Vitti took every opportunity he could this weekend to say he was brought in to be a transformational superintendent, a change agent.
Um, no, no he wasn’t, he was brought in to help improve our district. When he arrived we had serious issues and I don’t want to sugar coat that, discipline was bad, teacher morale was poor, often who you know not what you could do determined advancement and our schools on the north and west sides of town were floundering. That being said I thought we had tons of potential and it wouldn’t take blowing up the system to reach it. Disciplined schools, respected and engaged teachers, and stop treating our schools on the north and west sides of town like unwanted step siblings would have gone a long way.
Fast forward to today and discipline is bad, teacher morale is at an all-time low, often who you know not what you can do determine advancement and our schools on the north and west sides of town are floundering. Then throw in the disastrous Duval Reads/Engage NY, the elimination of most librarians and many libraries, a three hundred percent increase in charter schools, him outsourcing the district’s functions to corporate raiders with acronyms for names, TFA, TNTP and JPEF, and the dissolution of our neighborhood schools.
Look I don’t want to be that guy who hates puppies and doesn’t think the sky is blue just because Vitti likes puppies and thinks the sky is. This administration has been amazing at writing grants that bring new resources to some of our schools and he was right in bringing back the arts and PE even if the implementation has been ham-fisted but that’s one step forward and six steps back.
At the end of the day however, yes he has changed the district just not for the better and sadly I am not sure how much more of his change the district can take.
Note: before anybody yells at me about graduation rates being up here are two things you should consider, they were going up before Vitti got here and do you know where else they are up? EVERYWHERE,
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