Was Chartrand’s QEA quid pro quo KIPP expansion?

First a little background. The QEA initiative has taken local cash and put them in I believe dubious programs that are designed to improve our schools. I think overall they will be a failure but some knowledgeable people disagree with me.

Gary Chartrand, the grocer turned most powerful man in local education is responsible for both the KIPP school coming to town and the QEA initiative. Like him or hate him, think he has done a lot of good or a lot of bad, there can be know doubt he has spent a lot of his own money and gotten his friends to chip in too.

Now that’s out of the way I will get to it.

The KIPP School is looking to do a massive expansion, which will ultimately see them take 1,800 kids out of the system. The super has also been selling the expansion in the conservative blogs and to whoever will listen.

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/10/kipp-seeks-expansion-jacksonville/

Vitti’s accolades however are not supported by any evidence and an expansion of this size is unprecedented too so it got me thinking why would Vitti be pushing this hard sell?

Well it could be because there was a quid pro quo between him and the QEA initiative to get it to donate money. I can see it now, hey Vitti, we’ll slip you a few million dollars if you let the KIPP school expand.

To find out if something like that happened I checked the transcripts and minutes of all the QEA meetings, or I would have but they don’t exist. You see even though the QEA board was in effect creating policy, even though they were not elected to do so, no records were required to be kept and when I asked if I could attend one of the meetings I was told unequivocally, no. The public has no idea what was said or done at those meetings.

You might be saying, but what’s in it for Chartrand, KIPP schools are non-profit. That’s true the KIPP schools are non-profit and if I were to say one good thing about them it would be that they seem to funnel most of their money into their programs, though their executives do make quite a bit. But to Chartrand it’s not about money, it’s about replacing public schools and getting rid of unions who he blames for all the problems in education. I think he would happily go broke to see his dream of an all charter school district staffed with Teach for America hobbyists realized.

Was there a quid pro quo? I don’t have a smoking gun, conveniently the system was set up so the public would be kept in the dark, but I do have is a superintendent pushing for it without the data to support it, chumming around with a millionaire who hates public schools. 

One last thing” I believe Chartrand has gone to great lengths to protect his precious KIPP School before. KIPP’s first grade was a F, the lowest grade in North East Florida, it then got a miraculous B, but in it’s third year it was supposed to drop to a D but out of the blue and quite surprisingly the state board of education, which is chaired by Chartrand passed a rule that said schools could drop only one letter grade at a time which protected the KIPP school whose grade now only dropped to a C. Chartrand and his friends had a lot riding on the success of the KIPP school and I imagine it would have been quite embarrassing and hurt his fund raising efforts had the schools grade plummeted.

Again, no smoking gun, but there is smoke, and often when there is smoke there is fire. 

Rocket Ships and Charter Schools why privatization sucks.

When the Antares Rocket, heading to take supplies to the international space station, built by Orbital Science Corp exploded it made me think about the privatization of those public institutions created to serve the public good.

When I was a kid my hero was Neil Armstrong and I had dreams of one day flying in space. I could name all the players and all the missions too. And even though my life has taken a dramatically different path I have always at least cursory followed NASA and the space program and felt great regret and trepidation as our leaders decided to outsource much of the space program to private businesses.

Now have there been failures and tragedies at NASA? Yes including the tragic death of Christa McAuliffe, who was supposed to be the first teacher in space but those were tragedies shared by us all and were tragedies that motivated us to do better.

Where the video of the rocket exploding was spectacular I doubt it stays in the public conscious for more than a day or two as Orbital Science Corp collects on its insurance policy.

There is a bigger tragedy here than the explosion and that is when we outsource our valued public institutions it does us all a disservice by pushing us farther apart as a society. Those institutions don’t bind us together any longer and instead they divide us apart.   

One could argue that the space program had lost some of its luster over the last few decades but nobody can argue how much it united the Country in the sixties and early seventies.

Public schools are the same. Arguably this is the institution that built the United States into the greatest country in the world. Now like with NASA there have been hiccups, things the system could have done better but like NASA it has seen unparalleled successes too.

So when we outsource our kids’ education to charter schools the majority of whom perform worse than public schools and many of which are little more than profit centers for their owners it diminishes and separates us all.

Superintendent (Charter School) Vitti is very popular with the pro privatization blogs

Sometimes it is hard to tell where Gary Chartrand ends and the superintendent begins. They both love charter schools, Teach for America and have often been disdainful of teachers. So it’s no wonder that Vitti has been a huge proponent of allowing Chartrand’s pet KIPP School to expand.

Superintendent Vitti in ReDefined Ed, the states pro-privatization blog:  “There are charter schools that have a track record of success, and particular charter schools that have failed, and failed in multiple areas,” he said. “Let’s not have an ideological conversation. Let’s have one based on data where we look at individual charter schools, individual traditional public schools, and ask the question: Who’s successful? Who’s not? And what’s the best situation for parents based on how they’re looking at it, and how the district as informed educators are looking at it.

