It is true the state government and the fed have done Duval county few favors over the last few years. They both to a degree want to privatize public education and have been bitten by the high stakes testing/blame the teacher bug.
The thing is as bad as they both have been at no time did they tell the county it had to gut rigor, ignore discipline and poorly treat it’s teachers. At no time did they say to the county, just teach to the test and hire principals and administrators based on who they knew rather than ability. No friends those were choices our school board and superintendent made.
They didn’t say we didn’t have to have an attendance or tardy policy (we don’t) or we had to wreck student accountability with grade recovery and social promotions either. They didn’t say we had to gut the teaching of trades and skills and wedge children into advanced classes they clearly have no business being in. Nope they didn’t say we had to do any of those things.
Those were choices our super and board made to inflate the numbers to protect their jobs.
If the county wants to crawl it’s way out of the hole we are in we need leadership; leadership that is interested in doing things the right way even if they are hard. We must treat our teachers as valued assets and then have rigorous classes and disciplined schools. The crazy thing is we could do those things tomorrow and we could have them for free if we wanted to.
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