You’re Not Going to Believe This One!

By Mary McGarr
February 28, 2007

Last Wednesday, February 21, at the Katy ISD School Board’s Work Study Session there was a presentation by the KISD Administrators and the Region IV Administrators regarding a planned joining of their management systems for the mutual benefit of both governments.

 At this meeting, the District’s pitch

Here is the report I wrote in 2007 after a board meeting where this software scheme was discussed:

 was that this was KISD’s and Leonard Merrell’s seminal moment, if you will, and a moment that was actually the second time in twelve years, in Merrell’s opinion, when great things happened in Katy. In his account of the meeting, Dustin Wenzel, editor of The Katy Sun reports that Merrell said “that meeting [five years ago] was the most important meeting this district has ever had. …What we have brought to you today has potential so much directed toward impacting the entire state of Texas … that the nation will feel the positive impact of what we talked about tonight. This is not your normal board meeting. This is not your normal presentation.’”

So what happened at the Wednesday Work Study meeting that ostensibly was so outstanding? Well, if you were in the audience, I can tell you that it was hard to tell.

The proposal from Region IV had to do with that governmental entity taking a software management program developed at great expense by Katy ISD, another governmental entity, and making it into something that could be marketed for a great profit to all kinds of unsuspecting other governments (school districts statewide and nationwide).

The first question that popped into my mind was “And who will be making all that “great profit?”

While the copyright on the software management package is in the name of Elizabeth Clark, employee of KISD as well as some other curriculum department employees of KISD, supposedly “the profits of the venture will accrue to Katy ISD.” That statement has been made many times in the last few years where I could hear it. It would appear that the patent for the KMAC software has also been applied for but not yet granted.

The described project between Katy ISD and Region IV is to be called Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Professional Development or CCAP (and yes, I have a problem with acronyms that don’t make any sense).

The Region IV representative’s assessment of the proposed joined-at-the-hip project, would include four parts: I. Benchmark Assessments, a Data Warehouse, and Reporting services that would be up and running by August 2007, II. Instructional Services, Lesson Plans, Scope and Sequence, and Resource Management coming on line by February 2008, III. Region 4 Instructional Resources on line by August 2008, On-Line Professional Development on line by February 2009, and IV. a Special Education Component on line whenever they can get around to it in 2009. A Power Point presentation to this effect was made, and a copy is available from the District or from the Watchdogs if requested..

The Region IV speaker, Ms. Wheeler, then went to great lengths to explain that the contribution by KISD was vastly superior and of much greater magnitude than anything existing or planned by Region IV, and that those facts punctuated the reason why Region IV was approaching the KISD Board to allow this joint venture. Ms. Wheeler explained that KISD did not have online assessment to contribute (and I have to wonder why they don’t) nor do they have Professional Development on line (and since we have a section of a very large administrative building built at great expense that has a STAFF DEVELOPMENT sign hanging prominently on it and a multitude of Staff Development employees, I have to wonder about that too).

Wheeler went on to say that Region 4 (she was getting down to the nitty gritty so she dropped the Roman numeral) ONLY had Scope and Sequence manuals for “about” (whatever that means) 48 core courses, while KISD had an automated curriculum database for “about” “500” courses. Actually KISD states on their web site that they have 650 such scope and sequence courses, so it’s hard to tell what they really have. 

Anyone who has ever looked at a KISD scope and sequence manual (and I have) will know that they aren’t anything special. They include all the TEKS objectives that apply and then suggestions on how to teach (or learn, as they like to say) them. Someone has gone to the trouble to type them all up and put them in a software package. I’m guessing the typists may be the 37 free secretaries that Xpediant has had over the years. (That would be free to Xpediant, but not free to the taxpayer.) As a member of the audience, I got the clear impression that the scope and sequence pieces were not what Region 4 was so excited about. After all KISD curriculum has resulted in the mid level “Acceptable” or “Recognized” designation by the Texas Education Agency in the last three years, so one would not think “D” or “B” level status would cause any other school district to get excited about copying KISD’s curriculum. As Peyton Wolcott has said on her web site (www.peytonwolcott.com), “Would YOU buy a curriculum management system from a second-class school district rather than an Exemplary district?” I should also point out right here that a great many Texas school districts have software management systems, but they don’t seem to be hawking them about at the present time.

But the highlight of the presentation was the fact that while Region 4 had only “pencil/paper” Lesson Plans, KISD had “Automated Lesson Planning.” Those Automated Lesson Plans would be the thousands of teacher generated lesson plans which the Watchdogs have been pointing out for quite some time are the intellectual property of the teachers who created them, and which, in our opinion, should not be taken, sold, marketed or otherwise pilfered from the teachers for anyone’s profit.

Yes, teachers are forced to sign a contract, I’m told, that stipulates that teachers’ creations while employed by the District remain the property of the District. I would point out right here that perhaps someone has mistaken what belongs to the District with what belongs to the Administrators in charge of creating KMAC. Teachers’ lesson plans do NOT belong to any individual administrator. [And they sure don't "belong" to Region IV!]

