Total Pageviews

Search This Blog

Monday, June 17, 2013

Some free advice for the Duval County School Board

If you found yourself shaking your head when you discovered our superintendent gave himself highly effective in 47 out of 48 categories then you are not the only one. I have heard from teacher after teacher, especially in this era where many feel principals have told been told to dole out highly effectives like they were water in the desert, who have asked me who this guy thinks he is?

They have shouted words like hubris and ego maniac, one even said they didn’t think Jesus would have given himself 47 out of 48 highly effectives. I personally think he would have given himself a lot of needs improvement developing because he was always striving to do better.  

Does anybody remember how Martha Barret would ignore evidence and facts and give Ed Pratt Dannals schoolgirl crush type evaluations? Well if this school bard follows her lead and Jason Fisher has already indicated that he is going to then this will backfire. What good will that the super brought to the table when he replaced super Ed will evaporate. A lot of teachers where optimistic haven’t made there mind up about the guy and more than a few aren’t impressed. He has done some nice things but he is far from flawless.

So school board take off your rose colored glasses, think about how he had problems with the budget, communicating with librarians and other things, cross your fingers that his plan works and make sure you add a few needs improvements and effectives. I am not saying don’t like him or appreciate his hard work, I’m just staying its not quite time to build his memorial and to start naming schools after him yet. 

3 comments:

  1. I completely agree with you, my friend. Sitting members of our school board should think twice before putting on a love fest with Dr. Vitti. On the school level, administrators repeatedly tell us that they have no 'sacred cows' in their schools and thusly savage their teachers with evaluations that make them into sacrificial lambs - thanks to CAST. Why is it, then, that we allow our elected officials to line up to curry favor with the man whom THEY APPOINTED? When the school board bends over backwards to kiss up to any superintendent, it only empowers their APPOINTED SERVANT to believe that he immune to the ups and downs that are hurting our teachers' evaluations....

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is another flaw with our school system. It would not be politically expedient for the school board to give poor ratings to the superintendent because such poor ratings would reflect badly on their judgment in hiring that superintendent.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And in a system that needs improvement he is adding three year olds to two schools in the fall and has added 20 more four year old classes. But 3rd graders are passing at a 56% rate....come on, stick to the K-12 and get our graduation rate up with out offering a dummied down alternate diploma.

    ReplyDelete