No surprise here

Count Florida Board of Education Chairman T. Willard Fair and Education Trust President Kati Haycock among those not surprised by yesterday's St. Petersburg Times story. A Times review found serious teacher misconduct cases appear to be more often linked to high poverty schools.

"In some ways, it fits with everything else we know about teacher quality and high poverty schools," Haycock told the Gradebook after yesterday's presentation. "Not that there aren't some fabulous teachers there, as you know. Dedicated, high performers, incredible. But these schools have often been a dumping ground for really awful people."

Fair said it's no surprise given a system that knowingly shuffles teachers to high poverty schools after they're deemed "not worthy" of more affluent schools. "We're not going to let them filter up," he said.

Fair also said the issue of teacher equity deserves more scrutiny, and that at some point will gain traction with parents. "Parents, be they white, black or polka-dotted, care about who's surrounding their children," he said. "As soon as they find out, they're going to be upset. They don't know yet."

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Comments

[truth]

terminator, you are a racist. how dare you imply the "n" word toward Fair. St. Pete Times should remove your post because it is "racially offendive". I'm not saying that your general thoughts are not valid, however you took a bit too far. For now on, no blogging for you after 9pm!! Shame, Shame, Shame..... i don't know your name!

[terminator]

The media needs to be questioning Mr. Fair about his unethical (and possibly illegal) business practices from when he served as Chair of the Miami-Dade Empowerment Zone.
Under Fair's "leadership" the committee blew millions of taxpayer dollars on shady deals that benefited cronies, insiders and lobbyists with little money actually going to the people it was supposed to help.
A Boston developer was later indicted for accepting several hundred thousand dollars and never delivering on a proposed development called Poinciana Park in the middle of Miami's Liberty City slum.
The Miami Herald did an extensive expose of Mr. Fair's committee and how they failed the taxpayers of Miami-Dade County.
Ask Mr. Fair how much he helped local schools when he served as head of the Miami Urban League?
Most all the schools within Mr. Fair's community were D/F schools with some of the most deplorable conditions in Florida.
"Uncle Tom" Willard sold out to Jeb so he can act like big n on campus up in Tallahassee.
Don't know why Crist would have reappointed him but we all know Crist is a stuffed suit empty chair Governor who really could care less about public education.
The whole Florida Board is a joke and should be abolished. They haven't accomplished a thing since their inception.

[Observer]

T. Willard Fair never saw a charter school he didn't like or a school district he didn't loathe. He was a Jeb Bush appointee. No surprise there. Charlie Crist should have sent him packing when he had the chance. I don't particularly care what Haycock has to say, but T. Willard is chairman of the State Board of Education, for goodness sake. Even Mr. Matus questioned his data. Good grief!

[Observer]

T. Willard Fair never saw a charter school he didn't like or a school district he didn't loathe. He was a Jeb Bush appointee. No surprise there. Charlie Crist should have sent him packing when he had the chance. I don't particularly care what Haycock has to say, but T. Willard is chairman of the State Board of Education, for goodness sake. Even Mr. Matus questioned his data. Good grief!

"In some ways, it fits with everything else we know about teacher quality and high poverty schools," Haycock ...

NOTHING?

There was no clear and convincing evidence that this is a FACT, yet we're going to move on like it is actually true.

What do you think this does to the morale of the teachers in these schools?

Can we talk about how the parents are going to come in to the schools and (at least figuratively) spit on the teachers, suggesting they are less than the best the district has to offer?

Can we talk about other factors at these poor schools? Like the liklihood of the parent being an abuser? Is the group of parents at these schools more likely to physically, emotionally or sexually abuse their child? You think?

Teachers-whether they are white, black or polka-dotted care about who's surrounding their students.

What's the point here? Is there a point? Or, are we, "as usual-with no suprises" using faulty data AND faulty logic to jump to faulty conclusions about public education.

Oh, brother!

At least check into the inappropriate behavior in Pinellas. Again, I ask, was the teacher teaching at the "poor school" while the misconduct occured? Or-was the teacher later transferred there?