Hairston: Education, Not AIM, Should Be Focus

Joe Hairston wants to change the subject.

The county schools superintendent thumbs through a copy of the most recent edition of his ever-present "Blueprint for Progress" and notes that the system's comprehensive plan has been his top priority throughout his 11-year tenure.

But the issue at the forefront for county schools these days is the continuing criticism over the Articulated Instruction Module, the system's grading and curriculum software more commonly known as AIM.

And Hairston sees the controversy as an unwanted distraction that has been eliciting strong feelings that he equated to people's hatred to "Hitler."

"It's been 11 years and 11 years of one thing only and that's focusing on our children," Hairston says in an interview with Patch. "Anything else outside of that, I'm not sure what it is."

Aides say the superintendent takes a "60,000-foot view" of education. Hairston acknowledges he has a tendency to ignore anything he considers less than pertinent to his agenda and that includes the politics of overseeing the 104,000-student school system—the country's 27th largest.

The superintendent also acknowledges that his big-picture approach can lead to his detractors claiming he is aloof.

"This has nothing to do with being elusive or aloof," he says in an 80-minute interview.

The reason AIM is at the forefront of public scrutiny is parents have criticized the superintendent for not communicating to them about the software system and state legislators have raised questions about the copyright issues surrounding it.

Hairston says the biggest goal with AIM was not the labor-intensive grading process that teachers and parents have criticized, but the goal of making curriculum digital across the system.

"The curriculum component is what you see happening across this country," he says. "All the textbook companies are going digital. So it's not AIM, it's that reporting feature" that has so many critics.

Some Baltimore County schools are still using components of AIM's grading system and it digital curriculum program, but Hairston says he expects more changes will come to the school system for teacher evaluation.

The federal Race to the Top program calls for states to implement a performance-based teacher evaluation tool. When Maryland won $250 million this year, it was expected that the state would develop a new evaluation system for teachers. AIM was starting to address some of those components, Hairston says.

Parent and union criticism of AIM, he says, "was a well-orchestrated attempt to try to kill something that was perceived to be a threat in the form of accountability."

"That's a national issue, and I think we still have to address that," he adds.

Developing a more detailed teacher evaluation and student performance analysis method is something that can't be done in isolation, Hairston says, and he expects local school districts to collaborate after they receive guidance from the state.

But it is the continuing controversy over ownership of AIM that continues to be an issue between Hairston and state legislators who say Hairston has been less than forthcoming.

Eleven of the county's 29 delegates and senators asked Attorney General Douglas Gansler's office in February to review an arrangement between Hairston and the school system, and Barbara Dezmon, the retired deputy superintendent who developed AIM.

Legislators wanted to know whether the program Dezmon developed when she worked for the system—which other school employees later turned into software while on the county payroll—belongs to her or the school system.

Dezmon retains the rights to the program and could market it for sale to other jurisdictions, though the county school system is allowed to use the program for free.

Hairston provided documents in response to the attorney general's inquiry but both he and Dezmon declined interview requests from attorneys from the office.

In a September letter to those legislators, Robert McDonald, the chief counsel to the legislature, wrote that his office did not have enough information to determine who owned the rights to the program or if any ethics rules were broken.

Many of those legislators said last month that they now want more accountability in the system and are committed to passing legislation to create some form of an elected school board.

Legislators say they are growing weary of being limited to simply writing a check for the $1 billion school budget.

"When we ask questions we should get more than a pat on the head and asked politely to go away," said Del. Bill Frank in an Oct. 29 interview. Frank is a 42nd District Republican who also signed the letter to Gansler.

Hairston also talks about accountability in what he sees as his main role—ensuring the school system meets state and federal requirements for providing county children with an education.

"Accountability on the political side is certainly a different kind of accountability that we deal with here even though their paths certainly cross," says Hairston.

Hairston says that the grading component of AIM draws "a very strong, hostile reaction."

"AIM is like Hitler," Hairston says. "Everything that you hate and everything that you dislike is thrown in there. I don't even think that most people who talk about AIM even know what it is."

Hairston says he believes he has been upfront and consistent with legislators when it comes to communicating with them.

"I answered every question," says Hairston, adding that he believes legislators were overstepping their bounds by getting involved in what he terms a curriculum issue.

"I discussed the issue," he says. "They didn't know what questions to ask, quite frankly. I knew more about the issue than anyone in the room. I answered every question."

He says he believes, at least in some small way, that the issue is personal, though he can't say why. He recently told a TV news station that he believes his race has played a part in the criticism.

"Why is all this attention being placed on me as a human being when there's no real issue here?" says Hairston. "I can't knee-jerk to this group of legislators or that group of legislators.

"I have to look at the bigger picture," he adds. "I can't pick and choose my interests."

Despite the lack of a determination contained in the attorney general's letter, Hairston maintains that the attorney general vindicated the school system.

"We cooperated with them fully and I agree with their conclusion that there was nothing illegal and nothing unethical," says Hairston. He rejects any notion that the attorney general's office did not take a definitive stance.

"(It) did," Hairston says. "Based on everything we gave him there were no violations."

Hairston alluded to other aspects of education reform that will be coming in conjunction with Race to the Top, including a data system that tracks students through the system.

Baltimore County is ahead of many other districts, Hairston says, because it has 10 years of data on students.

"The law clearly states that you need a data system in place," he says.