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2013/01/a-florida-superintendents-take-on-choice-charter-schools-competition-authorization-nikolai-vitti-podcasted/#sthash.HTvkZXl6.dpuf

His words make sense, his words are what we want to happen but unfortunately with this super his deeds and words don’t always match up.

Here are some things you should know about the KIPP School, the successful school he is pushing to expand.

The schools grades have been F, lowest grade in Northeast Florida, a miraculous B, it would have dropped to a D if the state didn’t have a schools can only drop one letter grade rule and then another B. Then according to the Times Union of the 88 students who started the first class at KIPP, only 64 finished, that’s about 30% who didn’t finish. KIPP also has a national reputation for counseling out poor performers and using kill and drill techniques instead of educating. They also spend about a third more per child and can require parents to be involved.

Maybe when compared to most Duval Charter schools this is considered a success but do you consider it one?

If public schools had a third more resources, could require parents to be involved and could council out poor performers how much better do you think they would be? They don’t and can’t and most are better than the KIPP schools anyway. 

I don’t know about you but I want a super who is willing to fight for our schools rather than one who says one thing and does another.

Rick Scott fails the test.

Patricia Levesque defends high stakes testing, will she defend kicking puppies next?

In the Gainesville Sun, Jeb Bush shill, Patricia Levesque defended the indefensible and said testing has improved Florida's schools, the thing is that she can't prove it and I think I can prove that. First it's like she has never heard of the class size amendment, the one citizen driven reform among all the corporate ones that has actual evidence that says it works. I would attribute any improvement to that and just ask any teacher if they think they would do a better job if they had five or ten more students.

Then states all throughout the nation have seen an increase in graduation rates and a shrinking of the achievement gap, even those that haven't embraced a testing culture like Florida has. Furthermore for every A.P. story she can tell I can tell one about the S.A.T.s which scores have stagnated in Florida under the testing regime. In fact I submit that this reliance on testing she is selling has held us back.

She then unbelievably says testing helps identify poor readers, which it may do unfortunately the results get back to teachers months later when nothing can be done. Finally as for state tests taking just one percent of the school year, I will just say ask a teacher which Levesque is not if she is right but I think you already know the answer.

We need serious people coming up with serious solutions. Levesque only offers a doubling down on a failed policy.

To read her piece click the link: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20141028/OPINION04/141029679/0/search?p=all&tc=pgall&tc=ar

Vitti's Harvard says no to Teach for America

What you didn't know he went there for grad school? I feel like it's brought up more than math here in the county. Well he did and now the Harvard student body is pushing back against Teach for America.

From the Crimson: A dozen members of the Student Labor Action Movement assembled outside Massachusetts Hall on Friday afternoon to deliver a letter to University President Drew G. Faust, imploring Harvard to cut ties with Teach For America if it does not make several key changes to its program by Oct. 8.

The effort is part of a larger national movement started by United Students Against Sweatshops that criticizes Teach For America, a nation-wide program that recruits college graduates to teach in low-income communities for at least two years, for undermining the quality of public education.

“We’re calling on Harvard to support and provide the resources for people who want want to have lifelong careers in public education, not people who want to teach for a couple of years and then go to law school or business school,” said Blake A. McGhghy ’17, a SLAM member who spearheaded the Harvard branch of the campaign.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/28/student-labor-action-tfa-letter/

When America comes to its senses and decides to invest in its schools and teachers rather than blame them for our problems TFA and its supporters are going to be on the wrong side of the story. I find it ironic that Vitti's grad school has started the ball rolling. 

Marginalized, disrespected and over worked and under paid, welcome to the life of a teacher

From a reader about the attack on teachers by Time magazine

...it's not like people are clamoring to become teachers. It took our school over a month to find someone to fill a core teacher position. At other schools, I have heard of multiple vacancies.

Why would new teachers want to stay when the conditions are life-sucking at times, when the stress is overwhelming, when people constantly demean teachers, etc?

It's not like we are getting paid the big money. To get to 40,000, you have to have 9 years of experience. To get to 50,000, you have to reach 20 years of experience.

No one in my department has that many years of teaching experience. In fact, no one is over 10 years.

Teacher says, Vitti doesn't want to hear from you

Below is from  a reader who is a teacher, they don't want to be identified because they are afraid of repercussions.

Vitti does not want to hear from you. 

He shut down Shared Decision Making Committees input into individual school budget making. 

He tells schools this is what you get. 

Later he admits ruefully that maybe his one size fits all approach needs refinement. But he doesn't listen. Anyone who emails him with concerns gets a terse "Follow protocol" response. All the surveys employees are asked to fill out--no where do they get an open comment box to tell him what they really want to say. 

Even the union with their FAME survey have stepped into this trap. He takes issue with a brave teacher who shows up to a Board meeting and uses the open/public comment period to talk about issues in the school. 

He says, "I don't mind his opinion, but he chose the wrong way to express it." But he gives us no other option. He says he meets weekly with employees drawn out of the ranks, but no one knows of anyone invited to meet with him.

