Memphis schools hire consultant who was stripped of most duties in Palm Beach County.

madfloridian

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Sun Aug-22-10 02:48 PM
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Memphis schools hire consultant who was stripped of most duties in Palm Beach County.

Edited on Sun Aug-22-10 02:49 PM by madfloridian

It's amazing how accountability only matters at the teaching level of education. Higher up almost anything goes. One can be a failure in one county and hired elsewhere at $1,500 a day.

Yet teachers are going to have their names published in two districts, more later, if their students don't score high enough on the tests.

Ain't it amazing?

Hat tip to Susan Ohanian:

Who Is MCS Consultant Jeffrey Hernandez?

The Commercial Appeal reported yesterday that the Memphis City Schools had quietly hired consultant Jeffrey Hernandez, a former associate of superintendent Kriner Cash's from the Miami-Dade Public School District, at a rate of $1,500 a day to turn around its lowest-performing schools.

Like members of the school board, we wondered exactly who this guy was. Here's what we found.

In April of this year, the Palm Beach Post called him the "most despised person in the Palm Beach County school system" in a story about his vying for a superintendent position in two other Florida counties."

From the Palm Beach Post article:

Jeffrey Hernandez, controversial Palm Beach County schools official, applies to run schools in Polk, Charlotte counties

The man who became the most despised person in the Palm Beach County school system earlier this academic year apparently wants to leave the county as much as many parents and teachers wanted to see him go.

Jeffrey Hernandez, who was the architect of a curriculum and testing program that spurred months of angry protests, has applied to become superintendent of the Polk County Public School District in central Florida. He is also vying to become the next superintendent in Charlotte County on the state's Gulf Coast.

..."Thank God, he's leaving Palm Beach County," said Stacy Gutner, a Boynton Beach woman who was a vocal critic of the test-heavy curriculum Hernandez developed.

Members of Testing is Not Teaching, a Facebook site that was created to rally parents and teachers, voiced similar views.

"God help wherever he goes, but glad he's leaving here," one woman wrote. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out of town."

Some vowed to work to keep Hernandez from getting a top schools job.

"No child should face the nightmare that our children faced," wrote Mike Dowling, a Palm Beach County teacher for more than 18 years. "I am more than willing to drive to Lakeland and spend the night in a motel in order to address the School Board."

But indeed, Memphis seems not to have done its homework, and he was hired anyway. Appears the salary is up for dispute.

City school board lines up consultant with fast hire

The city school board is paying a Florida consultant $1,500 a day, starting today, to help it figure out how to structure, then turn around its 30 lowest-performing schools.

Jeffrey Hernandez, an associate of Supt. Kriner Cash�s from Miami-Dade Public Schools, has actually been in the district since January, when Cash set up a deal for him to work six months for $49,000. That deal ended in late June.
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The website for Hernandez�s firm, National Academic Educational Partners, says it has been working in Memphis nearly a year.

Apparently the school board was surprised.

His arrangement with the district came as a surprise to the board members, who until now have heard that the district would be hiring a partner to help it turn around about one-sixth of its schools, including eight in such dire condition that the state under its Race to the Top plan planned to take them over.

..."His arrangement with the district came as a surprise to the board members, who until now have heard that the district would be hiring a partner to help it turn around about one-sixth of its schools, including eight in such dire condition that the state under its Race to the Top plan planned to take them over.

�I have a strong disdain for approving contracts after the fact,� said board member Tomeka Hart. �If this was something that needed board approval, why are we doing it after the fact?�

In fact why approve it at all without checking how he did in Palm Beach County?

Arne Duncan approves heartily of the L. A. Times publishing teachers' names if their students don't meet some test score standards. The parents and students' names won't be published, just the teachers. It is holding them up to humiliation.

It is about time that the administrative types be held to some kind of accountabilily as well.