flynn082

December 11 th should have been a great day for Cynthia Saunders, interim superintendent since July 1 st of Manatee County (Sarasota). The board there was poised to take away the word interim and give her a nice raise too. The Florida Department of Education however stepped in and blew it all up. They accused Cynthia Saunders of many troubling offences as they launched an investigation into her and Manatee County’s policies. The Bradenton Herald reported, Cynthia Saunders, interim superintendent for the School District of Manatee County, is accused of abusing her power and inflating graduation rates, according to a notice from the Florida Department of Education. In a letter dated Dec. 6, Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart said she found probable cause to justify sanctions against Saunders’ educator certificate, citing alleged misconduct between 2014 and 2016. The state accused Saunders of: Personal conduct which seriously reduces effectiveness as an employee of the school board, ...

Richard Corcoran appointed to day to be the commissioner of education is a lot of things, but educator is not one of them. That however did not stop Ron DeSantis, who received 33,000 more votes than his opponent from appointing a man who while speaker of the house tried to dismantle a public education system that educates 84 percent of the state’s children (the rest being home schooled or who attend private schools.  In addition, while he was speaker he was also a foe of transparency and process ramming through train bills crated in the middle of the night in secrecy that often benefited his wife’s charter school. DeSantis looked at all this and said, yeah that’s the guy for me. From Orlando Rising, Democratic state Rep.  Anna Eskamani  declared that  Richard Corcoran  has “no professional background in education” in a letter to the Florida Board of Education urging it to conduct a national search before picking Florida’s next education commissioner… … “Wit...

By John Meeks As we prepare for a new governor, I want to express my fears and my concerns for the 90 percent of young Floridians who attend public schools. Firstly, I fear that our elected and appointed leaders will misinterpret this year's terribly close election results as a mandate to continue carrying out policies that are hostile to public schools.  I do not believe that it is asking too much for our public school funding to keep pace with inflation.  I do not believe that educators should have to go on food stamps or get a second job to get by. Secondly, I am concerned that our state's public school children will continue to be collateral damage in our leaders' ongoing war with educators.  Instead of working to settle scores or engage in union busting, Tallahassee could take a moment to see educators, parents, and all education stakeholders as partners in moving all of our students forward.  Instead, I my largest concern is that we are seeing a successful effo...

People say I am hard on republicans, and I am because they deserve it. If charter schools were nonprofit sites of innovation that as a group did a good job educating children, I imagine I would be for them but they aren’t. instead most are for profit monstrosities that offer zero in the way of innovation. Then if voucher schools had over site on the money and standards with what they taught and didn’t fund religious schools, and as a group did a good job I educating our children I imagine I would be for them as well, but they aren’t. many teach junk science and history and have no requirements for their teachers. The problem is all too often the republicans in Tallahassee have been interested in punishing teachers and thus public schools, who haven’t supported them. The ignore the hypocrisy that public schools are tested to death, while voucher schools have no accountability at all, even though they are both financed with the public dime. They also aren’t data driven, programs like the...

JPEF had Aaron Bean one of the worst enemies’ public schools and school teachers have ever had, tell a favorite memory of a teacher. With soulful music playing in the background, he told the story of his dad who worked as a shop teacher for a school that had no supplies. His father first had the kids bring in broken things to fix and then went and begged the community to help with supplies. This is the story, about teacher out begging for what should be staples that JPEF thought would celebrate teachers. Spoiler alert not much has changed since when Bean's dad taught. He should have said,  Hi, my names Aaron bean my fondest memory of a teacher is when one had to beg the community for supplies because legislators like me refused to adequately fund his classroom, that would have been honest.  Geeze JPEF so much for thank a teacher.  The entire system survives because teachers work millions of unpaid hours of overtime and then use their money to shore up the sieve like ...

I have to say I have generally been pleased with Greene. Now I think she has spent too much time hobnobbing with her new friends at JPEF rather than rebuilding relationships with the staff and communication continues to be an issue but she’s off to a good start. That however doesn’t make the news form Manatee county less troubling especially after we went  through years of parlor tricks with Vitti. From the Bradenton Herald:  Cynthia Saunders, interim superintendent for the School District of Manatee County, is accused of abusing her power and inflating graduation rates, according to a notice from the Florida Department of Education. In a letter dated Dec. 6, Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart said she found probable cause to justify sanctions against Saunders’ educator certificate, citing alleged misconduct between 2014 and 2016. Saunders was named interim superintendent after Diana Greene left to become superintendent of Duval County Public Schools in late June… Earlier i...

One of the first things Darryl Willie did after being elected to the school board was to go on WJCT and and shill for Teach for America which currently pays him six figures. He said,  I am a little biased because I came through the program, but I think at this point in time, especially within our district, we have to utilize all the resources we can to put quality people in front our kids. And I think Teach for America can do that.    I think many people would disagree with Mr. Willie there but the bigger question is s houldn't Daryl Willie have to resign from Teach for America? The city charter has a provision that says public workers can't hold elected offices. Now you might be asking isn't Teach for America a non profit and the answer is sort of. Tim Groulx a professor at the University of North Florida  filed to run against Scott Shine but was later told he would have to resign from UNF if he was elected.   Now this is a city provision and its a li...

Before you think I am being disrespectful I just want to point out that those are DeSantis's words Sigh, well it's not like we didn't know elections had consequences, but I wonder if my republican friends thought one would be the appointment of a man whose wife runs a charter school, a man who is rife with conflicts of interests, who thumbed his nose at the legislative process and who has done everything in his power to dismantle public education and teaching as a profession, and lets not forget how utterly unqualified for the position he is.  At some point people have to pick a side, the children and teachers and their own self interests or a few rich republicans looking to get richer. I don't know what else to say.  

On December 5 th  long time Florida education commissioner Pam Stewart resigned, this was somewhat surprising as not two weeks ago she agreed to postpone her retirement and serve for another year. The motivation behind her sudden re-retirement is the inevitable appointment of outgoing speaker of the house Richard Corcoran to the Commissioner of Education position.   What are his credentials to undertake such a huge and important position? … Oh did you think I was going to talk about his extensive back ground in education? I was actually asking you because Corcoran is an attorney by trade and doesn't have any relevant education experience. Now as speaker he did oversee some of the most controversial and draconian public education bills in Florida history. Under his watch Florida per pupil spending fell to 45 th  and its teachers continued to be some of the worst paid in the nation.  He expanded the best and brightest teacher bonus program that rewarded teach...