Here is my obligatory, I have met Trey Csar and have found
him very affable and even though he is paid by a man who wants to privatize our
schools I think he genuinely cares about the fate of our children, statement.
Now to explain how he is wrong once again.
From the Times Union, when talking about Superintendent Vitti’s
self-evaluation: “He has put an explicit focus on closing the achievement gap,
which is born out in the graduation rate and college preparedness rates,” said
Trey Csar, president of Jacksonville Public Education Fund, a think tank and
philanthropic organization. ”When it comes to low-income students and students
of color, that is something that has long been needed in our community.”
And thank God we have these two white recent Harvard grad
transplants to Jacksonville to save us and our poor black children right? The Hubris
that drips from this quote is stunning and by long does he mean the five sine
he has been here or the less than three for Vitti?
Yes nobody has been focusing on the African Americans in our
community before Vitti got here, not Pervaila Gaines Macintosh and Bradford
Hall. Not the NAACP, not any of the churches on the North and west side of town
or me for that matter who have been fighting and pleading for years and years.
Nope it all started when Vitti got here. Geeze louise?!?
And Trey gives Vitti credit for the rise in graduation rates
and the closing of the achievement gap, something that had started before the
two of them graced our city with their presence. That’s freaking unbelievable.
Then look at their solutions, Teach for America which does
the exact opposite of what we know to be best for our students and charter
schools which do worse than their public school counterparts and before you
throw KIPP at me, they have smaller classes, longer days and spend about a third
more than public schools do per child. And
that’s the rub about Trey, all he knows is KIPP and Teach for America having
never worked in a public school let alone a Jacksonville one.
If his statement is indicative of the think tank label the
Times Union has given JPEF, then it’s apparent there isn’t much thinking going
on.
Let no one doubt that NV will get a second contract. He has ingratiated himself with the powers, movers, and shakers in the city--the ones who really run education. Sorry, that's not the Board. The disrespect inherent in the love slobbers is for the former superintendent. That nothing good was happening until NV arrived. But the high school improvement began under the former superintendent, and NV's refusal to give him credit speaks to NV's character. NV is not the first, nor the only one, who cares about education for minorities. Black lives matter, to cite the slogan, so my question for NV is why do some black lives matter more than others? How can you justify the continuing second-class status of Westside schools?
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