The school board has created Duval Partners for Excellent Education a non-profit designed to help our most struggling schools. This got me thinking about who the school board really needs to help them and then it came to me. The board needs the Wizard of Oz. They don’t need to be given any brains. I know they must be smart or they wouldn’t be there and they don’t need any heart either. I won’t question their commitment to children but they do need to be given some courage.
The school board needs to have the courage to do what is right, something thus far they haven’t been doing.
They need to have the courage to fail kids. Pushing kids along without the skills they need to be successful hoping they one day miraculously catch up isn’t working. All we have done is graduate a decades worth of kids ill prepared for college or the workforce. They need to have their teachers teach rigorous classes that give kids both a work ethic and prepare them for what comes next and support their teachers even if it means failing kids and the counties stats (which is really all education has become) take a hit. Getting a quality education should be the goal even if it takes some of our kids longer.
They need the courage to admit many of our students aren’t going to go to college. Friends we don’t have the kids we wish we had, we have the kids we do and we should plan accordingly. We shouldn’t have a one size fits all curriculum; kids that want to drive trucks should not be taking chemistry and algebra II. Do you know what the difference in curriculum is for the smartest and most motivated kid at Stanton and a kid with a seventy I.Q. that wants to cut hair at Lee is? There is none, they must pass the same classes to graduate. We should have many curriculums including ones that teach trades and skills. You want some of these kids to do well in school? Give them the option of being able to find a decent job when they graduate. That more than four more years of school will be appealing to many.
They need to have the courage to let some kids go. No child left behind should be we’re leaving about ten percent of them behind until they straighten up. We need to have swift and strong consequences for bad behavior. We don’t need to be harsh, strict and fair will suffice. Behavior despite reports to the contrary has not gotten better. Teachers and students ability to endure bad behavior and toxic learning environments has. If we cut our losses with a few kids it would greatly improve the situation for the rest.
All those things take courage but quite frankly are things we should have been doing all along. Brains and heart will only get us so far and we have a lot farther to go if we want to what’s right by our kids and our city. Maybe the Duval Partners for Excellent Education will have the courage to do what is right because right now the school board doesn’t.
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