Other issues Duval County Public Schools should immediately address

Rigor: Just like teachers are told not to write referrals, teachers are told not to fail kids and then we wonder why so many students reach high school without the basic abilities they need. We need to have rigorous classes so students can learn a work ethic which at the end of the day might be the most important lesson schools can teach them.

This would also include ending grade recovery as it has become, a perversion that has all but destroyed student accountability.

Teachers should never be told they can't fail a kid if they deserve it.

Leadership: Under Pratt-Dannals who one knew rather than one’s ability became the determining factor for promotions. Then when they fail and many have, they aren’t demoted; instead they are promoted up or moved over to inflict their harm on another school. We have a huge leadership problem as many take the tiny bit of power they suddenly have and use it to run roughshod over teachers, take long lunches and generally do as they please.

Teachers does this sound familiar? If she was mean but good at her job or if she was nice but terrible, these are things we could work with, but what we have here is mean and terrible.

Furthermore just because you can pass a test it doesn’t make you a leader. We need to identify and recruit the next wave of administrators from those teachers that other teachers look up to, go to when they need advice, help or a shoulder to cry on.

Administrators should remember their job is to make things better for teachers, their jobs easier and safer, not to lord over them like they were serfs.

Paperwork: teachers today are buried in a mountain of paper work and much of it just has a superfluous relationship with education, we are experiencing major diminishing returns and we really need to lighten their load if we want them to do a better job.

Summer School: Quite frankly if we started having rigorous classes we would also see many kids fail as not nearly enough have been pushed or challenged, we need legitimate summer school for them not just having them come in at their pace to sit in front of a computer.

Then we need summer school for many of our kids that live in poverty to give them more time to learn what they need and less time to lose it in between grades.

And finally I would like a return to summer gym too. It gets kids off the street, an extra credit to play with and more physical activity for our kids is not a bad thing.