Nowhere To Go But Up
In 2018, under the longtime leadership of Superintendent Jeff Edison and our five school board members, Levy County hit an all-time, historic low in student achievement: Levy came in 57th out of 67 counties. Only 10 counties scored lower. This placed us in the bottom 16% of Florida counties when it came to giving our students the knowledge and skills they need.
This past year, in 2019, Levy County saw a bump in student achievement. Levy County came in 43rd out of 67 counties. We made it into the bottom 36% of counties. The bump in student achievement was predictable. After all, how low can you go before there’s nowhere to go but up?
You might like to think that this is a we-are-all-in-this-together situation, where we all share equal responsibility. But we don’t. As the teacher in the classroom is the person most responsible for student success in the classroom, so too is the superintendent and school board most responsible for student success in Levy County.
Employees take results personally. After all, they give it their all. When students don’t perform like teachers believe they are able to, teachers are hard on themselves. The sad thing is that the people working on the frontlines with our students are working too hard for their results not to reflect their efforts. What employees, parents, our students, and the citizens of Levy County deserve is capable leadership.
Mr. Edison has said that we need to go slow, so that good people don’t get thrown off the bus. Mr. Edison, we’re going so slow that many of our students aren’t making it to their destination. That lies on your shoulders and on the shoulders of the school board.
(See the attached chart. It shows the length of time that school board members have served, along with their record of performance.)
In 2019, this is how counties around us performed in making sure that their students graduated from school with the necessary knowledge and skills that enabled their students to make it to their destinations.
Ranked #2 out of 67 counties in the State of Florida is Gilchrist County
Lafayette County is #5
Taylor County is #20
Dixie Count is #22 (In 2019 Dixie County ranked 21 counties ahead of Levy County when it comes to preparing students for their future. For the past nine years, since 2011, Dixie County has far outranked Levy County, and they haven’t looked back.)
Alachua County is #23
Suwannee County is #37
Levy County is #43
Citrus County is #48
Marion County is #50.
College football is upon us, and if you don’t mind, I want to make an analogy between the coaches of our favorite team and the superintendent and school board of Levy County. Let’s say that for thirteen years our team has been scraping the bottom, and let’s say that the assistant coach for ten years is promoted to head coach. And during his last three years as head coach, he and his five assistant coaches have led our team to an all-time historic low. And now we have an opportunity to figure out the problem and fix it. Are we, the fans, responsible? Are the players responsible? Can we blame it on the home life of the players? Are the parents of the players are responsible?
Here is the problem facing our team: The head coach’s four-year contract is up in 2020. For thirteen years he’s led us to the bottom. Do we give him another four years to keep trying to turn it around?
Think carefully before you answer. The education of our children is in the balance.
Jerry Lawrence, Cedar Key
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