Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Belaboring the Obvious in CCSD; More Money, Please

Oh, you wanted us to teach them to READ! Why didn't you say so? We'll get to it right away.

That pretty much sums up the response of CCSD's administrators and School Board to the series of articles on literacy (or the lack of it) in Charleston County's schools. See School Board Focuses on Students' Literacy in Tuesday's P & C.

Now, to be fair to the School Board, why should it need to "outline its expectations for students and their ability to read"? Isn't Superintendent Nancy McGinley paid beaucoup bucks to take care of such standards? Why should she and her minions at 75 Calhoun need guidelines?

It must have been a real pleasure to hear CCSD administration try to put the best face on its failures to follow through with the expensive "initiatives" announced in the past. And, can you imagine? The P & C's exposes have made Gregg Meyers feel bad. In fact, he's now grateful that the problem has been brought to his attention.

Further, after her more than five years as Chief Academic Officer and now Superintendent, McGinley feels a "new sense of urgency" about reading statistics. After all, she'd been focused on "building capacity to improve literacy rates." Now she understands that she actually needs to improve literacy!

Wait for it-------

The next idea from 75 Calhoun will be that CCSD has inadequate funds to improve literacy, when in reality it suffers from inadequate will.

Imagine a "culture" where fourth graders can read.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Once again, well said. But I'm afraid the rest of us may have lost the will to question their wisdom, or more accurately, their lack of it.

Anonymous said...

Dear God, it just never stops. These clowns are soon to get an education in excellence from the choice side of public schools.

Anonymous said...

I am sorry but it all boils down to this, if a child comes prepared and ready to learn into school, then they will learn. I have 2 children in public school and they are learning and so are most of their peers. We have great teachers and not so great teachers but if the parents have not made education a priority then the child does not have a chance. Until we can teach parents to be good parents the schools and teachers are not going to be able to perform the impossible. More money is not going to help unfortunately.