I try to avoid bumping into teachers these days for fear someone will report them to the Red Plan gestapo. I’ve heard recently that a lot of them have taken to calling Duluth’s superintendent “Dr. Evil.”
If that’s true things have certainly changed since the Business North story I linked to in the previous post when Frank Wanner said this:
In the 15 years prior to Dixon’s arrival, teachers had no voice in decision making, Wanner said. Many teachers still resent the decision of Julio Almanza, Dixon’s predecessor, to shorten the high school day to six periods. Wanner said that change, which reduced teachers’ preparation time during the school day, hurt morale, robbed student learning opportunity and generated costly contract disputes.
Its traditional for departing superintendents to be kicked in the tush on the way out of a school district. I liked Julio even though after seven years I’ll admit that Julio had probably reached the end of his shelf life. A few years ago it was reported that the average big city school superintendent lasted less than three years on the job although more scholarly studies add a lot more nuance to the issue of their longevity.
Frank was quibbling about a difficult decision which saved some portion of what we used to call the seven period day. Under Dr. Dixon we’ve lost that remnant and a helluva lot more. Almanza looks like a saint in comparison and he never populated his administration with yes men or ducked the hard truths. Julio never lied to me either. I can’t say the same of his successor.
