Duval County’s number one problem might be hubris

I was at the superintendent search meeting last night and no, I was not one of the fifty or so people invited to it, I was just an interested party who sat in the back.

All of the board members gave a little presentation and I find myself thinking there wasn’t a black hat in the bunch. It would be so much easier to criticize them and call out their mistakes if they were a collection of bad guys but I really don’t think that is the case.

But I also found myself thinking what hubris they have especially the ones running for their third and forth terms. Why do they think they can solve the ills of our school system if they haven’t so far and I for one think things have gotten worse?

Only one of the bunch has been in a classroom in the last twenty years and she was only there for a few, serving in a relatively middle class school on the outskirts of town. Furthermore for some, how many years is it going to take for them to realize they just could not get the job done and what are the consequences going to be for it.

They haven’t given instruction or been saddled with too much paperwork or administrations more interested in keeping their discipline numbers low and their graduation numbers high than educating our children. They think they know the issues in our classrooms but until they have walked a mile in the shoes of a teacher at a neighborhood school they can’t really.

You see everybody has been in a classroom and for some reason many think they could run it or at least solve the problems in it. What’s funny, in an opposite of funny way, is everybody has been sick and in a doctor’s office but most don’t think they can practice medicine or claim they can cure diseases.

In the end I don’t question the board’s hearts or desires or their care about kids, I just question their results which have been abysmal. I question why some would want to continue and the only answer I can come up with is hubris.

Good people can make bad choices and our board has made plenty. I just hope the good people of Jacksonville when it comes to electing the next board members can rectify them.