IBEA - Building The Legacy of IBEA 2009 -Part 1

I've been thinking.

Be it based on race or be it based on disabilities, try this out.

Recently, I have been reading the local blogs regarding the issues related to schools where a minority (black students) is a majority. One postulation is that where the minority is a majority, education sucks.

Along with that postulation, there appears to be an exodus of 'effective teachers from these sites of majority minorities. There is an insinuation that the exodus of 'effective teachers' is composed of a majority of white teachers, a white-teacher-flight, so to speak. The assumption is that this exodus is based on race.

Another postulation is that the exodus of these 'effective teachers' is not based on race, but rather the exodus is based on a flight from dealing with the disruptive behaviors of the majority minority.

This exodus of teachers and reaction to disruptive behavior of minorities (black students) is all too familiar to families with children with disabilities.

This will be the first of a proposed series to explore this issue.

While waiting for the next post, I ask that the readers contemplate the need for developing the following federal law:

"The Individuals With Blackness Education Act".


For the purposes of this segment, school systems could adopt the language of the current IDEA regarding "highly qualified teachers" and apply it to the proposed IBEA.

More About Isolated Incidents

I have written before about how the public school system is blinded by numbers. I submit that that is why "they" like the phrase "isolated incident", because, in their mind, it minimizes the conflict.

Isolated incidents and insignificant percentages sound great, until it happens to you.

Here are the numbers provided by The Gradebook:

Hillsborough: Of 12,887 classroom teachers, 6,709 were rated Outstanding (52.1 percent), 6,088 were rated Satisfactory (47.2 percent), 62 were rated Needs Improvement (0.5 percent) and 28 were rated Unsatisfactory (0.2 percent).

Redisni sounds like they are an "insider" - wonder what will happen to him/her when they are traced down.

"The improbable numbers reinforce the old say "there are lies, big lies and then there are statistics. Administrators like to use statistical results to support their progress and planning, but this time the numbers came back to bite them.

By the way, those 28 low performing teachers from Hillsborough probably came from my school. Since those teachers were purged from the school, can Hillsborough now boast a 100% satisfactory+ rate?

Posted by: redisni | July 08, 2009 at 04:28 PM "

The public, and school employees simply have to trust the numbers.

How many thousands of students and parents are effected by those 28 teachers for the years that those teachers are there? How many of these students and parents will eventually turn against the system after their complaints are ignored? How many borderline students that may have been helped with their communication skills will instead end up being identified as what is wrong with the education system. We know the school system can't make a good salad with wilted lettuce and rotten tomatoes. Throw in some Po Boys and some Mexican jumping beans, and the system's production suffers.

But the numbers look good. Damn near 100% is something that damn near 100% of the people will believe.

No Hint of Bringing In A Professional Coach Here

Maybe the below statements are true, maybe they are not. Doesn't sound like there will be another dust up like there was at Alafia Elementary.

"I'm sorry to say that Ms. Hoffman had to go--and she should have been released. She did not "lead" this school. In fact, it is clear that she was not competent to lead anything if what is alleged to have occurred is true. She failed the victim and she failed the entire community. Others should also be gone. The school board should have fired them due to incompetence and placing students at risk immediately. This is a whitewash.

Posted by: Steve | July 08, 2009 at 01:22 PM"

My understanding is that a letter of petition signed by a large portion of the faculty was submitted to the district asking her to resign. I believe it included prominent parent signatures as well. The district basically passed the request on to her, and I don't think she would have had very good prospects had she chose to stay. Apparently, she wasn't very well liked by the teachers and was perceived as a bit of a bully herself. Even though this would seem more of an excuse to get rid of her than placing responsibility for what happened, the two were possibly linked. Everyone knows in the system that if a majority of a faculty lacks respect for their administration, a school-wide decline in effort occurs. Apathy, bitterness, and a general lack of investment become the norm. Put in a quality principal, one who inspires, leads, motivates and encouirages the teachers and faculty to be the best they can be. Things will turn around quick.

Posted by: Jennifer | July 08, 2009 at 03:54 PM

I am not sure what this statement means:

There are so many criminals going to public schools that it isn't funny. Juvenile criminals are running rampart. I am sure the school board hinted to her to retire. I guess someone these days has to face the bullet. Everything will be fine now.

