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I thought I’d seen every possible excuse in the book from Melinda Boone as to why she’s done such a craptacular job as superintendent. Then I read an article in the Telegram yesterday and I realized how much more ridiculous this whole circus can get.

“Melinda J. Boone is an outsider, and she knows it. The transplanted Virginian is simultaneously the district’s first African-American superintendent, first permanent female superintendent and, as she’s reminded often, the first school chief appointed from outside the district in 45 years.”

There it is again. The very first paragraph. For the one millionth time, I don’t care what type of social barrier she broke by being named superintendent. All I care about is the job she does for the schools. She has failed. Miserably too I might add. But for whatever reason the Telegram is already excusing her failures by pointing out that she’s an outsider and she’s not white.

The Telegram’s first mistake is highlighting the root cause of everything that is wrong with public schools – emphasis on useless data. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t need or trust data because I know what’s going on behind the scenes to get that data. Like this:

Over that period of time, the district has boosted its four-year high school graduation rates by 9 percent, with a 14 percent boost for students with disabilities and 13 percent increase for English language learners. The dropout rate fell from 14.5 percent to 9.6 percent.

I don’t give a shit. I really don’t. The population of the Worcester Public Schools didn’t magically improve over the last six years. The parents of Worcester didn’t magically become better parents over the last six years. Any time you see data like this it should be a red flag, because something is going on behind the scenes to cause it. I’ve heard countless stories from teachers about being forced to pass kids who failed their class. And why? Because their bosses wanna look good. That’s all. And they’re the boss, not the teacher. Boss tells you to do something, you do it. You have no choice. These numbers are worthless.

From 2009 to 2014, the number of students taking AP tests has jumped from 598 to 1,268. The number of overall tests taken rose from 1,015 to 2,069, with double the amount of students electing to take two and three tests in a single year.

This has nothing to do with Dr. Boone. An organization called “MMSI” throws money at schools if they double their AP enrollment. But guess what? AP is AP for a reason. You’re not SUPPOSED to double AP enrollment. It’s supposed to be for the upper echelon, the cream of the crop. Not everyone is an AP student. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But of course schools take the cash because it makes them look good when all of a sudden their AP enrollment doubles. Once again, not impressed.

Proficiency in English Language Arts MCAS scores for all grades combined rose from 47 to 52 percent from 2009 to 2014, hovering around 50 percent in the intervening years. In math, the needle rose from 38 to 39 percent, hovering around 40 in the middle years. ELA in Grade 10 did rise consistently over those years, from 67 to 77 percent and hitting 80 percent in 2013.

I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. There is nothing that impresses me less than a rise in MCAS scores. Absolutely nothing. It doesn’t mean kids are learning more or becoming prepared for college or life. It means they’ve been trained to pass a test. It also means that likely behind the scenes they cut down on the hours spent in physical education, social studies, art, and whatever other subjects are not MCAS tested, in order to achieve those gains. Because after all, why waste your time learning something that you can’t put on a chart for Dr. Boone at the end of the year?

SAT scores stayed about the same. The average score was 1321 in 2009 and 1330 in 2014. A perfect score is 2400.

Right. Because the SAT doesn’t change, and neither does the general ability of high school students over time. The scores should generally remain the same.

AP test scores declined, with 34.8 percent of tests receiving a passing (3-5) grade in 2014, down from 44 percent in 2009. In the intervening years, the scores hovered closer to 40 percent. Ms. Boone, who has repeatedly referred to the AP scores as a strength, said that although there has been a “slight dip” in scores, the bottom line is that more students are achieving qualifying scores.

Seriously, how stupid is she? “The bottom line is that more students are achieving qualifying scores.” She actually said that. A person with a PhD doesn’t understand that the aggregate number of students passing a test will naturally improve if you double enrollment in those classes. Obviously it can only go up. But the PERCENTAGE of students passing the AP test is going down. Gee, I wonder why that is? Maybe because they’re taking a bunch of kids who don’t belong in AP and putting them in a class that’s way above their heads so that Melinda Boone can look good? Nah, that can’t be it.

The article then spent a significant amount of time interviewing a guy named Paul Reville. He was the Massachusetts Secretary of Education from 2008-2013 and was paid $154,500 per year for his services. Most of those services included blaming schools for not teaching “all children,” as he recently said in the Boston Globe:

“Still, there are deep, persistent achievement gaps and inequality of opportunity that don’t meet our goal of “all means all.’’ Too many students leave school unprepared for college or a career.”

Just a reminder that this is his background, previous to being in charge of education in Massachusetts:

“In 1985, he was the founding executive director of the Alliance for Education in Worcester and Central Massachusetts. He has served on the boards of numerous other education organizations. Also, serving as the founding executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. Between 1996 and 2002, he was the chair of both the Massachusetts Commission on Time and Learning and the Massachusetts Education Reform Review Commission.”

AKA he’s not a teacher so he has absolutely no fucking clue what he’s talking about. He got paid triple a teacher’s salary to serve on a bunch of fancy boards with big names and come up with impossible goals, like getting “all students” ready for college. Well guess what Paul? College isn’t for ALL students. If it was then we’d call it High School Part 2. The kid who got shot in Worcester this weekend and is Tweeting about what a soldier he is from his hospital bed – he’s not going to college. That’s not the schools’ fault. It’s the fact that he’s being raised by savages who encourage his gangsta dreams. But I guess it sounds better when you say that “ALL” students should be going to college.

Here’s what he had to say in the Telegram article:

“I think the performance of the city is above average for a comparable community,” he said, pointing to a complicated state figure called the “Cumulative Progress and Performance Index” as proof. The index combines a number of indicators of how a district is closing proficiency gaps and increasing student growth. A district’s job at narrowing gaps is rated on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the best and 75 being the state’s goal.”

