Hamilton County: Scales tells commission that schools have 'not failed’

They have failed.

He's a putz.

Up is down.

Right is left.

Green is blue.

The schools have not failed.

And this is the educational giant that the School Board just HAD to award a lucrative, four-year contract extension, lest some other district lure our superstar superintendent away?

"We own this. I own this." What a load of $#!+ ... more like he owns us (the taxpayers and parents who have to send our kids to the schools he [mis]manages).

If he wants to "own" the problems with the school system, here's an idea. Every year let his salary be reduced by a percentage equal to the percentage of students who score below proficient on competency tests. Then we will see which way the trend lines go ... or at least we won't be paying as much for incompetent leadership.

This will never happen, of course. And nothing will change until we get some more school board members with the character, intelligence, and backbone of Rhonda Thurman.

Amen MountainJoe! I could not have tried to say that better.

I am sorry that all of the people that have commented thus far have lost their minds! These must be the very parents whose children are “failing”. The apple does not fall far from the tree because this seems to be the attitude that our "failing" students have. Blame it on someone else; let someone else do their work; it must be your fault that I am not learning because I don’t and won’t do my work. We must start holding students and their parents accountable for public education. I don’t care how much is taught; how rigorous or poor the standards are; if the students don’t take ownership and refuse to do their work and the parent’s refuse to be accountable for their own children and don’t follow-up or through…things will never change. It’s not the Superintendent of Schools, the School Boards, the Principals, the Teachers, the Maintenance, or the Office supports fault that so many of our children: 1. Will not do their school work; 2. will not do their homework; 3. disrupt class; and 4. come to school not prepared for learning. Our schools aren’t failing…our students and their parents are failing themselves and our schools. Wake up parents; place the blame where it belongs! I challenge every one of you to have your student do the right thing, at the right time, the right way and see if that doesn’t produce a change in the “product” and “outcomes” of our public educational system!

Thank you for setting the record straight, Pam. I couldn't have said it better myself. One year of classroom teaching was enough for me to realize I was in an uphill battle, banging my head against a wall. Many parents are completely hands-off and waiting for a miracle. Their children are lost. Public education should be a group effort. It does "take a village" and the "village" is failing, not the schools.

If we want to improve education we need to do two things. Return decision making to the local school boards all of the way down to prayer and spanking. The fact they work and live next door to us creates a certain accountability. Secondly, we need to abolish truancy laws. If a child does not want to be in school and the parents don't want the child there, that child doesn't learn to begin with, he disrupts class, drains resources, and frustrates staff. Furthermore, we drag parents into court, fine them, jail them when the fines aren't paid, and take their children and put them in reform school. What makes anyone think he has the right to take a child away from a parent, because they don't want to go to school? Federal funding is 11.3% of the revenue for our schools. It isn't worth the strings that are attached any more.

I'm on both sides of this issue.

The majority of the teachers in the Hamilton County School System do an incredible job. They work 12-14 hours per day and put up with more crap than any citizen could ever imagine.

Parents use to be the backbone of the American school system. They backed teachers with discipline and worked with their child at home to complete homework assignments. Not anymore, parents whine more about homework than their children do and make as many excuses for not getting it done. Parents have time for sports but they don't have time for homework. They want their child to earn a college scholarship playing sports. Excuse me? What good is a college scholarship for a child without enough academic skills to use it?

I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton but it does take a village to raise a child and we don't need the village idiots doing the job either.

1.) Let's do away with tenure and get rid of the teachers slacking in their job performance.

2.) Parents get off your butt and get to work. Your child is your responsibilty. Make them a priority. Be a parent and not a buddy. Your child will thank you for it and society will be better off in the long run.

3.) Let children fail. It's part of life. Quit rewarding failure. It does not work.

4.) If a child cannot perform on grade level by the end of the 8th grade. They need to be in Vocational program learning a skill or out of the system.

5.) Vote for a School Board Member that cares about the education of your child.

