Pedro's Time
Across the city and, more importantly, on Metro's school board, there is growing consensus that Nashville schools director Pedro Garcia should move on. Sources tell the Scene he's trying to do just that, having quietly applied and interviewed last week in San Diego, a district that hopes to install a new superintendent by year's end (but may have an announcement as early as Dec. 18).
The possible opportunity in San Diego comes at a time when Garcia’s popularity in Nashville is ebbing and his future here is uncertain. Although his current contract runs through 2010, the school board will approach his annual performance review in January with a critical eye, according to recent reports. A popular figure in his first few years after coming to Nashville, Garcia has evolved into a controversial system head whose imperious leadership style is thought by many to have undermined teacher and principal morale while alienating parents. In the last couple of years, Garcia has found himself encountering increasing resistance to his ideas for system reform, including a balanced calendar (rejected by the school board after much public opposition), standard school attire (in place systemwide since August, over the strident objections of a vocal minority), citywide school rezoning (put on hold by the school board after much public opposition) and single-gender classrooms (in place experimentally in some schools but apparently receiving a cool reception from the board).
Now, with MNPS placed in “corrective action” status by the Tennessee Department of Education because of the system’s underperformance on federal No Child Left Behind academic achievement benchmarks, it appears that the school board (which itself could be taken over if the state were so inclined) may be more interested in reforming Garcia than in Garcia’s reforms.
Across the board, education officials the Scene asked for on-the-record comment either feigned ignorance about this development or cryptically declined.
While this news could well incite familiar invective, complaining emails in all caps between parent groups or blood-thirsty political rantings from Metro Council members elucidating the reasons why Garcia has worn out his welcome here, that wouldn't be constructive. The story line is not simply that Garcia has outgrown Nashville—or that it has outgrown him—and hopes to see Bransford Avenue in his rear view mirror. It's that Nashville is poised to embrace a new visionary whose leadership will directly affect more than 70,000 Metro students.
Comments
What are the chances of finding a schools director who is sympathetic to the KIPP approach?
Posted 12/10/2007 at 12:00:38 PMRandy Dowell for schools director!
Posted 12/10/2007 at 01:44:00 PMIt's about time these comments were made. Now use the power of the pen to find a education leader who knows urban education and pedagogy and who actually supports all of the Nashville public school students, parents, teachers, principals and support staff. KIPP and Randy Dowell are wonderful but there is a lot of difference in running one school and a whole school system. Possibly every school should be a charter school.
Posted 12/10/2007 at 02:00:46 PMWhy is changing the configuration of MLK always placed on the table? Please, it's one of the few Metro Schools that is working. Check the recent rankings by US News and World Report. MLK doesn't need corrective action.
Posted 12/10/2007 at 02:03:19 PMNo one wants to change MLK. Just think how much more innovative it could be if it had the latitude of being a charter school.
Posted 12/10/2007 at 02:13:29 PMThe idea that you can fix a large urban school system with 70,000+ students with charter schools borders on silly. Sure, charters can be useful as ways to experiment, especially with at-risk students who otherwise are consigned to failing schools. Anecdotal evidence points to successes and to disappointments. But the research evidence remains elusive ("the mathematics performance of White, Black, and Hispanic fourth-graders in charter schools was not measurably different from the performance of fourth-graders with similar racial/ethnic backgrounds in other public schools") and inconclusive ("their average performance apparently falls below that of regular public schools.")
The question of whether public education in Nashville would benefit from an expansion of charters is a reasonable topic for discussion, but let's not pretend that this is a scalable solution in the short or medium term to what ails Metro's public schools writ large. And the idea that a school like MLK would be even "more innovative" (whatever that means) as a charter school is inane.
Posted 12/10/2007 at 06:37:17 PMTell us what you really think bb.
Posted 12/10/2007 at 06:48:06 PMSarcasm aside, bb what do you think would move our system to being a first class urban school system? Charter schools seem to have successes the way magnet schools do because students/guardians chose to have a child enrolled and the administration has a singular focus. But in the early and mid-90s, MNPS had site-based management, which has some similarities with charters, and it was well-received by faculty and parents in schools with strong leadership from principals and parents. So what do we do now? If you could tell Mayor Dean and the School Board what to do for next year, what would you say? This is a sincere request for your thoughts.
Posted 12/10/2007 at 07:00:11 PMoh how i hope this is true -- we need to make sure the board "just says no to ben wright" as an interim director!! he is not qualified for any position in this district -- if pg goes and wright is put in as the interim, pg just might have the last laugh --
we need a progressive leader for our complex education challenges --
Posted 12/10/2007 at 08:40:17 PMJust to clarify, while the objections to SSA were raised by a "vocal minority," the majority of high school parents opposed--and probably still oppose--SSA, but were given no means to represent that opposition, while a minority of principles in favor of SSA were represented as not only the majority, but as ALL, the principles. Many of Garcia's failures have to do with trying to ram dumb ideas down the throats of parents, teachers, and students--and spending huge efforts to mobilize a public relations machine to trumpet the success and support of such programs.
Posted 12/11/2007 at 10:44:15 AMEasy spelling rule: the principal of your school is your pal. Hopefully, your principal has principles.
Posted 12/11/2007 at 12:48:30 PMNo school, urban or suburban, is a success unless you have parental involvement in the education of their children and parental backing of the teachers and principals. That is what makes the difference in the successes of charter, magnet, or even private schools. You cannot continue to pour money over and into low achieving schools and expect to have anything other than low results. Money is not the magic elixir that will heal the schools. The teachers and school district are not failing the children, their own parents are failing them. I have been in inner city schools that work and suburban schools that do not. The difference is the expectations that parents have of their own children and the parent's ability to control their own children. Teachers cannot do a job that parents themselves cannot or refuse to do. When a kindergartener spits at you and refuses to do the most basic of social interactions or basic educational exercises, how do you teach them?
Posted 12/11/2007 at 03:48:18 PM