Jeb Bush’s education initiatives take another hit.

Just a week after Jeb visited Michigan to bad talk teachers and their representatives, I am told he does that even before he orders pizza too, and to lobby for the common core initiative, the Michigan legislature voted to discontinue funding for the common core.

When will Florida wake up about this snake salesman, oh wait they already did to a degree this spring when they voted down the parent trigger and his advanced graduation requirements. Hopefully this charlatan’s 15 minutes is nearly over.

To read more click the link: http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/06/common_core_standards_funding.html

The right finds somebody else to blame for the problems in education, Mothers!

Public reacts poorly to district promoting Iranetta Wright to area chief

Spoiler alert: none of the comments were; hey you go it wrong, hey you are being too harsh or even, hey I kind of like her.

Here are a few of the comments I received, equally divided about her and the super who promoted her: As a parent, I was horrified by an unprofessional, ghetto message she left on my answering machine-rude, aggressive, and quite shocking coming from an administrator. Very low class.

She took over doing the announcements from Mr. & Ms. Andrew Jackson, a tradition that was very central to the school. She took over officiating & opening at ceremonies from the student reps. SHE sang the Star-Spangled Banner over the P.A. when Obama was elected; not a student, her. SHE dances at the basketball games & on the sidelines of football games, thinking this will endear her to her people, but it only alienates the community. Doesn't she realize that high school is for the kids? Not for some immature administrator reliving her glory days?

Her overblown ego knows no bounds.

You are kidding right? This woman is going to be an Area Chief? I no longer believe in Dr. Vitti's leadership.

So many things I want to say and could but we should not be surprised one bit...got to love the original thinking of DCPS

What!!!??? I thought so much more of Dr. Vitti's leadership. I guess I was wrong.

Education Matters also had its highest daily readership in months and after just 14 hours the original post abut her promotion is the third most popular in the last month.

I believe at the very least people have concerns and I also beleive the super has to do better if he is serious about the district being better. 

How data driven is Superintendent Vitti really?

Let me start by saying I like a lot of the things Vitti has brought to the district, now it is true most of them have been the things that I and other teachers have been begging for over the last few years and are long overdue but regardless a relaxation of the learning schedule, an end to grade recovery and a reintroduction of the arts and discipline to schools that have been sorely lacking them are great steps. That’s not to say he has been perfect and sadly two of his biggest decisions have gone against what data says we should do.

The first is his continuing support of Teach for America which has a business model that we know to be the exact opposite of best practices. He has also endorsed the champions for education investing 11 million to expand the program thus assuring we have an ever revolving door of novice teachers in our most struggling classrooms. Where I do think TFA has a role to play our first priority should be to put people who are or who will be lifelong educators in our classrooms.

The second thing is promoting Iranetta Wright from Jackson high school to area chief. She survived more bad grades than any principal of teacher in district history and got a promotion for it. Now it is true long suffering Jackson miraculously improved this past year but that had more to do with the reduction of students, the partnerships, and the changing the criteria for school grades than anything Wright did.

Both of these decisions fly in the face of data, facts and evidence and they make me wonder how data driven our superintendent really is.

Superintendent Vitti hires bully to be area chief, district takes step backwards

There is one thing you can say about Iranetta Wright the principal at Jackson high school, she apparently knows where the bodies are buried and that is th eonly reasonable explanation for why a second superintendent has seen fit to promote her. Sadly saying things like leadership and results would be a stretch. Despite this Vitti recently promoted her to area chief. Lets examine this bully masquerading as an administrator’s recent career.

In 2008 she arrived at Jackson high school and promptly took it to the bottom. At one point the school was ranked 404 out of 404. Somehow she survived F after F that would have sent other principals into retirement or to Assistant Principal land at a middle school. Yes the school did eventually improve but only after half the student body left and the district partnered with numerous other organizations and started to address the outside school needs of those few students who remained.  

Why then did Vitti promote her? Maybe it was her autocratic leadership style. A former teacher said; she would talk to the staff in a fashion that if we would talk to the kids that way we would get fired. Her motivation techniques consisted of threats and intimidation. Much of the veteran staff she inherited has moved onto other positions in the district or has left the teaching field all together replaced by “easily moldable” rookies who often don’t know that they shouldn’t be talked down to and forced to work sixty hours a week.

Let’s compare her to another principal that the district forced out.

A quick review of Jackson's data would indicate serious problems with her leadership.
The students obviously get that something is wrong with Jackson's leadership. In 2009-2010, there were nearly 1200 students. Enrollment as of 6/11/12 was a little over 700 students.

1200-700=500 students GONE

With regards to academic performance, the school has not made a lot of progress since she first became principal of the school. 

In 2007, Reading proficiency was 18%. In 2012, it has only increased by 1 percentage point to 19%.
In 2007, Writing proficiency was 80%. In 2012, it has only increased by 2 percentage points. 

Some are going to argue that she has been able to increase the number of students making gains. And gains are great. However, we need to create a culture of moving our students to proficiency. Iranetta cannot get these kids proficient and the sad truth is when you get rid of some of your worse performers scores are going to go up.

Another argument some might make is the improbability of real improvement happening at the high school level.

Well, let's look at Ribault High School which has had more F grades than any other school in Northeast Florida before Dr. Young arrived in 2009. 

Reading proficiency was 18% when he arrived. In 2012, the Reading proficiency has increased by 13 percentage points to 31% (highest in school's history).