6.) Every School Board member should be required to spend one full day a month in the classroom of a school (unannounced). In and out of their district.

7.) Tell a teacher "THANK YOU" for a job well done.

I agree that the primary responsibility for learning rests with the students and, of course, their parents. If a student is not motivated to learn, no teacher can force them to.

But, if that is the case, why do we pay legions of administrators six-figure salaries to "manage" our schools and concoct get-smart-quick schemes that never work? It seems to me that all that money would better be left in possession of the people who work to earn it, and not given to the care and feeding of the central office staff.

And samuelduck, you are dead on about getting the federal government out of education (where it has no constitutional authority to be involved anyway). We may receive 11% of our funding from the Feds, but complying with their countless mandates costs us much more. Better we tell them where to stick their money and their mandates. But of course until we change most of our school board members, local control would not do us much good.

Pam, Are parents and students better in the rest of the state? State-- "B"

Hamilton County--"C"

This is just an interesting story for you. While in my business travels to another state, I watched a news program where high school students were given a twenty question test comprised of basic math (i.e. 467x12=?) and they were asked to complete it...without a calculator! Nearly two thirds could not get more than a few right. I am not putting blame on anyone, just thought that was sad.

I obtained the individual high school academic scores from the WRCB-TV web site and the math scores for Hixson High are ATROCIOUS. My three children graduated from HHS (1994, 1997, and 1999) and subsequently obtained university degrees. I have noticed for the past several years the academic deterioration at HHS.
If Dr. Scales is sincere about correcting academic issues with the city school system, then I suggest he start with the math dept. at Hixson High School. If someone out there has inside knowledge about what's going at HHS, please post it. Is this something else left behind by Ed Gravitt?

This is the what you will get from ANY compulsory government run school system: mediocrity, underachievement and bureaucratic sidestepping. I say let's abolish compulsory education and let the chips fall where they may. The property taxes that are now being confiscated from honest taxpayers could be used more efficiently for home schooling, private academies or church based efforts to educate members of local congregations with a focus on faith based values and principles embodied in a God centered education.

Really anything other philosophical viewpoint: evolutionist, Wiccan, Muslim or Amish....it's all bound to be better than the dumbed down pablum that is being peddled everyday by the likes of overpaid government educrats like Jim Scales. His kind are a joke and everybody knows it. Problem is the JOKE is on our kids and their grasp of reality in a much more competitive world marketplace for jobs and cutting edge ideas.

Let's make education voluntary and keep the government totally out of it. It's time we the people took responsibility for educating our kids and if that means we teach our kids to be farmers or mechanics, nail salon owners or high priests of finance====instead of the idiotic know-nothing text messaging automatons that are now spit out of the government run system, we'll have no one but ourselves to congratulate or blame.

I say let's throw off the current failed regime and begin ANEW!

How much worse could it be?

I teach in this district. Random comments:

Schools are accountable, teachers are accountable, students are accountable-there's one group who escapes accountability, and that's the parents, most of whom dress and act like their children.

Jim Scales will probably do what his predecessor and so many in corporate america do: when they don't perform, get bought out.

The IDEA law, which governs special education, is tyrannical. It allows its recipiants and their parents to lord the threat of a lawsuit over a school's head.

There is no such thing as zero tolerance in this district. Drug dealers are back in a couple of months.

Rhonda Thurman has no ideas of her own. She's just a gadfly. She is for fiscal responsability. Fine. Anyone can advocate that. What we need is someone who can also think, propose, and act on real solutions.

Central office is top heavy.

We need to ELIMINATE calculators from the classroom until high school.

Not every child is going to college. People need to get real about that and adjust our curriculum accordingly.

Parental Involvement! Parental Involvement! Parental Involvement! Anyone who say differently has their heads buried in the sand. Everyone says they want great schools and they want their child to succeed. Of course that is only if they don't have to be involved in their child's education.

My child goes to Normal Park, which mandates that the parents spend at least 18 volunteer hours involved with school activities and attend at least 2 parent/teacher conferences per year. Most parents spend much more time involved than that but that is the minimum. Have a look at their scores.

