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Saturday, September 10, 2016

The school boards stunning rebuke of the Times Union

Wouldn't it be nice if the Times Union, the city's newspaper took the time and effort to educate themselves about education issues? Isn't that their job and don't the people of Jacksonville deserve it?

Time and time again, the Times Union's editorial board abdicates their responsibility to be informed and there is no bigger example than the love letter to superintendent Vitti that they published on the eve of the meeting where the school board was going to discuss his evaluation and I believe they did so to influence it.

The editorial board wrote that Vitti has led us to phenomenal success regurgitating the super's cherry picked talking points from his state of the district address from a few weeks back. The school board, those people at the epicenter of the district had a different take.

Scott Shine and Cheryl Grymes think the man walks on water, I took a peak at the evaluations they gave Einstein, Gandhi and God and they were all second raters when compared to the evaluation they gave Vitti. I wonder if they write their names and Vitti in hearts while the super is speaking.

Then there is Hall, Couch and Wright who all had him hovering around thirty, which is just barely effective according to the boards rubric. These three ladies have really tried to check the super and often ask pointed questions.    

Here are some examples of the two camp's questions.

Couch, Superintendent Vitti can you explain the steps you plan to implement to help close the reading gap between middle school African American boys and their peers?

Shine, how did you get so awesome, want to hang later, maybe get a beer?

Grymes and Shine do not take their positions on the bard seriously and the district is paying the price for it.

Then there is Ashley Smith Juarez and I think her evaluation of the super is most telling. A reliable supporter of the Super, she felt he had just earned 38 points out of a possible 60. This was just nine points more than Wright but a full 12 and sixteen less than what Shine and Grymes gave the super respectably.

Maybe you could dismiss Hall, Wright and Couch as being to low (I would disagree with you) and you can definitely dismiss Grymes and Shine as being to high, the 38 that Smith-Juarez gave does not indicate the phenomenal success that the Times Union points to.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Times Union, the city's newspaper took the time and effort to educate themselves about education issues? Isn't that their job and don't the people of Jacksonville deserve it?

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