Let’s compare Betty Burney and Chris Guerrieri’s data

After the district 5 debate she pulled me aside and seemed very angry that I was critical of the current school board and superintendent, after a little non-productive back and forth she announced she knew what type of teacher I was. I asked her how she would know anything and she said, you are terrible, I have seen the data. As you can imagine things went down hill from there.

I thought I would take this opportunity to compare our data.

Last year I was surplussed and told it was because of some data on Pearson. After weeks of pushing they finally told me my sample size was 23 special ed kids in four classes taking two very different subjects, earth space science and biology, I very liberally say I co taught, accept the taught part, I was more like a high priced para. Of those 23 special ed kids, in four classes, two different subjects, 9 took the pre and post test and of them 4 improved 5 didn’t.

Oh by the way I have been telling the district for years I am not a science teacher.

Welcome to Duval County

Now lets look at Mrs. Burney’s stats.

The district letter grade dropped to a C.

We were the 50th ranked district out of 67. It’s a good thing Florida doesn’t grade on a curve right? It means we have eight of the bottom 25 high schools in the state including number 404 out of 404 and our middle schools are in a similar predicament. It means less than two thirds of our kids graduate on time and that is with grade recovery and teachers being “encouraged” to pass kids whether they have the skills or have done the work or not. For African American kids we come in at just over 54% graduating on time.

Less than half our kids arrive to high school reading on grade level and if we didn’t force so many level ones and twos into Advanced Placement classes, where they have no business being, then we would be in real trouble. By the way our kids only pass one in four A.P. tests and since we pay for all the tests that’s over a million dollars we spend on failed tests. Then once our kids graduate sixty percent have to take remedial classes in college and businesses report having a hard time finding qualified applicants.

Teacher morale is at an all time low and discipline is out of control to boot.

That’s her data.

If Mrs. Burney wants to have a conversation about data it is one I am more than comfortable having.