Betty Burney, the buck stops with me.

I had long thought Ed Pratt-Dannals was the one responsible for the sorry state Duval’s school district finds itself in. I thought he was the one responsible for ending student accountability, gutting discipline and for treating teachers like they were second-class citizens and easily replaceable cogs.

I thought he was responsible for the Schools of the Future fiasco and for sitting on over a hundred million dollars while the district pled poverty too.

I thought he was responsible for allowing KIPP to expand despite the fact it was the lowest rated school in Northeast Florida and for bringing in Teach for America hobbyists when local teachers and college of education grads can’t find jobs.

I thought he was the one responsible for not coming up with solutions to help our intervene schools improve and the outsourcing of our kids education at the cost of two million dollars to an Education Management Organization.

Heck I thought he was responsible for the bait and switch of our e-mail address too along with dozens of other, gaffs, bad calls and wrong decisions.

And all this time I thought the school board was clueless, wiilflly ignorant and on the job because of the taste of power not because they wanted to make things better for the city's teachers and children. I thought they were hoodwinked by a math teacher with a gift for gab, using statisticts to benefit him.

I was wrong, it turns out he is just a dupe, a puppet, a peon, a faceless well paid cog told what to do and it is really Betty Burney and the school board who is responsible for the districts woes.

In a Times Union article about the search for Pratt-Dannals replacement, she said, “School Board members understand that their role is to set policy and to provide oversight for the superintendent. That is our one employee,” Burney said. “The superintendent’s role is to carry out the policies of the board and to manage the district.”

That’s right friends, she boldly stepped up and said, the buck stops with her and the board, something I hope you will remember come election