Seattle School Board selects Goodloe-Johnson as superintendent

[flamingyouth]

The Seattle School Board voted unanimously to offer Charleston superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson the job as the city's next public school superintendent.

Goodloe-Johnson was the last candidate standing today after Gregory Thornton withdrew from the competition. Goodloe-Johnson is superintendent of the Charleston County, S.C., schools and has an extensive background in education, a lengthy resume and a doctorate in education.

Goodloe-Johnson must now decide whether to leave her post to come to a school district that is still dealing with fallout from school closures, an achievement gap between white and minority students and trying to boost standardized test scores

The timing of the board's decision struck some parents and community members as abrupt, coming less than a week after both finalists visited Seattle for meet-and-greet sessions and tours of some schools.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/311416_supe12sww.html

[Heddi]

1. As we used to say when I lived in South Carolina

"Thank God for Mississippi"---for it was lovely Mississippi educational practices that kept the even lovelier South Carolina educational system from constantly ranking 50th in the nation.

Granted, I moved from SC to Seattle in 2001, and last attended Charleston County School District in 1994 when I graduated (or gad-dee-aded, as was pronounced by our keynote speaker) high school.

I would hope that things have changed in the Charleston school system since 1994, but I sincerely doubt it---or at least not to the point where the super could be seen as some beam of enlightenment for Seattle children.

Again--thank god for Mississippi. Were it not for them, SC would have been 50th in SAT scores, #1 in Gonorrhea and Chlamydia infections among high school students, #1 in unwed highschool pregnancies, #1 in high school drop out rate, #1 in college drop out rates and #50 in college enrollment rates. (I think we also hung out at the bottom (or top, depending on how the studies rated awfulness) with regards to literacy in high school, math abilities in high school---all that good stuff.

The schools were in horrible conditions. My high school had about 30 trailers for classrooms. They were so ridiculously rotten that when I explain to people the condition of the trailers (and the school itself) they just can't believe me. I MUST be exaggerating. I MUST be fibbing. But I'm not. The roofs of the trailers were so unhinged that when the wind blew slightly harder than a cough the roof would lift up in the corner.

God forbid it rained when you were in a trailer-class because you'd get wet. And your bag would get soaked. And your paper couldn't be written on it was so wet. Desks were broken, holes in the floor, boarded up windows.

And no, I didn't go to a "ghetto" school--rather, ALL of the schools in Charleston County were of this condition, or sadly, worse. All except for the multi-gazillion dollar MAGNET SCHOOL that was built because the MAGNET SCHOOL was built because alot of MAGNET STUDENTS (code word for kind of affluent white kids that lived in rather run down neighborhoods and their parents really didn't want their beautiful white children going to school with dirty black kids and their rap music and dredlocks so suddenly the WHITE KIDS are MAGNET and the black kids are....anti magnet) Anyway. So the MAGNET SCHOOL is built and it has AC and running water in the bathrooms and working heaters and you don't have to worry about roaches crawling in your bag while you're in class.....

And all the existing schools (Charleston has a high black population) had no AC, no heat, peeling paint, ASBESTOS IN THE CEILINGS. falling ceilings. no hot water in the bathrooms---all that jazz.

it was a clusterfuck. I wish I could remember the asshat who was super then when the MAGNET SCHOOL was built---alot of shit about that.

Oh and back in the early 90's or late 80's there was this big to-do about teachers giving kids answers to the state achievement exams ha ha ha.

[maxsolomon]

2. i went to a magnet school too

except my parents sent my white ass, and that of my 3 siblings, into the worst ghetto in downtown cincinnati to a school that was 60% african american, in a neighborhood that was 80% african american & 20% appalachian.

mine was the opposite of your experience.

good luck to the new superintendent. she's going to need it. this is one fucked up school system.

[LisaM]

3. I know four kids who graduated from Garfield

Two are in Ivy League Schools and one is at Pomona. The other went to music school and actually turned down Juilliard. I always hear about how bad the Seattle schools are, but how can you do much better than that?