"NTN" Deja Vu "Round #2"

On Saint Patrick's day CAO Dr. Susan Enfield made a short presentation for the introduction of the Planned reDo "Do Over" vote on NTN April 7, 2010.

She pointed out that the reason this "Do-Over" was needed was so the contract more carefully reflected what had been proposed. ....hummm Perhaps "Bait and Switch" caused civil unrest.

Two things of great interest have occurred since the orginal approval of the mismatch $800,000 contract of Feb 3.

#1 On March 3, OSPI released the list of approved providers for "Race to the Top" funds which are dispensed by States not Feds and "NTN" is not on the list of approved providers. This is a major blow as Seattle still has insufficient funds to meet a necessary component of the deliverables, which is the funding requirement to move forward.

With the loss of "Race to the Bank" funds dispensed by OSPI, this would be a crippling blow, if Seattle used intelligent decision making based on relevant data.

#2 The new action report for the "Do Over" is substantially different than that used on Feb. 3, 2010. Of great interest in the new Action Report is a memo written on 1-29-2010 just 5 days before the original $800,000 contract approval. The summary section ends with this sentence:
"Knowing ahead of time that the NTN model does not guarantee strong results only enhances the degree to which the burden falls on the district and the schools to achieve success."

Thus the district has insufficient funds to buy a lousy extremely risky instructional component....... WOW this is NOT Deja VU #2 ..... This is Deja Vu ... same old story for Cleveland yet again. I just do not know? Maybe Deja Vu #10

At least the faculty is reported to be excited and enthusiastic about moving forward with this exciting new revised transformation of instructional practice .... yup Cleveland is clearly at the Deja Vu reported enthusiasm stage and ready to move forward. I do not see this as encouraging but certainly do see Director Maier voting to approve whatever the contract might say once again. Yogi was right it is "Deja Vu" all over again....and again ... and again.

Cleveland you have my condolences. Bill Murray's Groundhog's Day characters feel your pain.

Check out The NTN Vision Thing at Kitchen Table Math