Here’s what we have: A bureaucrat at the Kentucky Department of Education used the words “academic genocide” and “apartheid” to describe the epic list of failing schools in Jefferson County. Oh, big deal! The state has no plans to do anything until August 2013, after the 2012-13 test scores are released. Remember how long it took to get the last batch?
Even though nothing substantial will happen anytime soon, or ever, Holliday’s words were enough to get the Jefferson County Board of Education so cranky that they sent out this letter today (see below) that reflects more passion and dismay than they have EVER expressed about failing schools and alarmingly low test scores. So typical. Fretting about image. As usual.
And the letter refers to “elbow grease.” Who put that in there? Did somebody call my grandmother for that tidbit?
If you think Holliday is going to help our schools, well, think again. Holliday is looking out for Holliday. The board of education is looking out for the teachers union. And, face it, nobody who is entrenched in the public school system is looking out for kids who are stuck in failing schools.
Windbags. All of them.
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Here’s the letter, just click on the pic to view the two-page PDF. Scroll down a little further to read about Holliday.
Below is a piece from the New York Times story, “New Questions About Trips Sponsored by Education Publisher”. Just click on the pic to read the whole story…
The summer of 2010, Lu Young, the superintendent of schools in Jessamine County, a Lexington, Ky., suburb, took a trip to Australia paid for by the Pearson Foundation, a nonprofit arm of Pearson, the nation’s largest educational publisher.
Ten school superintendents went on the trip, which cost Pearson $60,000. While the foundation described the visit as a way “to exchange ideas on creating schools for the 21st century,” there was ample time for play. “Everybody’s highlight of Canberra was to get to see the kangaroos,” Ms. Young said on a video produced by the foundation.
Six months later, in Frankfort, Ky., Ms. Young sat on a committee interviewing executives from three companies bidding to run the state’s testing program. WhileCTB/McGraw-Hill submitted the lowest bid, by $2.5 million, Ms. Young and the other committee members recommended Pearson.
In April, Kentucky’s Education Department approved a $57 million contract with Pearson. And then, over the next six months, the commissioner who oversees that department, Terry Holliday, traveled to both China and Brazil on trips underwritten by — that’s right — the Pearson Foundation.
Education Voodoo 