Want a startling fact? When Chattanooga Middle School closed, all 300 students were invited to return to Normal Park. Only 32 chose to commit to the same mandated volunteer hours and parent/teacher conferences.

Anyone who say that the schools have failed, I would argue that it's the parents who have failed their children.

These are your schools. Do something to change them if you don't like what is going on rather that whining about it on a message board! Get involved in your child's education!

Get parents involved directly in school and solve the discipline problems at school and the grades will go up.

Kids are too distracted, too immature to manage their education by themselves, no idea what awaits the uneducated these days, and too eager to jump into the sack with their girlfriend/boyfriend risking a decade of poverty while they try to raise kids and work or raise kids/work/and attend university.

Kids ought to go to school with their mind on school. Not on their cellphone, going shopping, what somebody is wearing new this morn, etc. Education. So they can continue that education after high school and enter adulthood with some skills that will earn them some income.

We can blame the school system but let's not forget to take responsibility for our kids as well.

At my house I have a son not really confident to repeatedly ask the questions in class that would clear up whatever topic he doesn't understand. So i reteach some of his subjects at home while we work on his homework together. He has been distracted by a few boys over the years that liked to give him a hard time and yet the parents of those boys don't see anything wrong with their children's behavior and the teach is too busy to fix the problem every time it happens.

Consequently our family does homework together every night. End result? Honor Roll. It's working.

Would I the parent rather watch some TV or work on home projects or play a game or read a book? Sure. But working with my son now means that he will have the necessary foundation when he is older and on his own to learn and self-teach whatever he needs.

Self-responsibility is a rare commodity here in America these days. We gripe about jobs going to China but then we shop at stores that only sell Chinese stuff (Wal-Mart I'm looking at you). We gripe about the gov't but won't volunteer in our community or vote the same jokers back into office that have been there for 20 years. It's not about this party or another. It's about both parties selling us down the road.

Let's get it together folks!

I grew up going to Hamilton County schools. I left the area long ago but still have ALL my family there and quite a few of the family kids are still in Hamilton County schools.

Another thing the school board needs to consider is creating a single school in some rural corner of the county where the troublemakers are all sent. That school could have stricter rules and even a dress code. A troubled kid would get all sorts of counseling and tutoring made available to them if they wanted it. They would have to EARN their way out of the school and back to the neighborhood school they left. We do this in our rural TN county. The extra hassle for the parents driving to the school each morn and evening encourages them to encourage their kids to do better I suspect.

I have a nephew that went to a Hamilton Co school that skipped classes and eventually dropped out of school because the school board relocated goons from all over the county to other schools to separate them from their "friends". Divide and conquer I suppose. Anyhow the goons relocated to this school would not quit tormenting this kid. He would get called down by teachers for infractions like having his hoodie up when the goons had entered the classroom right before him and never got the same correction from the teacher.

Fortunately for him his mother cared and got him into some sort of home schooling program and he excelled and got his GED.

No kid should have to put up with that in this day and age. I had my share of troubles way back when and it killed my enthusiasm for going to school. Had I been able to drop out I would have. Resulted in bad grades, bad attitude, etc. I graduated and went on to military service and a 4-yr college degree in engineering and I'm doing well but it took the long hard road to get here. Thanks old school house... (not really). I still have no interest in going back to see any of those people.

We settled by chance outside of E.TN. and enjoy ourselves very much here but we are ever alert to the same kind of schoolyard/classroom/bus ride antics that kills any kids' enthusiasm for school and being with their classmates. The school may turn a blind eye but we won't. So far, so good.

We can blame the administration but the quality of education is wholly dependent on them AND us AND our kid's enthusiasm.

Parental involvement is great, without a doubt. But just exactly how much has parental involvement increased since Dr. Scales came to join us?

Somebody tell me again why we are paying this man big $$$$$$ just to serve as a figurehead (and chief apologist when things go wrong, as they too often do). What has he done to improve the schools? We would be better off parceling his fat salary out to the worst performing schools so they could hire UTC mathematics, engineering, and computer science graduate students as part time math tutors.

