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Saturday, April 9, 2016

Vitti's lack of education experience hurts the district (rough draft)

Superintendent Vitti was a teacher for exactly two years in two different schools in two different states before he started his march to education domination. His feet barely wet he decided he had given the classroom all he could and he had bigger fish to fry and this lack of true education experience hurts the district.

I have written about his love of Teach for America which takes non education majors puts them through a fie week access course and then puts them in our neediest schools where they are supposed to serve two years assuring these vulnerable students have an ever revolving door of novice teachers or what I like to call the stupidest plan ever. He doesn't understand or appreciate that experience counts, most likely because he doesn't have any, but like I said I have beat that drum many times.

Two other recent developments have also highlighted how his lack of teaching experience has negatively affected the district.

First he thought, you know what elementary schools especially in a district with a reading problem have to much of? Books, that's what and he wholeheartedly endorsed a curriculum that replaced books with black and white hand outs much to the chagrin of parents, teachers, students, principals, and generally everybody with common sense.

BOOKS! We got rid of books! Perhaps if Vitti had spent more time in the classroom he would have realized that they have an important role to play.

The next thing is the unraveling of the QEA bonuses meant to lure or get teachers to stay at our traditionally under performing schools, at our schools that don't do well on standardized tests. Where I think every teacher that went for or received the bonus deserved it, Vitti doesn't understand that teachers know from the get go that we'll never be rich and that often we receive enumeration from other avenues like a child learning and progressing and becoming something positive that we helped to mold.

He thought, throw money at the problem and the problem will go away but all the QEA has done as well as not working is create more problems. The teachers who uprooted their lives at the promise of a few more dollars and who are now left in the cold are rightfully and understandably upset and angry.

The district and our children would have been better served had we invested the money on behavioral supports, wrap around services and smaller classes, but now all we have are hundreds of frustrated teachers and little else to show for the 35 million dollar investment.

If Vitti had been a teacher he might have known the QEA bonus plan was doomed to fail.

When the district hired Vitti at 35 to become the superintendent they wanted an up and comer, but we would have been better served to pick somebody who better knew how classrooms worked.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Parents and Teachers get a rare victory in Duval County. Welcome back books!

Next year books will return to our elementary schools after what can only be described as a lost year for many of our students where books were replaced by black and white hand outs.  

From the times Union:

A year after Duval’s elementary schools switched from traditional math and reading textbooks to online materials and printouts, district leaders are beginning to add books back into the mix.
The school board Tuesday approved two measures which will cost nearly $2.5 million to buy books for the next school year. They are purchasing new phonics books and related materials for kindergarten through second grades and new “classroom libraries” for kindergarten through fifth grades.

This follows months of complaints from parents and some educators that youngsters need books in their hands to better engage in learning to read. Teachers also complained that black and white printouts needed to be in color.
Now later in the article Superintendent Vitti tries to make the argument that this year had been a success.
Also from the Times Union:
Vitti said the new books and workbooks are the result of teacher and parent suggestions; but they aren’t due to faltering academic performance by students.
Okay Superintendent Vitti if that helps you sleep at night lets just roll with it. Whatever the reason the return of books to our elementary schools is indeed a rare and much deserved victory for our children, teachers and schools.

Principals in QEA schools say, give their staff the bonuses they earned.

 Teaching in today's blame the teacher test the kids till they drop day and age is often a frustrating and hard thing to do and it also means the little things count for so much more. Little things like having your principal stick up for you and fight for you can go such a long way.

Principals in several DTO schools, those 36 historically low performing schools that offered big bonuses for teachers either to transfer to them or stay, are becoming frustrated with the district as they believe they reneged on bonuses promised to their staffs. 

They believed when it came time for the bonuses to go out, their staff would get them as they like many teachers thought their scores were going to be compared to other DTO scores and not to the district at large which if you think about is an almost impossible metric to achieve.

I believe there would be more principals speaking out if they weren't in such precarious positions. Superintendent Vitti in his short tenure has already made hundreds of principal moves and couple that with the districts reputation for stifling dissent and it makes principals speaking out in favor of their teachers a difficult proposition.

However at the end of the day the principals have to know that their fate also depends on the performance of their staff, and I am sure they would rather have a staff that feels supported at least by them rather than a staff that is disillusioned and feels let down by both their principals and the district.

