Olive branches: Help us help you, School Board; help us help each other
Back in 2012, following the terrible murder of two Polk State College students, PSC President Eileen Holden said this during a campus vigil. I can tell you that these three young men were successful...
View ArticleScoreboard education encourages and rewards LeRoy’s behavior
This will be short. If you’re ready to start right now in the happy work of building a better Polk School District model, we need you. Come down to the School Board Office in Bartow for today’s 5 p.m....
View ArticleCorrection: Debra Wright did not attend the LeRoy School Board Meeting
I want to note for the record that Debra Wright did not attend Friday’s School Board meeting concerning Kathryn LeRoy’s future. I mentioned a report that she would in my previous column. My intent was...
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Welcome to Polk County: Finland on I-4, Part 1
On Monday night, 6:30 to 8:30, at the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce, Citizens for Better Educational Leadership (CBEL) will hold our first public meeting since the ouster of Superintendent Kathryn...
View ArticleImproving the traditional school experience: an update on our quiet progress
The energy of overthrowing tyrants always gives way to the hard slog of building something better. That’s where we are now in the process of reforming the Polk School District. So I wanted to provide a...
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American Caliban: Of Trump and “great” and “again”
The classic science fiction film Forbidden Planet took its inspiration from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. It imagined a creature, based on the Tempest’s ghoulishly Freudian Caliban, that it called...
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Give Jackie Byrd a chance; give Tim Harris hell
It’s always difficult to make definitive judgements about cultural change in any large organization. It’s especially hard for education, where so many people have so many different interests. And we...
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Dangerous women
Meet Theresa Burroughs, of Greenesboro, Alabama. This picture was taken, as the placard states, on July 28, 1965. That’s about three months after the infamous “Bloody Sunday” voting rights...
View ArticleStrike 2: Polk Schools’“accountability” office gives Polk County the finger
On the heels of the Polk School Board’s cowardly — and borderline insulting — snap-hire of Jackie Byrd, those of us looking to improve the Polk classroom experience find ourselves confronted with a new...
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The Polk punisher: Heather Wright’s personal incentives to ignore us — and you
Polk County has chosen — seemingly gratuitously — to punish its students for their performance on End of Year (EoY) and End of Course (EoC) tests. This punishment stands out among other districts that...
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$2.5 million of “Polk” grant money for teachers “outside Polk County”? Why?
I’ve just started reading through Heather Wright’s testing grant. The actual name of the grant is “CTE Hard to Measure Test Items.” It provides for just short of $4.3 million in its amended form. “Hard...
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Heather Wright has traveled — or will travel — 45ish times in 18 months
Late update: There are some duplicates among those pages. Heather Wright passes along this forceful email to her district public records person, who is far more responsive than she is: Ann, I wish that...
View ArticleThe last refuge of a “reform” scoundrel — and some questions for Heather Wright
I suspect that a number of my regular “conservative” sparring partners will find the third paragraph in this fabulous comment in support of Heather Wright as amusing as I do. But I’d actually like you...
View ArticleDear LEDC, part 1: Let’s secede from the state education experience; not each...
A couple months ago, I asked an open question of Polk economic development people. Which of the following arguments makes a better Polk schools sales pitch to a business leader — or maybe a high...
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Dear LEDC, part 2: Scenes from the Polk testing experience
Important late development. Polk District Chief Academic Office Jacque Bowen sent the following email late this afternoon. It doesn’t really change the substance of what’s below. But it’s a welcome...
View ArticleJackie Byrd shows how to behave like an adult
This will be very short. But I think it’s important to note to Polk Superintendent Jackie Byrd’s calm, adult voice in the great bathroom freakout of 2016. The Ledger had good story about this on...
View ArticleResponses to questions about Heather Wright’s leadership of the Polk...
Citizens for Better Educational Leadership (CBEL) wants to reform the mission, focus, and even the very name of the Polk School District’s Office of Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation. It’s a...
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Billy needs your time, energy, money, and RSVP
Political advertisement paid for and approved by Billy Townsend, School Board District 1 (Please see full explanation at the bottom.) I’ve been staring blankly at this screen for 10 minutes trying to...
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Bartow Horror Story: the catastrophic failure of Polk’s testing and student...
Political advertisement paid for and approved by Billy Townsend, School Board District 1 (Please see the full explanation of this disclaimer at the end of this essay.) Nothing illustrates the...
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