Now THAT might actually make a difference. But having the superintendent mouth soothing platitudes to a room full of disinterested county commissioners doesn't accomplish squat.

The TRUTH is that school children are treated differently in our great nation based on where they live. A middle school student in Texas DIED by having his chest crushed when his teacher sat on him, a Texas high school student suffered deep bruising and welts to his lower back, buttocks and back of his legs when he received 21 "licks" with a wooden canoe paddle, which had to be taped to continue the beating, a 9-year old Georgia 3rd grader suffered deep bruising injuries when he was paddled with a WOODEN PADDLE 3 TIMES IN ONE DAY (Decatur Co., GA affirmed Corporal Punishment Policy 9/17/09) and a Publicly Funded Charter School in Memphis, Tennessee physically punishes middle/high school boys and GIRLS weekly during a ceremony called "Chapel" by hitting them with wooden paddles and/or whipping their hands with leather straps IN FRONT OF ALL THE OTHER STUDENTS AS A DETERRENT to publicly induce shame, humiliation and fear! The school employees in the above actions have LEGAL IMMUNITY and are STILL paid by our tax-dollars to be ENTRUSTED with the care and education of our children!

A recent news headline reads, “Nearly 60,000 spankings in Miss. schools last year." "Ouch! For the second time in a month, a school district in Leflore County has been hit with a $500,000 (each) lawsuit from a student alleging injuries from a paddling. It was reported that a state legal adviser, who told Bristol, Tennessee Director of Schools Gary Lilly that while school principals who paddled students were legally protected from allegations of assault, they were not immune from accusations of inappropriate or improper touching.

School boards are asking for trouble to sanction a practice that is intended to inflict pain.

What corporal punishment does accomplish is to degrade the teaching profession, drive good people away, and make the teaching field a safe haven for the dangerously unfit. Its net effect on schools is a negative one. The more that schools indulge in paddling, the higher the dropout rate, along with all the social ills that follow, e.g., gang activity, addiction, mental health problems, unemployment, etc.

Over 50 National Children's Health and Education Organizations have issued position statements to OPPOSE SCHOOL Corporal Punishment including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Bar Association, the National PTA (Parent Teacher Association), National Education Association, Prevent Child Abuse America and the NAACP, among others.

U.S. Congress is currently holding hearings on Abusive and DEADLY practices in SCHOOLS and MUST ABOLISH Physical/Corporal Punishment Nationwide of ALL Children in ALL Schools, The Cost is $0.

I disagree that the failure is due to the lack of parental involvement. That is what the teachers always like to claim rather than "own" the real reason that the children are failing. Let's get real. Taxpayers pay teachers to educate their children. They shouldn't have to re-educate the children every night after they get home. Is this why the schools start so early in Hamilton County? So that the children can get their real education from their parents after school?

Check the ACT grades for Hamilton County. They are consistently FALLING. This is a great indicator of what kind of education that they are getting. I find that the administration and teachers are basically non responsive. After leaving 3 messages for my son's middle school guidance counselor, I finally got a phone call back after a week. And the call to the principal with a note left on his door went answered. My fault, I am sure.

I don't understand why my 11th grader can't have a Geometry text book. The school says that they can't afford it. I don't understand why...in this computer age...I can't check homework assignments and grades online. I ask just how is a parent supposed to be involved? I don't understand why the schools are in the business of teaching religion...what happened to the churches? I don't understand why school athletes are not disciplined for disrupting class. How is a parent supposed to get involved if they are never notified of a problem in the first place?

I went to school in Hamilton County. I got a first class education...37 years ago. Oh the good ol' days...my teachers actually taught the subjects that we needed, students were disciplined when they misbehaved, the parents were NEVER involved...after all, that's what they paid the teachers for, we went to school at the totally reasonable hour of 8:30 am, and my religious upbringing was left to my church.