When did, teachers become so unimportant in Jacksonville?
When did, teachers become so unimportant in Jacksonville?
I was once told that everybody has an opinion about education because everyone had one (of sorts) and most think they could be teachers.
Recently somebody I like and generally agree with about education wrote on Facebook about the impending departure of superintendent Vitti:
We've had our ups and downs, but I think Dr. Vitti has been good for our schools and his move would be a loss for Jacksonville.
I responded:
Yeah, I am going to have to disagree with you on that one. He had the occasional good idea here and there, the parent academy, bringing back the arts though it was ham fisted and there is no doubt this admin could write a grant too, but to many teachers paid the price for his leadership style and overall I believe the district has suffered under his tenure.
They wrote back: Morale is a problem. And I respect (and expect) that many teachers will share your view, Chris. Any Super is going to be between the devil and the deep blue sea, though, given funding pressures, privatization pressures, a punitive grading system and deeply held neighborhood concerns. I thought the school boundary/theme changes were fairly creative, and the various school communities rose to the occasion to make their voices heard. It was good to see the deep discussion, even if it was messy.
Right there they wrote, you know it doesn’t matter how many careers he ended, how many people he chased out of the profession, I liked that he did this. In a second teachers went from being people with families, and bills to pay, dreams and aspirations to nothing more than widgets.
They even acknowledged that most teachers shared the view that the superintendent had been terrible for our schools, but even that didn’t sway their view.
You see it doesn’t matter what teachers think or how they feel and if you don’t think that is a problem then you are part of the problem.
Take Nina Waters of the Community Foundation, she said in the Times Union, “We absolutely would prefer that Dr. Vitti remain in Duval County,” said Nina Waters, president of the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, which manages millions of dollars in donations and civic funds, including a $40 million educational effort called the Quality Education for All initiative, designed to help the district’s most disadvantaged schools in inner-city Jacksonville.
“He’s brought the leadership we needed to make the necessary progress now being documented in multiple performance measures,” Waters said. “There is clearly more work to be done, and we would be delighted to continue to partner with him and the School Board to build on this initial success.”
True story, years ago after I commented how the racial makeup of the Community Foundation would make a clan rally jealous, she called me into admonish me.
The thing is why do we care what she thinks, or Wayne Weaver, or Gary Chartrand or any of the other go to voices on education in the community, people who never taught a day in their lives?
Why do we listen to them while at the same time we ignore teachers? To them like my friend and like the superintendent admitted to thinking just a week ago, teachers are little more than widgets.
It might be painful to some to admit but education cannot be just about kids, it must be about teachers too.
How can people care about children but then not care about what happens to those who have been given the important responsibility of teaching them?
We overwork, marginalize, and don’t adequately compensate teachers. We ignore their concerns, belittle and blame them too. Then society wonders why we have problems in our schools and why we have a looming teacher shortage. This is not a recipe for disaster, this is the disaster we are currently living in.
You see at the end of the day, the better things are for teachers, then the better things will be for children, and we can learn that lesson, or we can continue to marginalize, disrespect and ignore teaches as education crumbles around us.
My friend said, I don’t care how many careers he ruined and how many people he chased out of the profession, I like that he did this thing over hear. I say that’s unacceptable. I say good leaders can have both good ideas and appreciate and support their staff and those are the type of leaders we don’t just need but can no longer afford not to have.