Superintendent Vitti's cycle of dysfunction

Superintendent Vitti has created a cycle of dysfunction here in the city. Since he has been here he has recommended for approval 30 charter schools and where some are doing well and compliment the school system, most are either underperforming, set up in neighborhoods that don’t need them or blatant cash grabs by for profit companies.

He laments about the loss resources to these charter schools, which as a group underperform when compared to Jacksonville’s public schools yet he still recommends them for approval time and time again. At the last school board meeting Vitti recommended one that he said he had “serious reservations” about and another that he said he wouldn’t have approved if they had wanted to set up on the West and North sides of town because he didn’t think they would be successful working with economical disadvantaged kids. The grades of the six closest public schools to the new proposed school are 4As, 1B and 1 C and three are underutilized.

Now the Times Union is reporting that he is recommending the district spend up to nine million dollars to make boundary and program changes to lure kids back who would have never left in the first place had he been looking out for the districts best interests which I thought was his job.

Where is this cycle going to end? If superintendent Vitti isn’t going to look out for the best interests of the city and approving unnecessary and low performing charter schools isn’t, then it is time we found a superintendent who will.