Darryl Willie is the nastiest of the nasty. Deception fuels his campaign. Updated

I get it, he wants to be elected but to stoop to lie and spreading falsehoods is beyond the pale. It’s also what people of low character without ideas resort to.

Just look at this mailer that Willie is sending out.

He says that while teachers are spending money out of their pockets Wright went on 165,000 dollars worth of trips. First it goes unsourced, but strangely he sources other outrageous assertions later. I have scoured the school board agendas and can’t find any figures approaching anything like that.

Also doesn’t that number seem oddly specific? I am guessing his campaign divided the travel budget by 8 to come up with that number. Now you might have a problem with the board budgeting a million plus for travel, but to attribute that number without a source to Wright is ridiculous.

Next he says, Wright was the only board member who voted to protect a teacher who hit kindergarten children. This is sourced “April 8th 2013”, the Times Union. Here is the article in question and notice how it doesn't mention Mrs. Wright once.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-04-08/story/duval-county-teacher-accused-hitting-students-books

Then he says that in 2010 there were only 4 F or D schools in the district and now there are 16. First grades don’t matter even Vitti says they have been massaged, folded, spun and mutilated into irrelevancy. But just so you can see, here are the grades of the district 4 schools since 2010 (note the most recent high school grades are not available).

Brentwood: C-F-C-C-D

Kirby Smith: A-A-A-A-A

Andrew Jackson: D-F-B-C

Henry Kite: D-C-D-C-C

Dinsmore: C-C-C-C-D

Garden City: C-C-B-C-D

Ocenaway: B-C-D-C-D

Northshore: F-D-B-C-D

John Love: C-F-B-C-D

Lake Forest: C-D-C-D-F

Sally Mathis: A-D-C-C-D

Ribault HS: D-C-A-B

Highlands: C-F-A-B-B

Long Branch: C-A-B-C-D

Saint Clair Evans: C-B-C-D-C

Darnell Cookman: A-A-A-A

Mathew Gilbert: D-C-D-D-D

Richard Brown: C-D-C-D-F

Stanton: A-A-A-A

John E. Ford: B-C-C-C-C

Northwestern: D-F-D-D-F

Ribault Middle: F-C-D-F-F

Highlands: C-F-A-B-B

Pine Estates: C-C-C-D-D

Andrew Robinson: C-D-D-F-F

First Coast HS: D-C-C-A

Lavilla: A-A-A-A-A

Biscayne: C-B-C-C-C

Ocenaway: A-B-B-C-C

A Philip Randolph: C-C-A-B

You know what I see? A lot of work needs to be done and more deception from Willie.

Finally Willie’s flyer claims, Black and Hispanic students have seen marked decline in FCAT 2 scores, our children are moving backwards. Um, what the beep does that even mean. Is he talking reading or math? Is he talking third grade or tenth, or what grade in between? Did he mean the FCAT 2.0, which schools took last year? What's he talking about? Maybe you can find something on the JPEF site because I sure as heck couldn’t.

http://www.jaxpef.org/school-facts-jax/district-data/reading-performance.aspx

I don’t know what is worse about Willie. That he has been bought and paid for by a cabal of rich white families who don’t live in district 4 who want to privatize our schools. His ideas are wretched, or he’s a straight up liar. Any of which should preclude people from voting for him. 

Final exams for Florida's kindergartners. We have lost our way.

From the Washington Post's Answer Sheet, by Valerie Strauss

Just when you think things can’t get any worse for kindergartners, they do.

It used to be that kindergartners could play  — which is how early childhood development experts say young children learn and are socialized best.  Today 5- and 6-year-olds are forced to sit for hours at a time doing academics, often with little or no recess, and in some places, no time for a snack. Homework goes home every day with many kindergartners.

Stories about the bastardization of kindergarten come from across the country. John Gemmill of Dodge City, Kansas, told me in an e-mail that he spent at least half of the 186 days he teaches a year giving some sort of mandated standardized assessment — with strict rubrics to follow — to kindergartners in his classes last year. One veteran educator described his granddaughter’s Houston kindergarten class as a “sweat shop.” This past spring the interim principal and four teachers at an elementary school in Elwood, N.Y., sent a letter to parents saying the annual year-end kindergarten play was  being cancelled so kids could keep working hard to be “college and career ready.” (This really happened.)

So what’s next? How about final exams for kindergartners?

