Waiting for Pratt-Dannals

I haven’t seen the new documentary about education, Waiting for Superman, but I hear it is very one sided in its anti-public school, ant-union presentation. I plan to see it and be the judge for myself though I plan to take the same skepticism I do when I go see a Michael Moore movie with me.

It’s also the same skepticism I use whenever Superintendant Pratt-Dannals says anything. He paints such rosy pictures that if you just listened to him you might things were going very well in the school district. The thing is I work in a “turn-around” high school in Jacksonville’s Westside and I have many teacher friends n various schools throughout the district and I know for a fact things are far from rosy. In the teachers lounge today a colleague commented when Ed PD’s editorial was mentioned, that from his ivory tower up in the clouds, the ants on the ground might actually look like they are doing well. In case you are wondering, teachers and students are the ants.

I admit I am a critic with how things are done in the counties public schools. I think we need to put children in positions they can succeed in, I think we need to stop blaming teachers for the failed academic policies that have led us to where we are now and finally I think we need to bring discipline back to the classroom, so you might want to take what I write with a grain of salt as well and that is fair enough but at the same time please don’t just buy what the superintendant says hook line and sinker either.

He mentions how the graduation rate went up 3.2 percent, to 64.5 percent in 2009; last year’s figures are strangely not available. However before the formula was changed, in 2005 our graduation rate was over 65%. Could this be an example of the-powers-that be changing the formula to appear to be doing better?

He mentions that how more kids have access to accelerated programs which begs the question, why do we have specialized academic magnet schools if the programs are available everywhere?

He mentions the career academies but he doesn’t mention how the enrollment in many is dwindling. He says suspensions are down by 49 percent but he doesn’t mention how being assigned to suspension center doesn’t count as a suspension and that ignoring discipline is not a viable solution that many teachers support.

He mentions the Fordham institutes study saying we are the fifth best district in the nation when it comes to reforms. He doesn’t mention that many of the things attributed to Jacksonville are actually state policies and that some don’t find that the study has much validity.

It’s also true when he mentions that the district has supported the highest graduation requirements in the state; he however doesn’t mention how that has hurt rigor, kids don’t get to high school without being able to read or write or to college and have to take remedial classes for no reason. Everything he mentions can be rebuffed. Everything he mentions with a little critical thinking can be challenged.

Then there is what he doesn’t mention. He doesn’t mention how our dropout rate went up 45%, he doesn’t mention how teacher morale has been destroyed over the last few years, he doesn’t mention how the district is contracting, he doesn’t mention how home school and private school enrollment is down everywhere in the state but in Jacksonville and he doesn’t mention how we are in real trouble as a school district and it’s going to take the citizens of Jacksonville to stop sitting on the sidelines to improve things. He doesn’t mention that only if we all come together and make the commitment to make things better do we have a chance. I am a critic so maybe you should take what I say with a grain of salt and this is what I have to say, I don’t believe rosy rhetoric and misleading figures aren’t going to cut it.

He ends by saying we’re just getting started. Well friends this January will be his third year as superintendant, don’t you think it’s a little late to just be getting started.

There was one part I agreed with though. I thought when the superintendant said, we already had supermen and superwomen working in our schools he was being pretty accurate. You see we have to be. It’s the only way any of us can survive.