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Do We Really Care About Our Schools?

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By STEVE OTTO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 1, 2008

Seems like a stupid enough question. Of course we care about schools. Aren't we spending numbers that now are in the billions on education? Isn't the state government obsessed with fiddling with the school system? Isn't the University of Florida now the No. 1 party school in the country? Obviously we care about something.

I tuned in to the weekly meeting of the Hillsborough County School Board, figuring, at the very least, I would get a laugh as this huff 'n' puff crowd tried to defend its recent travel excesses.

Instead, I came in just as they were in another dither. That morning, someone from the University of South Florida had called up to say they no longer wanted to be in the charter school business, and would the board come to the rescue and take over the USF Patel Charter School.

I know there is more to the story than this, but the word at the time was that USF President Judy Genshaft had said something about not having the resources to do the school justice and the school's board had voted to abandon ship. The school's principal had resigned.

This all came on the heels of the school being awarded a big, fat "F" by the state, which does not look good considering that the school sits on a campus that includes one of the largest colleges of education in the country, not to mention a football team expected to challenge for the Big East crown this fall and get considerably more publicity than a school that has failed about 225 students.

A Day Of Thuds
But that wasn't the only bad news about to go thud at the school board's feet, and not even the biggest. That would come later in the day with the news that three Hillsborough County schools, including the relatively new, nearly $50 million Middleton High School, had become targets for closing as failed schools.

Of course, nobody is about to shut down Middleton, but the fact that it is one of the options ought to be enough to tell us we got troubles, right here in River City, and - saints preserve us - the school board is where we are supposed to turn to find the leadership to lead us out.

Middleton ought to be an interesting start. Opened only six years ago, the new Middleton replaced one of Tampa's historically black high schools. It was billed as the county's most technologically advanced campus, with magnet programs such as the Academy of Aeronautics & Astronautics, BioTechnology, Digital Design, Computer Systems Technology and Engineering.

The mission statement reads in part: "Shall excel academically, become technologically competent, demonstrate appropriate ethical values, and take its place as a competitive member of a global community, thus creating a better society."

Maybe A New Mission Statement?

Guess not. Most of us know that mission statements are usually designed by committees of managers with time to kill, but still, you have to ask yourself: What happened?

How does a school with all that technology, in a state that says reading is not only fundamental but is everything, drop seven points in math, four points in reading, and have less than 65 percent of its student body proficient in both? How does that happen?

More importantly, what are we going to do about it?

Keyword, Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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