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Good Luck,
Mr. Pecko …
By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
Well, the die has been cast and we now have a new
superintendent of Toledo Public Schools. Jerome Pecko, a
seasoned educator from a northeast Ohio school district,
who, at the age of 64, is willing to try to beat the odds
and take a shot at righting the woefully listing TPS ship.
The selection of Mr. Pecko was not daring, brilliant
or innovative…just the same ol’ stuff of the district board
playing safe and scared.
The selection of Mr. Pecko was within predictable
boundaries of choosing someone that we could feel warm and
cozy about. No edge. No drama. No pizzaz. No vibe. Just
Jerome Pecko, one in a long line of “safe supers” who
dutifully serve their time, polish their shoes and only
cross the streets at designated crosswalks.
Nice. Predictable. A yawn. Just what TPS does not need
at this critical juncture in their dismal history of
choosing super after super after super who simply can not or
do not know how to make the 25 foot fade-away jump shot at
the buzzer.
Don’t get me wrong. Mr. Pecko is probably a lovely and
wonderful man who enjoys watching I Love Lucy reruns
or
can recite the lines to certain Ozzie & Harriet
programs;
and for whom the Ed Sullivan Show was the highlight
for Sunday Night
TV viewing….but.
The educational climate in Toledo has reached A
Fistful
Of Dollars
stage along with a
clump of The Matrix and a barrel of Mission
Impossible. Is Mr. Pecko up to such a stressful
challenge or will he be a three-year super wonder and ride
off into the sunset?
The educational system in Toledo is in need of a good
snort of “educational coke” and that means we need a super
who can go maniac at the dismal numbers that the local
schools are producing in terms of student scholars and their
ability to matriculate and go to college or a two-year
school or a trade school.
For a city the size of Toledo and the attendant wealth
within, the city-wide educational landscape is littered with
too many casualties of opportunities spent or missed.
If I were to write the job requirements of Jerome Pecko,
here is what they would like in a narrative format a/k/a
Mission Impossible:
“Your job, Jerome Pecko, is to contact all business
owners and leaders in Toledo and bring them on board with a
unified city-wide educational program that by the year 2015
Toledo Public Schools will graduate 95 percent of its
enrolled students.
In addition, Jerome Pecko, you will meet with the local
Catholic educational hierarchy and work out a
sharing/lending/swapping deal by which there is a flow of
teachers, ideas, equipment and resources back and forth
between the two systems.
Jerome Pecko, you are to seek the immediate dismantling
of Washington Local Schools and blend that district into the
unified city-wide concept of educational preeminence.
You are to take on the unions that are blocking
progressive educational reform and if the unions choose to
strike, let them strike.
Jerome Pecko, you are to reverse the image of the
public school teaching corps being held hostage by white
female suburban teachers who in many cases have no vested
interest in the urban schools in which they teach. They
quickly run back to their homogenized suburban communities
and bemoan the inadequacies of the ill-nourished urban
school.
You will do this, Mr. Pecko, by pushing for a
resolution that by the year 2013, all teachers,
administrators, para-professionals, principals,
superintendents and school board members are to have their
school-aged children enrolled in Toledo Public Schools on
the basis that if they can get a check from Toledo Public to
fund their lifestyle, they can place their kids in the same
system from which they draw their financial livelihood. No
exemptions or exceptions.
Mr. Pecko, you will have to engage in hand-to-hand
combat with certain union heads who believe they have a
divine right to serve forever and rule the roost over
teachers according to their personal whims.
Mr. Pecko, your job will not be easy due to years of
neglect and the tarnished image of Toledo Public Schools but
should you succeed, you will be well rewarded.
Furthermore, you will bring in educators and advisors
who will educate your teaching corps as to the methodology
of urban schools being akin to a ministry.
As usual, if you or your team members are caught or
thwarted by certain factions who want to keep things as
usual and who fight against change, you are on your own and
we will deny your calls for help.
This letter will self-destruct in five seconds.”
There. That is a job description that will keep Mr.
Pecko in the gym punching the heavy bag and skipping rope.
If the school board will not back Mr. Pecko and his ideas of
reversing the fortunes of Toledo Public Schools, then the
board, at their next election, needs to be cleaned out and
we start fresh and anew.
Until Toledo Public starts putting out a better and new
and improved product…the educated student, Pecko is in for a
long and bumpy ride. I wish you well.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
tolliver@Juno.com
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