In 2011 the Florida Legislature approved a statute that is to go into effect during the new 2014-15 school year requiring that school districts develop and/or administer seven or more end-of-course assessments to all students — and did not exclude kindergarten. As a result, school districts have been developing final assessments in subjects including math, language arts, music, science and social studies to give to students, including kindergartners. In Florida, the results of end-of-course exams affect the evaluation and pay of teachers.

Kathleen Oropeza, co-founder of the advocacy group Fund Education Now, said it would be outrageous to give kindergartners these new exams. “We support fair measures of accountability, but forcing 6-year-olds to take 7 potentially high stakes tests is unacceptable.”

When news of the final exams for kindergartners became public in Florida, one legislator, state Sen. David Simmons told WFTV that the legislature didn’t mean for kindergartners to have to take end-of-course exams and that he would work with colleagues to resolve the problem. WFTV said:

Simmons said all that the law requires is for a teacher to sit down with a kindergartener and ask about what he or she learned.

“To assure each one of those children is helped, that we know what the deficits are in each child, so we can address the deficits,” said Simmons.

But Christine Bramuchi, co-founder Fund Education Now, said it is Simmons who is misinterpreting the law. “Politicians may try to backtrack on end of course assessments for kindergarteners, but the law speaks louder than words. The statute clearly states that our very young children will be repeatedly assessed.”

Let’s watch what  happens.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/22/and-now-final-exams-for-kindergartners-really/

We wouldn't have half the problems we do if the powers-that-be listened to teachers

Since day one in 2007 when I started writing about education issues I and numerous other teachers have said the district needed more social workers and mental health counselors because often why some kids act up in school has nothing to do with school.

Now suddenly it's a good idea?

http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/news/local/battling-behavior-problems-school/ng6Nm/

I don't know whether to be happy or spit because we wouldn't have half the problems we do if the powers-that-be listened to teachers.

To read more click the link: http://news.wjct.org/post/duval-schools-wants-address-mental-health-new-position

Welcome to Duval County where throwing paint against a wall hoping something sticks is the solution to our problems.

The Times Union just did a piece on our new reading initiative and it made me remember our old reading initiative which we started with great fanfare in 2011.

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-09-12/story/duval-schools-reading-initiative-slow-start

http://members.jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2011-06-09/story/reading-initiative-crisis-cannot-be-ignored

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-duval-countys-reading-initiative.html

Then when I was looking up what the Times Union and I wrote three years ago about it, I found these stories from 1999 and 2005 about, you guessed it, new reading initiatives..

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/122599/opl_Satlead_.html

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/021705/met_17993447.shtml

Okay you are probably wondering what my point it. The reading initiative, the QEA, whatever blue ribbon panel that recently met on education, 8 years of TFA now are all symbolic of Jacksonville's problem and that's we don't address our real problem, poverty.

We say, lets have a new reading initiative, lets pay teachers to transfer, again, and before you say not to this degree well a few years ago they offered people a free masters degree to go to Jackson and I think Ribault too.

We keep throwing paint against the wall hoping something sticks while ignoring the real problem poverty and we could be doing things that address it, that mitigate it but gosh darn it why would we when we can have another reading initiative or try merit pay one more time.

A bad couple days for Florida’s Charter Schools

First three were forced to close on opening day, two in Miami.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/18/4295603/opening-day-for-south-florida.html

and one in Columbia county: 

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/08/charter-schools-state-board/

Next two close before they even open throwing at least a handful of families into the street:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/local-education/champs-charter-schools-fail-to-open-in-delray-rivi/ng5dQ/

Another leaves families in a lurch cutting its enrollment just as school was about to start

 http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/pinellas-doesnt-know-how-many-east-windsor-kids-found-schools/2193479

Then yet another turns away a student whose parents didn’t complete enough community service hours:

 http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Mother-Says-Charter-School-Denied-Admission-to-Son-Over-Volunteer-Hours-271772871.html

Don’t worry public schools will be there to pick up the slack while doing a better job at the same time.

And finally the Florida Courts pushed back against Charter Schools USA, both questioning the way they do things and denying their appeals to expand.

 http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/08/appeals-courts-criticize-florida-charter-school-statutes/

Choice just for choices sake, especially when the alternate choice is substandard and takes money away from public schools and puts that money into the pockets of charter school operators more interested in thier bottom line than educating our children, is a bad choice. 

Rick Scott's ugly math!

He also balanced the state books on the back of teachers (and other public service employees by taking three percent of their pay) and thinks we're to dumb to notice that the Florida Standards are the same thing as the expensive and unproven Common Core.