Writing proficiency was 75%. In 2012, the Writing proficiency increased by 5 percentage points to 80%.

What Iranetta had not been able to do in her almost 6 years before the district started to make super human efforts at Jackson and almost half the student body left, Young was able to do 3 years. Oh and Young was loved and respected by his staff while Wright is feared.

Another difference is Wright just got a promotion and Young is no longer in the district.

Here is the thing even if you love wright shouldn't she prove she can turn a school around without superhuman initiatives before she is put in charge of a whole bunch of schools? What exactly has she done to merit this promotion? As far as I can tell, nothing.

Is Wright the best candidate that Vitti could come up with, a bully masquerading as an administrator with a dubious track record of success?  If so then Duval is worse off than I thought it was.

For shame Superintendent Vitti, you can do better and you are going to have to if you want the district to.

The difference between Barack Obama and Jeb Bush on education

Jeb Bush is nasty and hateful. He takes every opportunity possible to bad mouth teachers and their representatives and things like facts be damned.

Barack Obama, is complementary, he routinely talks about how important teachers are and how they are the backbone of the country.

However at the end of the day with the exception of vouchers they are lockstep on education policy. They both promote charters, the standardized test initiatives and the blame the teacher agenda.

Both are proponents of the market driven reforms that are sucking the life out of education. Like the Tea Party and Union leaders who are against the Common Core they undoubtedly make strange bedfellows and are undoubtedly bad for our schools and kids.

I don’t know whether to appreciate Jeb Bush because there is no doubt how much he hates public schools, teachers and their representatives because he straight up tells you or to thank Obama because he at least takes teachers to dinner before he, well you know.   

The district would prefer to sit on 33 million dollars than put librarians in schools.

Fact: the district is required to keep 3% of its money in reserves about 25 million dollars.

Fact: the super said it would cost about 7 million to put librarians in all the districts schools.

Fact: The district has a reading problem. About half the kids in the district aren’t considered proficient.

According to the Times Union the board wants to keep 7% in reserves, that is about 33 million more than it is required to. Friends that means the district could pay for the librarians and keep double the amount they are supposed to in reserves.

Fact: Librarians are about to get screwed

Education 21st century style

Duval County is going to give every school a testing coordinator. That’s right friends we standardize test so much now that no longer can the principals and their administrations organize it. Some estimates I have read say kids in the county get tested as much as 45 days a year. Also this means every school will have a testing coordinator at the same time many of the district's libraries go unmanned.

Have we reached the tipping point yet folks? Are we ready to say the arts, skills and trades, P.E. classes with less than 60 kids, are more important than spending a quarter of the year bubbling in answer sheets?

Those of you around 30 or over ask yourself how much you would have liked school if the system was the same then as it is now? Ask yourself if you think this is well rounded or not or if you think you would have hated it or not.

Then ask yourselves why we make today’s kids go through it.

I don’t think you will like the answers.  

Duval screws its librarians

The bottom line is more than a few will lose their jobs, some schools will go without librarians completely and dozens if not more will have librarians half time. The district can spin it any way it wants but that is what is going to happen and for a district with a reading problem that’s bad news.

Does anybody over the age of 25 remember going to school in Duval and not remember having a full time librarian at any level? Nobody I have asked can.  

Welcome to education 21^st century style. One step forward two steps back.

To read more click the link:  http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/479262/khristopher-j-brooks/2013-05-31/important-fact-tidbits-latest-duval-schools

The problem with administrators and evaluations

The paper today had an article about a teacher who was fired. Her evaluations were satisfactory and then a new principal transferred in and things went downhill. I can‘t speak about this particular case but it is more common than you might think for teachers to go from satisfactory or better to needs improvement or worse all because of a change in school leadership.

Here in Duval we have had a huge leadership problem. Under the former super’s reign who you knew and who you were loyal to rather than one’s ability determined a lot of promotions. Where we do have a fair amount of outstanding leaders this sadly led to a lot of bullies masquerading as administrators and 27 year old vice principals being responsible for the day to day running of many schools.

A lot of these so called leaders play favorites on one hand and are vindictive of perceived slights on the other. Then sprinkle in the fact that many principals do like younger teachers, not for their ability mind you but because they are easily malleable and most don’t know what they don’t know and we have some real problems. The district has been skewing young for years now and that has led to many of our problems. We need a mix of young and energetic teachers and experienced teachers too.

Right after refusing to acknowledge let along mitigate poverty, school based leadership is probably the districts biggest problem and that is why we can no longer do things the same way. The district needs to be proactive and recruit leaders from the surrounding counties and then it also needs to recruit its next generation of leaders from the current group of teachers. Newsflash just because you can pass a test it doesn’t make you a leader and neither does being able to schmooze the higher-ups. Furthermore every school has teachers that most of the other teachers look up to and go to when they need help and they too should be recruited for leadership positions. Yes losing them in the classroom would be a blow but if we have learned one thing over the last few years it should have been that one principal or a couple vice principals can make or break an entire school.

Like I said above I won’t make a judgment about the teacher who got fired but I can say I was alarmed at something that Superintendent Vitti said in the article: Vitti said the teacher might have had a previous principal who was lenient.

I guess that is possible however he has only been here for a few months so I doubt he knows one way or another but you know what else might be possible? The principal in place now is a bully masquerading as an administrator. Having worked in Duval for over a decade, I know that is a real possibility too.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-05-31/story/terminated-duval-teacher-appeals-districts-decision#ixzz2Us3HEHo1