This is a messy situation which seems like it is about to get even messier.

Check back later this weekend for more stories related to the QEA.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

What tests should and shouldn't do



Florida does it all wrong.

Problems with the QEA??

I am told Human Resources Director Sonita Young at a hastily called meeting this past Monday was dismissive of dozens of QEA teachers and blamed them for not properly reading the contract as she told them they would not be receiving the bonuses promised to them.

In case you don't remember the QEA was a privately financed initiative whose main function was to pay high performing teachers to go to or stay at 36 of our historical low performing schools which came to be known as DTO (Duval Transformation office) schools and yes we love acronyms.

Now many of these teachers who uprooted their careers are left holding the bag, an empty bag at that.

If any QEA teacher is having troubles or if anybody who knows any one who is please reach out and lets try and let people know.

I wasn't a fan of the QEA but I am less of a fan of teachers being told one thing and then them being left out in the cold.    

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Cheryl Grymes takes thousands from privatizers

I have met Mrs. Grymes several times. I have always found her affable, heck even likable and that being said it's time for her to go. Four years ago when she ran against Martha Barrett I wholehearted supported Grymes as I thought Barrett was little more than a flowery suit taking a pay check and now I say Mrs. Barrett if you aren't doing anything please come back.

It's not just that Grymes thinks Vitti walks on water, ignoring the elementary school curriculum that is universally reviled by principals, teachers, students and parents, nor the problems with teacher morale, discipline and school grades.

Nope it's none of that though all of that should be disqualifying, instead the biggest problem is who she considers friends and takes money from. That speaks volumes about their beliefs and goals. Mrs. Grymes despite thus far running unopposed has taken thousands of dollars from Gary Chartrand and his family and friends and quite frankly there is not a bigger foe to public education and the teaching profession in the state than Gary Chartrand.

Grymes has gleefully taken money from a man who would privatize the school system given a chance and who doesn't think teachers are professionals.

District one is there nobody there that cares about the schools there? Is there nobody worried about how charters have snuck in and stolen resources from the public schools? Is there nobody worried about the over crowding at Terry Parker of the drop in school grades?

The next tough question Grymes asks the superintendent may well be her first but it's time the community started asking her tough questions, like who she is associating with and why. 

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Whose voices on the school board should you listen to? (rough draft)

Today Superintendent Vitti's evaluation came out and there were two distinct voices.

One was represented by business interests who would turn our children's futures over to vouchers and charters, Fischer, Grymes, Shine and Ashley Smith-Juarez and they despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary gave the superintendent a highly effective evaluation.

From the Times Union:


Board members Jason Fischer and Cheryl Grymes gave him 50 and 49.5 points respectively and Scott Shine gave him a 48.
A 46 is highly effective and Ashley Smith Juarez gave the super a 44
The other voice is that of teachers and lifelong educators, Hall, Wright and Couch who had a different take on what the super has done.
Also from the Times Union:
Several board members were more critical about Vitti’s and the district’s performance in the last year.
Hall gave Vitti two points for most of the 15 performance indicators. Two points is the equivalent of “needs improvement,” one level above unsatisfactory.
While she gave him low scores for problem solving using student data, fostering safety in schools, and collaborating with the school board, she gave him passing scores – “effective” – for managing district resources, expanding elective courses and extra curricular activities for students, and leveraging “stakeholder” support for the district.
Couch agreed in part, saying during the board meeting that Vitti has done an outstanding job expanding grants which benefit the district, for instance.
But in her written comments she noted that the district’s overall academic performance means it met only 18 of 29 goals or targets this past year, which is a 62.5 percent success rate.
And Duval has the highest percentage of D and F rated schools among Florida’s big districts, she noted, and the highest number of schools to turn around.
She gave Vitti low scores for gathering and using student data to solve problems and develop district improvement strategies, also for cooperation and teamwork, and for financial planning.
Look even if you like the super how can you with a straight face say he has been highly effective? The answer is you really can't if you use metrics like student achievement and yes I know graduation rates are up but they were heading up before he got here and they are up every where.
What else is up is the number of charter schools as they have increased by over 300 percent under his watch, 
I don't want to be that guy that just slams the super all the time though with discipline, curriculum, admin placements, his relationship with anti-public education businessman Gary Chartrand and teacher morale, he gives me lots of material. Like Couch mentioned this guy can write a grant and even though it was ham fisted he has brought the arts back to the district, both of those things shouldn't be overlooked.
At the end of the day however there are two voices on the board, educators and those who believe choice just for the sake of choice is the right choice. One voice that thinks the super is borderline perfect and another that thinks we have a lot of work to do Which voice are you going to listen to? 

