Local education non-profit chiefs make six figures

Trey Czar of the JPEF (129k), John Heyman of Communities in Schools (118k) and Deborah Gianoulis of the Schultz Center (120k) all make well over a hundred thousand dollars. They aren’t the only ones either, in 2010 the last year data is available and at the height of the recession, some 47 school board employees made over a hundred thousand dollars. Of those, a few were principals but the vast majority were downtown administrators. That also represented about a thirty three percent increase from just three years before.

Good work if you can get it right? All this while Jacksonville’s teachers are some of the lowest paid in the country.

I am all for people making as much money as possible but why in education are the people that do the actual teaching paid so much less than the people in education who don’t?

Where not a fan of the governor I applaud his efforts to bring teacher salaries up so they are more in line with the rest of the nation, though in all honesty it won’t make up for three percent pay cut teachers got two years ago and I wonder what speaker of the house Will Weatherford and Senate president Don Geatz are thinking when they try and block his efforts.

Finally for those of you who say merit pay is the way to go, you should know that study after study says it doesn't work. If you want to improve education step one should be to increase teacher’s salaries to at least the national average and to give you some scale, for me a 12th year teacher that would mean an additional 12 thousand dollars.

Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher

Florida's private schools that take public money, say no to accountability.

From State Impact by John Connor

A coalition of private schools which acceptpublicly funded scholarships for students with disabilities says a majority of their members would no longer take the scholarships if they were required to administer the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

In a letter posted on the redefinED blog, the Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools says their member survey results conflict with the conclusions of a study by The Fordham Institute.

From the letter:

The Coalition sent a survey to the 1,155 participating McKay Scholarship schools in February. It received 474 responses, representing approximately 40 percent of the McKay schools. Results indicate that 1) nearly all of the schools are conducting norm-referenced assessments of their students; 2) these education professionals do not believe the FCAT is an appropriate measure for their students with disabilities; and 3) 61 percent of the schools responding reported they would no longer participate in the McKay Scholarship Program if required to give the FCAT to their students.

The McKay Scholarship Program was designed so parents of children with disabilities would be able to identify and participate in programs that would meet the needs of their children. Many parents choose to participate in the McKay program because they do not believe the FCAT and a one-size-fits-all approach to education are in the best interest of their children who have disabilities and do not fit the “norms.” The McKay Scholarship Program has been very successful and popular with parents because it provides them with the ability to choose a school that best meets the unique needs of their children.

Indiana is among the states which requires some private schools to administer the state’s standardized test. Gov. Rick Scott has said he believes any private school which accepts public funding should have to administer the new Florida standardized test scheduled to start in the spring of 2015.

The Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools says 97.5 percent of schools surveyed administer a test approved by the Florida Department of Education “or another educationally appropriate measure” to their students.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/03/22/florida-private-schools-do-not-want-fcat-requirement-for-mckay-scholars/

Anyway you slice it, the Schultz Center is a bad deal for our schools.

Get this, the district owns the buildings, takes care of upkeep and maintenance and then provides the staff for all the training too. For all of this the district then pays the Schultz Center two and a half million dollars a year and has been doing so for a decade.

Oh and we charge them a dollar a year for rent too.

Are you back? I figured you probably fainted.

I have been to dozens of trainings and I would say only about a quater were at the Schultz Center but at none of them did I think, wow I am glad this is here we couldn't have done this in my school library (or computer lab, or the great big closet at the end of the hall).

Superintendent Vitti in an editorial in the Times Union spoke about the need to end the deal and I agreed with him on every point except when he wrote:

“Difficult decisions will need to be made, not based on emotion but rather to maximize every cent of taxpayers’ dollars to increase student achievement.”

This should not be a difficult decision. It is an easy one. 

To read his piece in its entirety, click the link:

http://members.jacksonville.com/opinion/premium-opinion/2013-03-22/story/guest-column-superintendent-explains-his-position-schultz

Rep, Trujillo doubles down on his lies about the parent trigger

In a Redefined Ed Piece he said:

“Let’s not make this a partisan discussion. Let’s not be concerned of this boogieman of phantom interests. Opposition is coming from “the unions and the establishment that are trying to control the debate and trying to control jobs.”

Yeah all those union led parent groups and civil rights groups that have come out against it are trying to control the debate.

Trujillo throws out the word union because he knows it will get a small and vocal group salivating but the truth is, teacher’s unions are just one part of a vast coalition that includes the PTA and the NAACP who have come out against the bill.

Just like the evidence that says the parent trigger bill is a good idea, Trujillo,s statements aren’t based in facts.

To read the entire Redefined Ed piece, click the link: 

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2013/03/fla-parent-trigger-headed-to-house-vote/

Georgia rejects Parent Trigger legislation, will Florida follow suit

By Wayne Johnson, Atlanta Journal Constitution

House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, withdrew his parent-trigger charter school legislation Thursday as members in his own party expressed concerns about it.