Ever seen a failing school in an upper middle class neighborhood?

To read more. click the link:  http://reclaimreform.com/2014/08/18/when-illusion-becomes-delusion-children-and-their-schools-fail-teachers-are-fired/

Heck, I really want to vote for Paula Wright now

The Times Union today endorsed Darryl Willie and in doing so they endorsed a small cabal of rich white people (the QEA board who are all Willie donors) running our schools, Teach for America which does the exact opposite of what we know to be best for our children, charter schools, which as a group in Jacksonville way under perform when compared to their pubic school counterparts, half baked ideas like open enrollment, which where somewhat attractive should never have been suggested a few months before the school year was to begin and with no way to pay for the transportation it would have required.

When the Times Union endorsed Willie they also endorsed those things too. A broke clock is more right than the Times Union.

Scott Shine says I am angry and uninformed. He’s half right too.

I am angry. My blood boils every time one of these business types runs for the school board thinking they can run education like a business and turn things around, undaunted by their lack of experience and institutional knowledge. I am even angrier that they use flowery phrases as a substitution for real ideas and solutions.

From Mr. Shine’s website: 

Safety and Security

My first priority is to ensure our children are safe, not only while at school, but coming and going. Shine supports, and will work to maintain, the current level of public safety officers in our schools. I support the increased use of technology and monitoring to prevent outside threats from harming our students. I believe we must always be vigilant.

How different from all his opponents who couldn’t care less about safety who are calling for cuts to safety officers or none of them.  Is he calling for cameras? I can’t tell but an example of an idea is, we must have more social workers and mental health counselors working with our troubled children to prevent them from striking out in the first place and instead of spending 600 grand on a study (something the QEA grant does) we’re going to put people in place to help them.  

Student Readiness

I want to see students achieve the best grades and highest graduation rates they can. What’s more, I support more emphasis on readiness for vocational training and college. Studies show that 9 out of 10 jobs in the new economy will require education beyond a high school degree.

Funny because I think his opponents only want to see them meet 75% of what they can. Now it’s great how he supports readiness for vocational training in college but what he doesn’t address is that most of the kids taking advanced and AP classes are also the ones in our academies too. In effect we are double serving those children while the child who might not be college ready or want to be college ready goes unserved. An idea would be, I would like to see every child by the time they are in high school pick a career academy they are interested in and I am dedicated to finding the transportation money to make sure they can attend.

Support Teachers

More than half of Duval County Public School teachers leave their jobs in the first five years of employment. Studies suggest this is largely due to job satisfaction. This is an important concern, as we know teacher effectiveness increases the longer they are working in the system. I support new methods to improve teacher satisfaction, recruitment and retention. Teachers are the engine that runs our education machine. We need to find the most effective teachers we can, and do our best to keep them in Duval County schools for the long term.

He’s right on the facts, sounds great too except after reading you notice he doesn’t have an inkling of an idea of what to do. How about creating an ombudsman position that teachers can take their complains to. How about ending the practice of overriding teacher’s book selections. How about pledging monthly town halls throughout his term with teachers to listen to their complains and concerns?  How about saying teachers with satisfactory evaluations can no longer be non-reappointed. Come on Scott what’s a brother got to do to get an idea????

Seriously look at his page and then demand he do better. http://scottshine.com/?page_id=94

So I am angry that this guy is in his den right now thinking, hey I can do that job. I am angry that he lacks ideas and I am beeping pissed off that he might become of my bosses too especially since it seems like he is just hoping his name recognition gets him there.

.

As for being uninformed, it’s true I am not a Scott Shine expert and apparently I did get it wrong about him being paid for his government work, but his problem is I am informed about what is happening in our schools something I can't say about Mr. Shine.

The Times Union is hardly fresh or effective.

In a disappointing but not unexpected move considering the Times Union's record on education issues, the editorial board endorsed Darryl Willie over Paula Wright in the district 4 school board race. Nobody in the city has been a harsher critic of Paula Wright than I have but even I think she would be heads and shoulders above Willie.

The unnamed writer twisted themselves into knots in order to do so including writing,  He (Willie) also supports using fresh strategies to help struggling students learn, such as Duval’s current practice of hiring young Teach for America instructors and putting them in Duval’s toughest schools.

The Times Union may not know it but Teach for America has been in our schools since 2008. They are hardly fresh and they are hardly effective. All they have done is assured our neediest students have had a constant revolving door of neophytes or the exact opposite of what they desperately need. 

Once again the Times Union gets it wrong on education issues.