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Corruption reins supreme in Tallahassee

Here are the facts, Richard Cochran, the incoming speaker of the house's wife operates a charter school.

She will benefit from a newly passed law that allows charter schools, the lion's share of which are for profit, to access public funds for construction costs after two years rather than three.


Finally even though the public pays this money it will not own the property, nope that will remain in private hands.

Cochran with his hands in the air and saying who me, wants us to believe that this change in the law had nothing to do with benefiting his wife, nope instead its designed to slow down the big for profit charter school companies.

Hey here's an idea how about not giving public money to private companies so they can buy property that the public does not own? 

Don Gaetz all but admits the charter school corruption is rampant in Tallahassee.

From the Tampa Times

They negotiated tougher provisions on charter school capital funding during the final days of the session, including mandates that state money go only to charters owned by the public, nonprofits or groups not connected with charter operations.
Those provisions against "private enrichment" did not make the final bill (HB 7029), which passed the Legislature and awaits Gov. Rick Scott's action.
Many House members lamented the deletion of those proposed regulations. But Gaetz said they could not survive the pushback by "legislators who had personal financial interests, or their families had financial interests in these real estate transactions."
WTF!!!!

Read that again please.

It's past time we said no to charter schools.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Ricky King embraces dirty tricks in the district 7 school board race.

Look I completely get it, I am naive thinking people should want to do things the right way, that being said Ricky King is lying to somebody and that makes me mad.

In the paper when asked about him hoarding opponents potential web-site names he said:

From the Florida Times Union:


King, a 26-year-old former high school teacher of government, said he is following a national example: Until recently the website Jebbush.com was redirecting people to a Donald Trump website. Trump’s staffers have denied creating the link.
King said he believes the tactic is effective, and that his rivals would try it if they could.

“Don’t take this as a smart-aleck remark, but … they’re just unhappy that they didn’t think of it before me,” he said.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2016-03-26/story/school-board-candidate-uses-competitors-names-boost-his-website

He embraces this move! I imagine he looked around the room for high fives. This is however different frm something he wrote on his web page.
On his web-page when asked by a voter about taking web sites he says: thank you for your inquiry. Ricky does not manage this page and his camp is unaware of a candidate by that name. However- if you'd like, you can email him directly at vote4rking@gmail.com

On one hand he says, yeah I did it and the other candidates are just mad that they didn't think of it first and on the other he or his representative says, what who me, I didn't have anything to do with it?

I know it's early but is this who we want on the school board? Somebody who embraces dirty tricks?

Inline image 1

District 7 is the most important race in 25 years and I have to think we can do better than somebody who thinks these kind of tactics are okay.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Is Vitti getting worse as a superintendent? He seems to think so.

In June of 2013 the superintendent gave himself 47 out of 48 highly effectives, Only Jesus, Tiger Woods and Micheal Jordan ever received more. That was after just seven months on the job.

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/06/superintendent-vitti-doesnt-lack.html

Fast forward to today and his self evaluation is a little different, now its still what most teachers would kill for but it's not walk on water.

From the Times Union:


Duval Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti gave himself “effective” ratings in a self-evaluation he turned in to school board members.

That puts him one step below the top rating of “highly effective” but better than the other ratings of “developing” or “needs improvement.” The board will decide March 31 whether they agree with him when each member turns in their own evaluation of the district’s top administrator.
Though if you read the piece he gives himself credit for everything short of the sun rising.
If I were evaluating Vitti I would give him needs improvement nearly across the board with the only highly effective coming in securing grants, even I am impressed with this administrations ability to do so.
Speaking honestly I feel the district has taken a major step back under his watch, mostly because as bad as things were under Pratt-Dannals we as a district weren't in danger of being privatized which is a constant threat with Vitti at the helm.
Has he done some nice things? Sure, but with teacher morale, discipline, the curriculum in elementary school and pushing back against mercenaries looking to make a buck off our children  he has been a failure.