Tim Burgess' City View

Could You Survive Extreme Senior Management Turnover?

Consider whether any business or nonprofit organization could survive if, in a six year period, they racked up senior management turnover statistics like the following:

4   different Chief Executive Officers
4   different Chief Division Officers
5   different Chief Financial Officers
6   different Vice Presidents of HR
3   different General Legal Counsels
5   different Special Division Directors
4   different Chief Operating Officers
4   different Chief Information Officers
3   different Communications Directors
17 different Board Members

Could your company handle such disruption among key employees? That's an average of nine senior management changes in each of the six years. Nine key leaders gone each year. Can you guess the Seattle organization that experienced this level of leadership turnover in the six years ending in 2011?

Roxhill Stars Rock!

Council President Sally Clark and I visited Roxhill Elementary School last Friday morning. It was one of those visits that pump you up and get you excited.

Roxhill is barely inside the city's southern boundary, hugging the north side of Southwest Roxbury Street. It's a Level 3 school in Seattle's numeric grading system (that's a C letter grade), improved from Level 1 just two years ago. Credit goes to Principal Carmela Dellino and her staff of 29 dedicated and engaging teachers for the progress.

Roxhill's student population is more diverse than the city as a whole—27% Black, 40% Hispanic, 17% Asian/Pacific Islander, 12% White. Thirty-five percent of Roxhill's students are English language learners. Seventy-five percent of the students are enrolled in the free/reduced lunch program. Twenty-three percent of the students receive special education attention. Student achievement lags behind the school district's overall elementary school averages, but Roxhill students are getting better on their reading, math, writing and science tests. Their academic improvement rate beat district-wide averages in both math and reading in the 2010-2011 school year.

After walking the hallways of Roxhill and visiting classrooms, you can see why. The visit revealed a school focused on learning. It was orderly and clean. Students worked well together. Teachers and their helpers, including student teachers from the UW, were walking around, sitting on the floor, encouraging and drawing out the best from their students.

We saw child-focused commitment.  We saw teachers and student teachers pouring themselves into the kids. We saw the order and discipline of the building and classrooms.  We saw engaging and stimulating teaching methods being used.  We saw kids who were learning, having fun and working with each other. We sat in on a local government civics lesson for third graders.

Impressive. That's the word that kept coming to mind as I drove back to City Hall. Impressive principal and teachers. Impressive academic progress being made.

Roxhill is another example of a Seattle public school that's working.

Seattle Channel City Inside/Out

Councilmembers Bagshaw and Rasmussen and I joined host Brian Callanan for the March taping of City Inside/Out: Council Edition. You can watch our conversation below as we touch on issues related to education, public safety, transportation and a new sports arena.

Seattle Channel Video can be played in Flash Player 9 and up

Seattle is Leading on Education Reform

There has been lots of discussion lately about the best path forward on public school reform. There has even been a public airing of the frustration some Democrats feel over the slow pace of reform and their belief that teachers’ unions are dragging their feet and resisting substantive changes to the status quo.

While these debates continue, Seattle is purposefully moving forward with an initiative predicated on a fundamental tenet of education reform—that we measure student academic performance and adjust our strategies when performance lags.

Ignite Seattle

We tried something different this week at the first meeting of the Council's Government Performance and Finance Committee and it worked. Ignite talks are being used around the country to communicate information quickly. At Ignite events, presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes.

Seattle Schools Headed in Right Direction

Today Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Susan Enfield released the district's annual scorecard (it's like a report card) as well as individual scorecards for every school.  There's good news and continuing challenges, especially around the academic achievement gap.

Key highlights include:

• The overall average on-time graduation rate rose to 73% in the 2010-2011 academic year.
• Enrollment has risen to 48,528, continuing a multi-year rise in the number of students.
• Students in Third to Eighth grades outperform their statewide peers. However, the district has not yet released the disaggregated data to show performance of particular student groups, for example African American students, English Language Learning students, etc. That detail is coming soon.
• Several south Seattle schools showed huge improvements: West Seattle Elementary improved from Level 1 (the lowest ranking out of 5 total levels) to Level 3; Mercer Middle School went from Level 3 to Level 5; Dearborn Park Elementary jumped from Level 1 to Level 3.

After the jump you can read the remarks I shared at the announcement...

Thank you, Seattle!

Seattle voters passed the Families and Education Levy yesterday.  The Levy is one of the most innovative and outcome-based education support measures in the country. 

This Levy was a big ask, especially during these tough economic times. Our voters have strongly embraced doing all we can to provide our schoolchildren a high quality education and prepare them for college and the career of their choice.

The Council conducted a year-long planning process with a 24-member citizen advisory group before placing this Levy before the voters. As a result, this Levy has substantial safeguards built in for strong performance measures, accountability and transparency.

My colleagues and I look forward to working with the Seattle Public Schools and our communities to implement this investment in our students and schools.

The 2001 Levy will provide funding that will be available beginning with the 2012-2013 school year.  The current Levy, which expires in December, provides funding through the end of the 2011-2012 academic year. 

UK Study Mission: Renewable Energy, Density, Transportation, Economic Growth, Public Education and More

Those Brits!  Focused.  Stiff upper lip.  And, did I say "focused?" 

I recently returned to Seattle after a week-long trip to Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.  I was part of the annual international study mission put together by the Trade Development Alliance and the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce.  (Don't fret, I paid my own way and didn't use a dime of City money. Highlights of my trip after the jump.)

On Public Education, Transportation, Collaboration, Marijuana and Tim Harris

CR Douglass covered a host of subjects in this edition of City Inside/Out.  I was on with my colleagues Councilmembers Sally Clark and Bruce Harrell.

Seattle Channel Video can be played in Flash Player 9 and up

Bellevue Gets It Wrong, Seattle Got It Right

Imagine my surprise this morning when I grabbed The Seattle Times off the front porch, opened it up, then read a story about the ethics dispute at the Bellevue City Council only to discover my name pulled into the fray.  Here's part of the story . . .

Unless the City Council approves the contract, [Bellevue Councilmember Kevin Wallace's attorney Mike] McKay said in his letter, the investigation would be "an impermissible interference of the executive branch with the legislative branch."

"How do you think the Seattle City Council would react if Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn commenced an investigation of Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess without the approval of its Council?" McKay wrote. "It would certainly be viewed as an inappropriate incursion on the legislative branch of Seattle's city government."

Well, that wouldn't happen in Seattle.  Period.  Why?  Because in the early 1970s the Seattle City Council established an independent, objective and well-resourced Ethics and Elections Commission and gave it all the necessary powers to conduct ethics investigations of all city employees, including our elected officials.