 He plans a marketing campaign in which he will put students onto TV to talk about how great Duval schools are. Does he not realize another marketing campaign is going on and it has throughout his tenure? It is students going home and telling their parents how bad it is in their schools. And parents realizing that they need to get their kids out. That's why enrollment is collapsing. That's why we're down to 114,000 and likely to fall into 5 figures next year.

Rotten reporting: Time magazine joins the blame the teacher crowd.

Time  Magazine with their Bad Apple Cover, saying it's hard to fire bad teachers stopped being a news magazine and instead joined the blamed the teacher crowd. The article about silicon billionaires fighting against tenure missed the point entirely, because their cause is not about improving education by getting rid of tenure but instead it is about destroying labor and profiting off of education in the process.

Please don’t think for a moment that the Vergera court case in California was about doing what is best for teachers. No, it was all about destroying labor as are most of the education reforms being implemented.

The plaintiffs backed by a silicon valley billionaire claimed that teacher work protections, including tenure, were detrimental and unfair to poor and mostly minority students. How the judge came to agree is an assault to the senses.

If first year or relatively new teachers are cut before more experienced teachers that is not only tragic but it is not the fault of teacher unions either. Unions do not set budgets nor do they let teachers go. Yet instead of blaming politicians who seem to always cut education first, they somehow blamed work protections for more experienced teachers and this judge either bought it or was bought.  

Education reformers would have you believe you can separate the relationship between teacher and student but the truth is you can’t. They are symbiotic, they depend on each other to exist. Policies like ignoring discipline and cutting budgets hurt both children and teachers alike as does destroying work protections for teachers. This hurts teachers for the obvious reasons but it also hurts students too because as the teaching profession becomes more and more unappealing fewer qualified people will enter and stay. Who will teach our kids when they make the profession so unappealing that professionals won't want to do it? 

We are all saddened when talented new teachers are cut but the truth is it often takes years for teachers to grow into being effective. Now are there some rookie teachers that hit the road running and some veteran teachers that have stayed to long? Of course but the truth is the numbers for each group are small.  Furthermore if there is a veteran teacher not doing their job then that isn’t the fault of unions or work protections either. That’s the fault of an administration that is not doing its job.

Does it take time and documentation and sometimes even money to get rid of an ineffective teacher? Again sure but that’s the way it is in any profession and I remind you that the procedures are mutually agreed upon between unions and administrations. Unions do not dictate to localities.

Ed Reformers will complain “but unions use their membership to drive those procedures” as if that is a bad thing. Shouldn’t we all want our teachers to have good pay and benefits and have procedures in place to make sure they are treated fairly? Is that to much to ask of society?

The Vegera case would have you believe so but how will kneecapping the teaching profession help kids? The answer is it won't but that was never the reason behind it in the first place instead it’s about destroying the power of labor. These billionaires want to be able to make decisions, many of which they will profit off unencumbered by groups banded together to look out for their interests even when those interests are entirely intertwined with the interests of children.  

In Florida there has been a similar court case making its way through the courts. The plaintiffs not backed by a billionaire took a different direction however. Instead of blaming teachers and unions they believe its inadequate resources that are holding our schools and children back.  If we're saddened by young teachers being cut then lets not cut budgets. If we think teachers have to many work protections, negotiate but be prepared to pay more to have them give up those rights. instead of doing what is right they would have you believe Mrs. Migilicutty at the top of the pay scale at PS this or that is to blame for all the woes in education

I would like to point out that unions do not create curriculum, establish budgets, set policy nor do they hire or fire teachers. All they do and all they can do is make sure the mutually agreed upon contract language is enforced and through their membership lobby for things they feel are important. In my home state of Florida sometimes they win like with the parent trigger but more often they lose like with senate bill 736 that ties pay to how students do on standardized tests, something testing experts say is ridiculous.

The ed reformers are always talking about the needs for children. If only this were about the needs of children, it’s not and people shouldn’t think for a second it is.




To learn more click the links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/25/a-time-magazine-cover-enrages-teachers-again/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/opinion/california-ruling-on-teacher-tenure-is-not-whole-picture.html?_r=1

http://nancyebailey.com/2014/10/24/teacher-hate/

http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/10/24/the-big-problem-with-times-teacher-bashing-cover-story/

Teachers bring up issues all the time in Duval County and are ignored.

From a reader:

We teachers bring up major issues all of the time and follow the chain of command. 

We talk to an AP, and nothing gets done. 

We talk to a principal, and nothing changes. 

We talk to specialists from the district, and they shrug their shoulders. 

We email Vitti, and he attempts to pacify. 

What is the point? 

ALL they need (crown Point Elementary) are some counselors. We have money, but Vitti wants to spend it on useless technology and people of little consequence. Schools also need more AP's, security guards, and teachers. Our average class sizes are enormous, way higher than I have ever seen them in 9 years. The truth is that Vitti doesn't want the actual truth to get out, as the truth would tarnish his public image that the Times Union so readily supports