot Kearns once said she drew inspiration from mediating on a picture of Geronimo.

Just saying, Welcome to the club. You can never get a straight one from Allen.

Allen, The schools should be kicking out kids that do not behave. Dont you see the possiblity that in trying to save the 3% that we are actually ruining and writing off another 20%?

At our local middle they took about 5 kids out of the school and sent them to Griers new twilight school. It has made a big difference.

Oops did I admit to something good that Grier has done. Yes I did, I just think the 8 years wait was a little too long.

These kids were 16 year olds in the seventh grade.

Congrats to Jerri Rowe for writing a good piece today. The only thing that I disagree with is trying to paint Terry Grier as an innocent "bulls eye" target as though he supposedly had nothing to do with the HPCP. In other words he can't be taken to task for sins of ommision-only for commission. Letting a crazy person and poitical hacks run loose and concoct a educational plan without a professional educator's (? Grier) input is either grossly negligent or didn't even occur and somebody's not telling the truth. A responsible educator would have said something like: "Dot, you can't concoct a busing plan in your little fifedom while the rest of the county has Dudley, Smith, Grimsley, Northwest etc etc and expect me to sell this as policy". Instead Grier saw who controlled what, who would be paying him, and kept quiet. This is just as negligent as if he came up with the thing.

So Allen, Grier as Dot's suffering, compliant be...atch?- an unknowing, unwitting , bulls-eyed victim or active enabler? What do you think?

ps if this is one of those times you have "nothing new to add" we understand. And let's face it, if you have nothing new to add, how valid can continued discussion be?

Errm .. Nothing to add.

Allen, I realize asking you for any objective analysis or insight on the GCS/ Grier issue is always pipe dreamin', since you have always been reluctant to venture anything beyond the party line-in other words exactly how Grier/GCS wants it spun. Maybe someday you'll see that your perpetual "nothing to add" party line stance is counter-productive and more polarizing in the long run and did nobody in GC, including your paper, the least bit of good.

Ermmm NTA

Okay Allen, I'm going to extend the "Peace Feather" so we can have a civil discussion and have some conflict resolution-as a further goodwill gesture I will re-phrase my question above in a more respectful way. In light of the N&R's apparent stance, both editorially and through Mr. Rowe's column, that "Grier bristles at any mention that he had anything to do with the HPCP" and that Grier wore a "bulls eye" on his back, and given that neither of these views were questioned by the authors in the two pieces themselves, do you think he was duped and pressured by boardmembers (threatening to chop the Chop House etc) or do you think he was actually an active participant? I'm just asking for an opinion.

I don't believe that Grier opposed the plan. I just think he resented the board's reluctance to be open about where the idea came from.
Aside from Dot Kearns and one or two others, they willingly let him take most of the flak.

I don't think it was any secret who was behind the plan and what their motivation was, unless you are talking about Alan Duncan-who people suspect was the plan's Jefferson. Not very surprising that people were not going to mea- culpa out of the woodwork on this. The implication that Grier was an innocent babe in the woods on this plan as implied in the N&R just seemed a little misleading.

The fact that the CP seemed to spring from shady back-room politics, closed-door mtg.'s with the press and HP city gov't etc. caused mistrust of the plan from the get go. When the funding for the CP fell through and they decided to plunge ahead anyway it became blatantly obvious that there were other factors and motivations besides education behind the plan.

You live and you learn.

On this point, you and I agree. A program like this one desperately needed community buy-in to succeed. Relatively speaking, it had very little.

AJ, Sometimes we do agree. Funny.

Along the same lines did you see the fox 8 news interview with terry? When the interviewer asked about the CP plan he actually more or less said that people have to blame me because afterall I am the super!

He gets an atta boy for me on that one.

Oh joy, Its a new life in GC. Everyone making peace.

Its hard for me to forget the destruction though. Families that have their children in private schools, friends that now live in davidson County and the Northwest area. Children lost from the local neighborhood school. A school that once made AYP.