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| Hamilton County Commission meeting | |
Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey and several county commissioners say the school system needs a plan to boost achievement -- and soon.
"The sooner you can get that plan in place, the better off we'll all be," Mr. Ramsey said Wednesday at the Hamilton County Commission meeting.
The commission funds the county school system.
That same day, schools Superintendent Jim Scales came before the commission, telling the group that schools officials are feeling a "controlled sense of urgency" to put together a plan. Officials also have been working to prepare for more-strenuous academic standards from the state that go into effect next year, he said.
"For the last 18 months, the more rigorous skills that we knew were going to be in the new standards, we have had staff development activities for our teachers and our principals on those skills," Dr. Scales said.
Commissioner Fred Skillern said training hasn't improved results.
"Some of the new principals that come in -- I don't know if they can stand any more training," he said.
Dr. Scales came to Wednesday's commission meeting to answer questions about the state's annual Report Card, which was released Tuesday. The Report Card gave Hamilton County's public schools an average grade of C and showed declining test scores and graduation rates.
"We own this. I own this," Dr. Scales told commissioners. "But what we own is a system that has not failed."
Dr. Scales told commissioners that Hamilton County's scores were similar to those of Davidson County and the city of Memphis. He said Knox County's score was a B.
Still, Commissioner Skillern said he was "very disappointed" in the county schools' showing.
"I just don't see us getting the value for what we're spending," he said.
Commissioners Greg Beck and Jim Coppinger said they'd like to see more parental involvement in the schools.
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Ho hum, another plan. Let the "spin" begin.
Given the academic decline of our public schools, maybe the teachers should also be tested, particularity, in mathematics.
The education bureaucrats could also invent another grading system like "value added" to create more A's and B's.
Employers want to know how well a job applicant comprehends materials when presented, not how much they improve when presented the same material multiple times.
Any plan should address specific areas needing improvement, i.e., low math scores at Hixson High School, with a timeline and incentives for improvement plus penalties for non-improvement.
The last sentence in the article said it all. As for low math scores at Hixson students who want to learn there can learn there.
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.