I wish to emphasize the point that at this first meeting, it was clearly stated that the LESSON PLANS were the main reason Region 4 was interested in KISD’s KMAC software management package.

There were some other troubling aspects of Wednesday’s presentation. The benefits (remember all those that were going to accrue to the District) included “a “perpetual license” to Region 4 to access KMAC (all those lesson plans), membership on the CCAP Advisory Board (with all the great privileges that that suggests), free access to quality field-tested assessment item databases and TAKS simulations in Phase I which will eliminate annual budget expenditures amounting to $6 per student, free access to Phases II-V which will provide additional functionality and benefits to KISD, and annual revenue of 6% for all sales of Phases I-V of the CCAP product.” Notice here, that the free access to field tested assessment item databases will just be a credit amounting to $350,000 that would otherwise have been paid by KISD to access these databases.

No discussion was held and no questions by board members were asked regarding the true value of these assessments, what they even constitute, of if they are even necessary! But keep that 350K figure in the back of your head.

When the Board, thanks to Board Member and Katy Citizen Watchdog Member Tom Law who asked the only intelligent questions, got down to those bothersome details like how much is 6%, the answer appeared to be “not much.” Not only wasn’t it 6% of the gross, it was 6% of the net! And 6% NET was proclaimed to be 1.2 to 1.6 million dollars per year depending on who was telling about it. If 6 percent NET is 1.2 million, what then might 94 percent gross amount to? Ball park figures would say around 20 million a year. $18.8 million dollars is a chunk of change not to concern yourself about if you are an elected school board member watching it float out the window, and Tom Law appeared to be the only one wise enough to be concerned. Mr. Law was concerned that some of the modules were not even developed yet and the projected profits offered by Region 4 were based on guessing about the market.  There appears to be no way to know at this point what 6%NET actually represents.  Mr. Law’s point was that Katy ISD’s share in the project, based upon the fact that KISD’s software programs at least are functioning, should be more like 51/49% NET. 

The next question those of us in the back row had was “Who’s going to get the other 94%?” The answer appeared to be a third party. Next question--who might that third party be? Someone in the private sector? A retired KISD employee? Those KISD employees whose names are on the copyright? Some other friend, relative or cohort of these people? Mickey Mouse? The fact that no one would say is ominous. The Board should have demanded to know, and the fact that the majority didn’t even care to ask doesn’t look so good.

Does anyone else think that creating a product while one is an employee should allow one to market and sell that product with almost none of the profit coming to the school district and its taxpayers who funded this boondoggle of a project in the first place?

To think that our superintendent appeared to be so deluded that he actually stated at this meeting that “this is something just short of miraculous” left me speechless! 

As soon as the Watchdogs could get to a computer, we started asking those like-minded taxpayers we know to write and urge school board members to do the prudent thing and table this matter at the following Monday Regular Board Meeting until they as board members had better answers and understanding of the project. We didn’t want them to vote YES like they usually do when something is stuck in front of them.

By the time Monday’s Regular Meeting on February 27 rolled around, many things had changed.

When the CCAP matter came up on the agenda, Eric Duhon announced that the board members had discussed this matter among themselves over the weekend, and his demeanor indicated to me that he had already made up his mind. Tom Law made a motion to wait, and the Board caused his motion to die because not one of them would second it! We must assume that they did not want to wait for credible information. After all, as Jackie Birkel said at the meeting, “We’ve talked to our attorney.”  {In retrospect, might this "talking to each other over the weekend, and talking to their attorney" constitute a rolling vote which is illegal?)

Evidently the Watchdogs' and their supporters’ well made points suggesting that there might be some liability questions for school board members individually if they marketed and sold teacher’s intellectual property (lesson plans) as well as our questioning the propriety of a government making a profit on the backs of our teachers, caused the District to pull back from the original intent of the agreement with Region 4.

The best part of the school board meeting on the following Monday was witnessing the spin in the revised Power Point Presentation from Deputy Superintendent Lenny Shad.

GONE were the LESSON PLANS. GONE was the concept of KISD being the major contributor (even Region 4 realized that those scope and sequence items without the lesson plans had no value, especially since the State Board of Education is currently authorizing a complete re-write of the TEKS, and today‘s curriculum guide will soon be worthless.)

All of a sudden KISD’s part of the proposed agreement had diminished to being “one-third of one part of the five parts of the CCAP System Modules"! Now there were five Parts but  what had been Part IV was now Part V and was off the table with regard to sharing revenue with KISD. All of a sudden the 6% NET had gone from 1.2 (or 1.6) million dollars a year to $350,000 (which is merely a credit) and the PROMISE of 1.2 million a year IF anyone buys the eviscerated software management system!

In a 6-1 vote, (Tom Law casting the lone NO vote), the School Board, at the behest of the superintendent, gave away what was left of KMAC, I suppose in a gesture to save face and hope that no one would notice what had happened.

So much for seminal moments and “something short of miraculous.”

The Katy School Board has egg on its face. The six board members who went along with one more Merrell scheme should be voted out of office. They are unable, in my opinion, to make credible decisions when they are necessary. They have no business, when they lack any discernment at all, being in control of a multimillion dollar school district.