State Board of Ed Member Sally Bradshaw, clueless or really clueless? She makes me embarrassed to be a Floridian.

Do you want to know why we have issues in education? It is because people like state board of ed member Sally Bradshaw are running the show. During today’s board meeting she said something was terribly wrong with teacher’s evaluations and I remind you we are now using the system she helped set up. She could not understand how teachers at supposedly failing schools, re: don’t perform that well on standardized tests can be rated effective or higher.

Tony Bennett, the commissioner of education here in Florida, after he was ousted in Indiana, went on to add, If the state can revise the models to get some fidelity between the two rankings (teacher evaluations and school grades), he said, the results should make more common sense.

You know what neither of these people and so many others don’t get? The best teacher in the world can’t control if their students have enough to eat and are worried where their next meal is coming from, if their parents are involved or not, if they are to worried about violence in their neighborhoods to focus on school, if the policy makers have decided to eliminate those classes like art and music that make school enjoyable to kids or if every kid is shoved into a one size fits all curriculum regardless of desire or ability or not. There are so many factors in addition to those that teachers can’t control that it’s not hard to believe that there are lots of great teachers at schools even where their kids do poorly on standardized tests. Though I guess if Bennett and Bradshaw have their way nobody will work at them because they will all be fired because of poor evaluations.

Until we get these posers out of leadership roles we will never have real and sustainable progress in our schools.

Today I am embarrassed to be a Floridian.

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/why-dont-florida-school-grades-teacher-evaluation-ratings-match/2106065