He who laughs last

The Tennessean has this quote from MNPS Director of Schools Dr. Pedro Garcia after he heard about Councilman Eric Crafton's resolution before Tuesday's Council regarding his status:

"If [Tn DOE Commissioner of Education Lana Seveirs] issues an opinion, then she's lost her marbles," Garcia said, chuckling. "My employers are nine board members and MNPS (Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools), and they can certainly get rid of me anytime they want to, as long as they get five votes."

If there ever was a time for humility--this is likely it.

According to data released by MNPS this week, Garcia failed just over half of the benchmarks on the quantitative portion of his evaluation. Two of the 100 benchmarks on this portion leave some room for debate, but of the rest, Garcia failed more points than he passed. City Paper

After the debacle that was the vote in the fall of 2005 the MNPS BOE made some specific changes in how they evaluate Garcia. There are specific numbers that will have to be recognized and honored if they're going to follow through with their plan. Only 25% of his rating is based on squishy, feel good relationship with the board stuff. If it's close, and we won't know until January 19, this is where it could fall. My suggestion is folks make sure their BOE members know how they feel about Garcia's performance and how to vote.

These folks are up for re-election in August. Their job performance should be linked to Garcia's. Remember, all but North, gave Garcia a hefty raise and voted to renew his contract, Porter once, the rest over, and over and over again.










From left to right:
Ed Kindall on the BOE 22 years since 7/9/1985,
George Thompson, more than 11 years: 4 months on the BOE in 1991 and then back on 8/1/1996,
MNPS BOE Chair Marsha Warden on the BOE since 8/24/2004 ,
Gracie Porter elected in August of 2006 and
Mark North since spring of 2007.