KATY PLAN STIPULATES IMPLEMENTATION OF ABILITY GROUPING:

By the time Superintendent Leonard Merrell was hired, I knew a lot about the progressive, liberal education agenda.  I tried my best to keep Merrell from coming to Katy ISD.  When we voted, I voted against his hiring, but I was outvoted six to one.  I made a point of voting against him, and I asked that my remarks for doing so become a part of the minutes of the meeting.  It took my remarks five months to appear in the record!

When Dr. Merrell proposed when he first arrived that the first thing we all needed to do was to devise a "Strategic Plan" so that we knew

'where we were going," I knew that we had started down hill.

But I'm good at playing games, and play we did.  I was put in charge of a nebulous committee, and it was stacked with ringers.  However, I'm smarter than they were, and I used the committee to get my ideas into the plan.

The most important idea was to talk everyone into agreeing that we needed to better serve ALL of our students, and that heterogeneous grouping was not benefitting our students.  The smart ones were being used to tutor the slow ones; the average students were getting short shrift because their academic needs were not being addressed, and there was a cockeyed use of our good teachers transpiring. No one was paying any serious attention at all to the slower students or the Special Education students.

MY Katy Plan, suggested that homogenous or ability grouping needed to be brought back to Katy ISD.  I pointed out, as a preface, that we had ability grouping until 1992 when the superintendent, Hugh Hayes, just removed it without any discussion or board authority. He had hoped no one would notice.

I argued that ability grouping serves EVERY student if it is done right.  The trick is utilizing the teachers and the classes in the right way.  EVERY student deserves to be taught at a level where he can succeed and be challenged.

When every class includes all levels of achievement plus mainstreamed Special Education students, NO ONE gets the education to which they are entitled.

No teacher can accommodate all those different abilities in a successful manner. We had already had two teachers appear before the Board to suggest as much.

No one disagreed with me.  That's important to note.  There are no arguments against ability grouping other than when parents who feel their child is going to be slighted-- pop up.

If classes are taught by good teachers at every level, and perhaps on a rotating basis, then everyone can be happy. The curriculum needs to suit the ability level. 

The majority of students are in the middle group.  They are not "average" in KISD.  Most of our middle group, if properly educated, can get into and finish a college degree.  What parents don't seem to realize is that the middle group is the one most discriminated against in Katy ISD, because when the teacher is trying to juggle four ability levels, the one that gets left out is the one that is able to take care of themselves, not complain, and can work on their own.  But that is not a situation where they are getting an education.  That is just babysitting!

If the situation is handled properly, ability grouping can exist.

The decision to change to ability to grouping at the third grade level was part of the Katy Plan.  However, when I left and was not there to see that they did what we all voted to do, no one ever heard again of ability grouping or even anything else of the "Plan."

As I had suggested and believed, doing a strategic plan was just another TQM exercise in malarkey. The new superintendent had no intention of bringing back ability grouping or anything else that mattered.  He was here with his own agenda, and his "strategic plan" was his way of keeping us all busy and out of his business.

When we see ability grouping return to Katy ISD, we'll know that the superintendent really wants to properly educate our students.