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.
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.
