Check out the new JPS& Education page.
Some parents are starting to raise a little hell about the hiring of a new Superintendent for Jackson Public Schools, and it's about time. The Clarion-Ledger reported last week:
"After getting a glimpse last week of the two finalists chosen by a national consulting firm, some parents are asking the Jackson School Board to extend its search for a new superintendent.
Parent Darby Ray said that after hearing superintendent finalists Dennis Carpenter and Cedrick Gray, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Any one of them would be so much better than the guy we just had," she said, referring to previous Jackson Public Schools superintendent Lonnie Edwards.
But Ray said that after thinking more she decided she had set the bar too low.
Jackson children, including her own, "deserve better than just good enough," Ray said Tuesday.
Seven other parents, including former JPS board member Jonathan Larkin, made similar comments. They also asked the board to reconsider Jim Barksdale's offer to supplement the superintendent's salary with no strings attached...
Parents who addressed the board Tuesday night noted neither Gray nor Carpenter is from a district with a makeup similar to JPS. Both men are in smaller school districts.
Neither has experience with turning around troubled districts and crisis management, Larkin said.
Amy Forbes, who has two children in JPS, asked the board "not to settle for anything less than what they (students) deserve, what they need."
Monica Cannon, Jennifer West and others from the Midtown community met Sunday to discuss the candidates and raised questions about both men Tuesday night.
"What we heard and what we wanted, it didn't match," Cannon said of Gray and Carpenter..." Article
I attended the public forum for the finalists and trust me, these guys left something to be desired. They were nice, professional, and definitely motivated. However, if you watch the video, notice what they don't mention in their fifty-minute sessions. Not a word about the JPS budget despite the fact it operates at a deficit. There was a lack of discussion about the lack of audits. A budget over $200 million and how it should be used? Totally ignored. The subject of how to avoid deficits plaguing JPS was avoided as well. The two finalists did not mention past problems they faced, how they addressed them, and what the result was. I didn't hear "The problem was this, we did that, and the result was test scores rose," or something similar. I did hear the heavy usage of educational buzzwords such as "skill sets" and "platforms". Earlier post about forum. Contains video of entire meeting.
If anything, the parents' revolt is a welcome development, as there is no accountability whatsoever at JPS. The school board members are appointed. The Superintendent is appointed. They are insulated from public pressure or accountability. All the school board members have to do is keep one man happy every four years. Period. The schools are pitiful, the district doesn't not even know where the money is, the state is looking at revoking accreditation, and the best the district can do is offer two candidates who are not qualified for the job. Better yet, the district rejected Jim Barksdale's money to hire a top superintendent. Guess they don't want to take the rich white businessman's money. Can't be seen kissing up to him although I bet they would take it from some well-connected black contractors, as long as they got the contracts. Anyone think they wouldn't accept such an offer from Garrett or Calhoun? This is a school board that spends more time writing letters to the newspaper about charter schools than it does about who the Superintendent will be. As I wrote earlier about these parents: It's about damn time.
By all means let these parents raise hell. It's about time someone got it. They might not know the report cards, audits, and graduation rates as readers of this blog do but damn it, they know something is not right and are tired of being played by the Jackson School Board. If things in Jackson are to truly turn around, the first steps will have to be taken by parents such as these. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
P.S.) Dear Jackson Public School Board: I'm not going anywhere. See the scrutiny the Hinds County Board of Supervisors and PERS got over the last year on this site? Well, you're at the plate now.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
It's about time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Not all of the schools are pitiful. A number of elementary schools are high performing or star rated: Barr, Bates, Bradley, Casey, Davis, French, George, Green, McLeod, McWillie, Timberlawn and Watkins.
Several of these are magnet schools (Power, Casey and Davis) or schools w/ de facto magnet programs (McWillie). Magnets at the other two levels would be a wise move, as well. Bailey is nominally a magnet, but honestly, having visited there a number of times, I have my doubts about how well that magnet program functions.
The missing link is the middle schools, which is a problem endemic to the model itself. I'm not saying bring back Jr. High Schools, but if you're going to run middle schools run them according to the way they were meant to be run. The advantages elementary schools have are smaller scale and the ability to eat their own cooking for five years. It's a shame kids from good elementary schools end up going to crappy middle schools which are, in part, crappy b/c low achieving kids from the poorly run elementary schools get sent there too.
There are a number of parents who want to see things change and who are working very hard to see it happen.
I think one move is to see how it might be legally possible to start a petition drive to change the board to an elected board. I agree that they're insulated from public pressure and they shouldn't be. The superintendent should be hired by an elected board. Is there a way to use initiative and referendum at the local level?
How many students are in the district for a $200 million budget?
Also, will you please create a JPS link on the side where you have JJ Special Coverage. Makes it easier to search esp if you are going to bird dog this.
One can hope that now that Hampton is gone from the CL there won't be any self serving interest to ignore JPS.
9:21,
What were the advantages of going to middle school from jr high?
The idea behind the middle school came from the consensus that middle schoolers aren't just little high schoolers, but are in a unique period of development that requires specific forms of support to make the transition from elementary to high school smoother.
Well run middle schools use an advisory system so that students have at least one faculty member who can be their advocate and support. They typically utilize teams rather than subject area based departments so that teachers of different subjects meet regularly to discuss the students they work with and trouble shoot issues (i.e. the same teachers teach four different sets of students who rotate through classrooms in close proximity to one another---building a smaller community within the school that is responsive to the students it serves). Integrated/cross disciplinary instruction is also encouraged---projects that take place in math/science and/or language arts/social studies.
Junior high schools were typically run in a manner much like high schools--departments, minimal student support and typically included 7th-9th grade, versus middle schools 6th-8th.
Given the best of all possible worlds, I think JPS would see to it that middle schools functioned as such---that as much as possible was done to shrink the scale of responsibility for administrators and teachers (teams rather than departments, using assistant principals to lead individual grades--most middle schools have at least 2 assistant principals) and that the transition from 5th to 6th grade was more well managed. I also think JPS would create in each feeder pattern a 9th grade academy--separate space, specific program for the 9th grade to be sure they pass Algebra I/Bio I, and are ready for English II in 10th grade.
I went to a junior high and frankly, I'd rather see the old junior high school and high school system. Seemed like it was a better transition from for kids in ninth grade. You also didn't have the 13 and 14 year olds around the 17 and 18 year olds.
I agree completely, KF.
The change was based on some theory and research, that I felt at the time was about as reliable the " pop" psychology that was also in vogue...when means not reliable at all.
One discipline can misappropriate and misapply valid work from another discipline without appreciating key variables .
I think that is what happened here and unfortunately, the "misappropriation" was institutionalized.
I remember seeing the Jackson superintendent position on the website of the national consulting group (who are very good, by the way).
It had the fewest requirements of any superintendent search the consulting firm was handling (fewer than a posting for a superintendent vacancy of a 5,000 student district in Nebraska or Oklahoma, if I remember correctly!) - whether it was experience or education. It didn't have additional supporting documents, at least early in the posting (and it seemed to be posted late?!), like all of the other superintendent searches did.
I know this firm does good quality work. I think JPS has no one to blame but themselves. Can you learn more about the search process?
To me both of these candidates seem woefully unprepared for the fiscal/budgetary realities of this job. Those aren't wholly "learn on the job" type skills.....
Post a Comment