Lindsey’s legislation, House Bill 123, had already passed the state House of Representatives and seemed to be on a glide path to passage in the Senate. But the bill — which would force school boards to consider a petition from parents or teachers to change a traditional public school into a charter school — ran into problems in the Senate’s Education and Youth Committee.

Instead of the bill being voted out of that committee Thursday, Chairman Lindsey Tippins, R-Marietta, announced that Lindsey had asked that the legislation be withdrawn.

“It didn’t have the votes,” Tippins said.

Lindsey, his party’s vote-counter in the House, could not be reached for comment Thursday evening. It is possible the legislation could be added to another bill, but Tippins said Lindsey plans to let the issue rest for the remainder of this legislative session, which ends next week.

“Rep. Lindsey realized there were some concerns about it,” Tippins said. “It is late in the session, and I think Rep. Lindsey just felt that, rather than have it be a point of contention, he’d just wait.”

Lindsey’s legislation would have made Georgia the eighth state in the country with a parent-trigger law.

Under HB 123, school boards would have had to consider a request to change a traditional public school into a charter school if that request came from a majority of the traditional school’s student households. A majority of teachers and instructional staff could also force school boards to consider changing a traditional public school into a charter school.

If 60 percent of student households or 60 percent of teachers and instructional staff petitioned for a traditional school to be changed into a charter school, the local school board could only reject that petition if two-thirds of its members voted to do so.

If the traditional public school was a low-achieving school, parents and teachers could force the school board to also consider several turnaround options for the school, some of which include removal of the principal.

Teachers and parents could sign a public petition or hold a meeting and vote in secret, something Lindsey argued would protect them from possible retribution.

Lindsey had touted the legislation as a way to spur meaningful dialogue between parents and school boards.

But Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, said he worried that the bill would open the door to teachers being pitted against administrators.

“I just think you’re opening Pandora’s Box and putting teachers in a very difficult position,” Millar said when the bill was debated during a subcommittee meeting Wednesday.

Tippins said he would not back the bill if it allowed parents and teachers to vote in secret.

“I’ve got a problem with secret ballots,” Tippins said. “I just believe people ought to stand up and be counted.”

The bill was opposed by a variety of public education groups. Officials from those groups, mindful of Lindsey’s influence in the Legislature, were careful in discussing the bill’s fate.

“I think the bill needed more evaluation and more understanding of its impact before becoming law,” said Tracey-Ann Nelson, government relations director for the Georgia Association of Educators. “We can’t just pass laws because they sound good.”

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/lindsey-pulls-parent-trigger-legislation-amid-conc/nWzj2/

Who is worse? Rep. Carlos Trujillo or Rep. George Moraitis.

Trulilo says if you vote against the parent tricker, err trigger bill you don’t want to have parents at the (education) table. The problem is with this is parent have overwhelmingly come out against the parent trigger bill. Read that again, overwhelmingly against. Trujillo like most republicans is all about school choice as long as they or their friends can make a profit off it or if parents choose the option they are ramming down their throats.

Moraitis on the other hand wants public school districts to give their assets to for profit corporations. Oh and maintain them too. Home rule and the public’s property will be damned if he gets his way.  He tries to give himself cover by saying, “There are lots of other things in here intended to encourage innovation,” Moraitis told the House Education Committee Friday, noting that proposal would also allow high-performing charters to expand. But the truth is he wants to dismantle public education and I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually hopes to make a buck off it too.

Sure there are some great charter schools but unless there is a heroic effort they aren’t over coming poverty and they aren’t doing any better than public schools and when it comes to charter schools friends make no mistake there is a rush to make a buck not a rush to improve children’s lives.

They are both equally as bad.

To read more check out this link: 
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/parent-trigger-charter-school-expansion-bills-headed-to-house-floor/2110621

Cautions for Chancellor Blank

It seems UW-Madison's system of shared governance may be a new act for Chancellor Rebecca Blank to learn.  An interview conducted with journalists today shows her on the record weighing in on both tuition strategies and the composition of the student body.

A word to the wise:  This year the University Committee charged two committees to work on these exact issues.  The tuition committee has been meeting and working hard all year long -- hiking out-of-state tuition and differentiating tuition further by school or college are strategies that come with significant potential consequences.  Reciprocity with Minnesota is costing the university a great deal of money and ending it should not be dismissed out of hand.  Regardless, these are not choices made simply by the chancellor, but by the shared governance system.  In addition, the Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions, and Financial Aid was tasked with developing a profile of the ideal freshman class and working on ways to achieve it.  Chancellor Blank does not decide where students "should" come from-- we all do.

Hopefully these are just initial missteps on her part. Hopefully the next time she is asked about these things, she'll inform reporters that it's impossible at this stage to say what will come next, since she hasn't spent time on campus in decades.  And hopefully she will schedule a "telebriefing" with shared governance groups soon, seeing as how the one with reporters is now over.