The solutions to Duval's education problems are in our grasp

I hear it all the time we must hold parents accountable and I agree but that's not what schools can do. Schools don't fine or arrest or pass out tickets, we can rightfully blame parents all day long but that doesn’t help solve the problems in our classrooms. We need solutions we can implement and do so quickly. What is so frustrating is the solutions are there too and they don't involve breaking the back, reinventing the wheel, demonizing teachers and outsourcing our kid’s education. Schools simply need to control what they can, while the kids are there

We have rigorous classes and if a kid doesn’t pass he doesn’t go to the next level. We have disciplined schools, if a kid acts up they get a real consequence for bad behavior and then we get back teacher buy in, we allow them to use creativity, innovation and flexibility instead of making them carbon copy drones drowning in paper work, and we support them, by disciplining kids and putting some of the onus back on the kids and their families if they pass or fail or not. Right now teachers have all the responsibility but none of the authority.

We start with those three things, after some initial pain because we are in a pretty deep hole, then we will see some real gains.

Then down the road once we get control if we added things like multiple curriculums that teach the arts, trades and skills (not everybody is going to go to college and that is okay), legitimate summer school, not kids thrown in front of a computer, busses so we can keep kids after school for remediation and discipline and social workers and counselors because so often why a kid acts up or doesn’t try in school has nothing to do with school, there is no reason we couldn’t be a first class school district.