Ya see that? Rating school districts on a scale of 1-100? You know what that does? It gives people like him jobs. That’s it. Our tax dollars pay useless suits like him six figure salaries so they can develop useless formulas in order to rank schools on a scale of 1-100. This is what people like him are paid to do.

So how did Worcester do on these useless ratings?

Worcester’s rating for all students combined was 51, compared to the state average of 54. Worcester outperformed the state average for high needs students (51 to 46), ELL or former ELL students (61 to 56) and students with disabilities (58 to 48). Mr. Reville said numbers in the 40 to 60 range are considered acceptable for districts like Worcester. “At the same time, it’s no cause for great celebration,” he said, noting many improvements are still needed, notably to areas such as third grade reading scores.

Get the hell out of my face Paul Reville. Improvements should be made on third grade reading scores? Why, so people like you and Melinda Boone can get a promotion? That’s not how education works. I never had to take any of these tests growing up and I was better off for it. We got to go to gym class, we had spree days, we learned state capitals, we had science fairs, and all this other cool stuff that didn’t show up on a standardized test. But 3rd graders don’t get to do that any more because Paul Reville wants to point to a reading chart about test scores and pat himself on the back. If you have kids in school you should hate this guy and everything he stands for.

Then Reville started making excuses for Boone:

“I think coming in from the outside is always a challenging task in Worcester,” said Mr. Reville, a former city resident. “She came in as the first African-American superintendent, the first (permanent) woman superintendent, and set a tone that she really has a no-nonsense approach to student achievement and particularly to serving those who historically have not been well served.”

There it is again. First this. First that. I don’t give a shit. Why are principals getting punched in the face at North? That’s what I care about. How is she “serving” all the people who have been injured in fights because she’s too busy padding her stats?

Then came the real gem of the article:

“During her interview, Ms. Boone said her tenure has had its challenges. “I have been bullied and abused worse than any case of public abuse and bullying that you could imagine for six years,” Ms. Boone said. “A lot of it has been very personal,” she added. “Some of what I have endured has been the less than professional comments at School Committee meetings and those (kinds of) things.”

Jesus H. Christ. She just went there. You’re being “bullied and abused?” Oh, I’m so sorry you had your feelings hurt Dr. Boone. You poor thing. You’re only the highest paid person on the payroll and you’re doing a historically terrible job overseeing the biggest safety crisis the public schools has ever seen. But you’re right. We should be nicer. Clearly you are being “abused.”

Newsflash Melinda – you are a PUBLIC figure. This is what happens to people in the public sphere. They get criticized by taxpayers. They don’t whine about being “bullied” when people point out their deficiencies. That’s what losers do. Clearly you are a loser. And no, none of it is “personal” as you claim. I don’t know anything about your personal life. It’s been entirely professional criticism. That’s what happens when you make $200,000 directly from the taxpayers. We evaluate your job performance.

Luckily Reville was there to bail her out again:

“She’s articulate and she’s a fierce advocate for Worcester and for the children, particularly those who are caught in achievement gaps,” he said. “She’s a very devoted, conscientious superintendent who lives this job.”

“Achievement gaps” is a fancy term for saying, “focus on the kids who aren’t putting any effort in and ignore the kids who come to school to learn.” That’s all achievement gap means. They’re trying to lower the performance gap on a standardized test between the top of the class and the bottom.

You know who does that? Crappy countries. America was the first country to put a man on the moon. We invented the polio vaccine. We invented airplanes. We invented computers and the Internet. Why? Because we focused on the winners in America. We don’t try to force feed kids an education who disrespect their teachers, start fights, and don’t show up to school.

We should be focusing on INCREASING the achievement gap. This world needs a cure for cancer. It needs new forms of energy. It needs new technology. We’re not gonna get that from Get Down Productions or kids getting shot at the Quality Inn. We’re gonna get that from the kids we’re ignoring because Paul Reville and Melinda Boone wanna lower the “achievement gap.”

Lastly Dr. Boone shared an interesting anecdote about her past that was pretty revealing:

“Ms. Boone in the interview describes bias she faced growing up when she was one of a handful of African-American students integrated into a white school.

“I’ll never forget, I got suspended three times in the same week in fifth grade, simply because the white teacher that I had — it was the first time working with black kids, and it was obvious that she wasn’t comfortable in the setting,” Ms. Boone recalled.

“(I was) sent home, three times in the same week in fifth grade, because I was an advocate for myself,” she said. “Needless to say, that teacher didn’t teach after that year so I think I was the victor in that one.””

Look, I don’t underestimate the long term effects that Jim Crow laws had on African-American student achievement in the south. It’s a black eye on American history, and Dr. Boone was growing up in a time when states like Virginia were being forced by the federal government to change their ways. She was going to school in Virginia the same exact time that “Remember the Titans” was happening in that same state. I get it.

But Massachusetts in 2015 isn’t the same thing as Virginia in 1970. We’ve always been the most progressive part of the country. But clearly she’s having trouble looking past the issue of race here. She brags about how she got her white teacher fired in the last sentence of the article. Why mention that? It seems like she’s carrying that around like a trophy. She stood up to one white teacher, she certainly can take on the white teachers from North High. Why else would she mention that? How is that at all relevant to her current situation?

The bottom line is that she’s completely failed as a leader. This article confirms that she simply doesn’t have what it takes to hold a position such as hers, which is open to public scrutiny. She’s thin-skinned, oversensitive, data-driven, and clearly motivated by bad memories of segregated Virginia. It’s not a good fit.

The School Committee hires her, but WE hire the School Committee. Are you a normal person reading this? Go down to City Hall and take out the papers and get your name on the ballot, because Turtleboy Sports is not endorsing any candidate who supports this type of incompetence.

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