Posted by: Agnes | July 08, 2009 at 02:11 PM

Has there ever been a situation where a school was held responsible for similar alleged events over a similar alleged time span when the kids were under the supervision of a parent and there were no school employees around?

A Salvo From A Student

Brennan Cannivet Declares his Independence from Florida Public Schools!

"Broadbrush Attack Parent" or "Alienated Parent" - Whatever

Here is another perspective on the "war between the teacher and the public".

Maybe I should claim to be an alienated parent. My first rebuttal would be that I only asked for an appropriate program, and never asked for the most effective. After all, I was not a professional teacher, I was simply a parent of a disabled kid. How could a simple parent, especially one with a disabled kid, even come close to knowing what is the most effective program? Why would I argue with a professional who told me that they knew what was right for my child, at the same time those professionals kept pointing out that what was happening, in their own classroom, was wrong for my child.


Maybe it was because my son entered the classroom without a funding mandate. Deaf/blind is one of those high cost mandates. Little did I know that the regular kids were privy to programs that did not force the school system to seek less costly ways to meet whatever mandate that regular kids come under.

Or, are regular ed kids not seen as "an extra burden"? Regular ed kids get to walk through the front door of the school without the big red "UM" (unfunded mandate) emblazoned on their shirt.

Maybe the school system can put a little logo right next to the handicap emblems on the short buses: "Unfunded Mandate Kids Ride This Bus".

Top Ten: Issues Impacting School Administrators:

"Unfunded Mandates The U.S. school system is designed as a collection of locally controlled districts. But inevitably, state and federal regulations and programs influence how a local district must operate.
Laws such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act call upon schools to provide services or accommodations, but the mandates often do not include funding to carry out the provisions of the law.
When state and federal governments require schools to adopt certain policies or establish specific programs without providing the money needed to do so, schools often are between a rock and a hard place: Ignore a federal or state mandate and risk punitive action, or slash other programs to free funds and meet the unfunded mandates.
Without the money to carry out a program, a district often is put in the position of seeking less costly ways of meeting a mandate, which can alienate parents who believe their children are entitled to the most effective program, regardless of cost."

Another View of "The War"

I have a notion that had I not had a child with disabilities, I probably would have never been aware of the difficulties that teachers have working within the present public education system.

Here are a couple of viewpoints offered by others:


Teacher Magazine: Upending the Negative Teacher Stereotype:

Cyndi writes:

"Fix poverty, fix crumbling schools, fix neighborhoods, fix health care, fix the job situation, fix child care and over time, you will find that America's teachers will be producing top scholars from all areas of the country. To blame teachers for the poor results in some schools only shows the ignorance of the speaker, no matter how loudly he/she shouts."

Drturner writes:

"We not only teach, but make sure kids are healthy, keep an eye on the home environement looking for abuse (mandated reporting), have to raise parents who think that they are still kids also, deal with administrators who have no clue what is going on in the classroom because they live in a fantasy world of politics and self promotion, live with archaic testing methods, out of date text books, teach in ways that are not proper or appropriate for the children (i.e. lecture when we know that oral teaching only reaches about 20% of students) and are evaluated on that method only, deal with local politics and the oldboy system of hiring and moving to leadership positions (i.e. not what you can do but how many years have you been in the district which gives us hide bound administrators with no skills), in other words we need to rethink the whole system......."

Is There A Myth Among Us?

Back in the day, I became familiar with "myths" and unwritten policies. On more than one occasion, I discovered that the practices of the HCPS did not follow the state statutes. It took me a while to overcome the status quo.


National group and local mom seek to end restraint of special education students | Extra Credit:

"By Sylvia W. Smith, J.D.
January 16, 2009 9:14 PM | Link to this
Dear Laura,
Thank you for reporting on the release of this important study by our nation’s disability rights network. And thank you for interviewing Ms. Musumeci.
Unfortunately, there is a statement in your article that needs prompt correction.
There is no such thing as a “Florida law [that] allows school officials to restrain special education students who are deemed a danger to themselves or others.” In fact, there are no Florida rules or laws governing restraint and seclusion use in schools whatsoever with the exception of one fire safety rule on the books about how seclusion rooms must be constructed."