Update I: January 19, 2008: The Board voted 9-0 to agree to sever the relationship with Pedro Garcia. Garcia had already signed the agreement. Board approval means the decision is final. There was no discussion. The meeting was short.
Reports in the late afternoon of January 18, 2008, said that the Board of Education would be meeting to discuss the following day the evaluation of Pedro Garcia, and then later in the day a severance package offer. If Garcia himself resigned, he would be entitled to less money than if he were involuntarily terminated. At the same time, his reputation might not be as tarnished with a resignation. So there is room for negotiations between himself and the Board.
Professional educators have previously counted Garcia out only to be disappointed. However, the biggest change now compared to earlier is a new mayor. The mayor can lobby the school board like no other Nashvillian. If Karl Dean's predecessor had so desired, Garcia could have been gone four years ago.
The cover story at the moment is that Garcia has done a lot of good. His tenure, six and one-half years, far exceeds the usual school chief in an urban area. This is false. The statistic is attained by finding the average tenure of existing urban superintendents. It is not computed at which time they leave office. The time of service at departure is approximately twice the average of existing superintendents. By that measure, Garcia has barely beaten the average.
Update II: Additionally, the Sunday Tennessean misled the readers on the progress on the graduation rate, the "success" of the big picture high school, the district academic standards, and the standard school attire. (1) The graduation rate is fiction. In the year prior to Garcia's arrival, the graduation rate was 61 percent. It languished below that rate until this year when it suddenly went up ten percent. That is impossible unless the numbers for the base year were changed, or extra diplomas were added at the ending year. The human race cannot change that much that quickly. (2) The big picture high school is warmed over vocational education--a good thing, but a program that Garcia and Johnson destroyed in 2002. (3) The academic standards comprise three or four massive books, all sitting on shelves gathering dust. They have no effect on classroom behavior. The state tests are the only thing that have changed teacher behavior--and not for the better. (4) Standard School Attire is not working in high school. They have a better chance in the early years. If reporters with cameras were allowed in school on an unannounced basis, that fact would be obvious. That article in the Tennessean, beyond the basic facts on the first page, left the reader more ignorant of the schools than if he/she had not read the article.
In days to come, it will be important to show that Garcia was a "one trick pony." The one trick was intimidation. Sub-parts of that trick were constant reassignment of principals; encouragement of autocratic methods toward all staff; generation of bad publicity toward "enemies" on either the school board or the Metro Council; and hiring of like-minded autocrats in the central administration.
Other components of Garcia's administration involved suppression of data regarding all sensitive matters of personnel, finance, and educational accomplishment (or lack thereof).
This page will be updated as events unfold.
1. Can readers learn what happened by reading the Nashville City Paper or the Tennessean? (Dueling quotes compared to in-depth analysis.) More here.
2. Did Pedro Garcia represent the real desires of Bill Purcell, the Chamber of Commerce, and anti-labor Republicans?
3. Can any future Director of Schools have success in the environment of the stacked deck of the present federal law on accountability? More here.