The JPEF disagrees with Chris Guerrieri about education

from the JPEF

Hi Chris,

Just as a clarification, about 60% of DCPS graduates enrolling at FSCJ required some form of remediation — not 60% of all DCPS graduates enrolling anywhere. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, about two-thirds of all graduates from DCPS go on to enroll in postsecondary education after they graduate. Of those, half go to FSCJ.

So, as a proportion of all DCPS graduates going to college, students specifically attending FSCJ and requiring remediation represent about 30%.

Students attending FSCJ do still represent half of all of DCPS graduates attending college though, so the fact that a majority of those students are not meeting postsecondary readiness standards prior to enrollment is a huge issue. We believe the district's commitment to implementing high graduation standards above and beyond state minimum requirements and expanding access to accelerated and CTE course options are laudable efforts that they should be recognized and supported for. Whether the actual implementation of any particular strategies used to reach those goals could be improved, as you believe from your experience, is absolutely a discussion we encourage more people to become engaged with to be sure we are doing what's best to truly prepare all students.

We appreciate your passion for improvement in Duval County Public Schools and would be glad to speak with you further sometime to explain more about what we do if you have any questions.

from Chris Guerrieri

We have a different perspective.

I don’t think the county should be applauded for higher standards or for putting more and more children into accelerated classes, in fact I believe these two things are to the detriment of the district and its children.

Also why are more kids in accelerated classes? I believe it is because kids in those classes give the district bonus points when the state does school and district grades and not for any noble education goal.
Furthermore since 70% of the kids taking CTE classes are also taking accelerated classes that means we are double serving one group while the vast majority of our kids are wedged into a one size fits all curriculum.

Look I appreciate your passion for education too but instead of just looking at the raw numbers get out there and talk to the teachers. They will let you know that many kids, forced into advanced classes shouldn’t be taking them and that all the time teachers are subtly cajoled into passing kids who quite frankly haven’t earned their grades. We have destroyed rigor and many students’ work ethics here in the county because the administration likes to say we are a B district and loves to read reports that organizations like the JPEF put out, even though they don’t reflect the reality of the situation.

This is what I see as a teacher, we have pockets of excellence and a lot of great things happening at all our schools even our struggling ones but this success is coming in spite of the administration not because of it and furthermore despite these pockets overall we are floundering.

Do me a favor don’t take my word for it, meet with teachers at the neighborhood schools and ask them how prepared the kids that come to them have been and if their admins put pressure on them to pass kids. I believe if you ask those questions you might join my way of thinking.

As to your percentage of kids taking remedial classes, how many of the students at other colleges have to? Is it zero percent? Probably not so our overall percentage is most likely greater than 30%. The state average is just over fifty percent and because we usually lag significantly behind the state, 60% sounds about right overall.