Today
in the Times Union superintendent Vitti talked about bring kids back form
charter schools to public schools. Now this is the Vitit I have been waiting for
and is drastically different from the one who went to an attract charter
schools symposium a few months back. http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/06/superintendent-vitti-uses-district.html
I
think he has a laudable and achievable goal. He is off to a fast start too what
with the return of the arts and discipline to our schools but that’s just a
start. I think the next step is just to inform the public how charter schools
are doing when compared to their public school counterparts and where there are
a few good ones for the most part they don’t perform as well as their public
school neighbors. That’s a message that the district needs to beat like a drum.
But
what chutzpah our super has, he’s either talking out of both sides of his mouth
see paragraph one or he’s saying charter schools are both inferior and not
public schools, a sentiment I happen to agree with. I guess time will tell.
To
read more click the link: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-09-17/story/vitti-says-he-district-ready-pursue-charter-students
"Know your enemy"
ReplyDeleteHe went to the charter school conference to see the enemy of the institution he represents. He wanted to hear their argument, and see their plans while meeting the elected officials who receive large sums of campaign capital from these organizations.
I believe he knows he is, Charter Money could quash his hire as Superintendent. So he played his cards low until the summer. Then the first move was increasing student responsibility with the end of Grade Recovery as we knew it. He eliminated the use of the Virtual School as a means of grade recovery. He knew the lack of controls which could verify hat students taking the exams were in fact those students taking the course and that the student received no assistance while taking the exams.
He began to move more resources toward elementary schools, not in so much in academics rather in Art Music and P.E. He cut costs by eliminating administrate positions, and ended or greatly curtailed the expenditures for the use of the Schultz Center.
On the negative end, he cut Media Specialists. Elementary schools share, while only a few are able to maintain a full time position. With the standardized tests scores in reading so low, I hope will be revisited and reversed. It is of high importance that students in the twenty first century have the skills to take advantage the many resources necessary to write research papers in all academic areas. He began to build the morale of the beaten down class room teachers by ending grade recovery as we know it. His staff revised the Code of Student Conduct. He dismissed or demoted extremely toxic administrators. That is not to say that all demoted administrators were toxic, some had their positions eliminated to decrease costs. He has done more to give high school educators more useful planning/parent conference/and horizontal articulation time. In addition this scheduling maximizes student instructional time by the changing the 3.5 classes per day back to a 4.0 classes per day. He gave the class room educator more flexibility in their implementation of the standards based curriculum while maintaining teacher accountability. He acknowledges that most new teachers hold no credentials in Education and with that, he is attempting through common planning time, and PLC to use vertical and horizontal articulation to develop novice educators.
Still too much damage to turn around in an environment which the privileged control so much of the public resources. Tread carefully Vitti. You are reversing over 10 years of ineptitude and complacency.