Topher Sanders of the Times Union wrote: The board can be pleased with improvement in the district's graduation rate, an increased number of nationally certified vocational programs and the spread of rigorous academic programs like International Baccalaureate.
First they shouldn’t be happy with the graduation rates because as long as we have perverted grade recovery and teachers are told not to fail kids, then we have no idea what our legitimate graduation rate is.
Second we have made nice progress with out vocational programs but they still only serve 6000 students, less than five percent of the student body and 70% of the students that are in the vocational programs are also in the advanced academic programs, the third thing the Times Union thinks the school board should be proud about. This means that group gets a lions share of our limited resources while the rest of the county flounders.
Speaking of the advanced academic programs, many of us believe they were put in the neighborhood schools so they could receive bonus points and help with their FCAT scores not to benefit children and furthermore doesn’t them being available in all the neighborhood schools end the need to have advanced academic magnet schools? Yet we still have them and thats because the board knows there is a difference between I.B. at Stanton and at Ed White.
So the board might be pleased with those things but the rest of should not be.
The Times Union bends over backwards to prop up the district and that does our children, teachers and community a disservice.
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-06-02/story/duval-school-board-assessment-where-it-makes-grade#comment-596160#ixzz1wmZ85rCB
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