by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
“Imagine sitting in your office and getting a call from someone who asks if you’d like to interview for the most important job in Jacksonville,” says former Duval County Public Schools Superintendent John Fryer.
“You’ll be expected to put out a high-quality product, but you’ll have no control over your raw materials. You’ll have just six hours a day and only 180 days a year to produce the product.
“The public gets to tell you a lot about how to do your job. They watch everything and your board meetings will be televised. Also, your revenues will be decreasing and the average tenure in the job is two-and-a-half years,” he said.
“To take that job, you’d have to be an idiot – or a saint.”
Adding the latter designation before the guest speaker’s name, Fryer, a Rotary Club of Jacksonville member, introduced current Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals at the club’s meeting Monday.
Pratt-Dannals began his career in the Duval County school system in 1976 as a mathematics teacher at John Gorrie Junior High School. He rose through the ranks as a principal, regional superintendent, associate superintendent for curriculum and chief academic officer, the post he held when named superintendent in 2007.
Pratt-Dannals, who joined the Rotary Club of West Jacksonville when he was principal at Lee High School, visited the Downtown club to deliver an update about the status of the county’s public schools.
He said overall, the district has earned a “B” grade with fewer than 50 “challenged” schools out of 150 schools.
“We had 10 ‘A’ schools in 1999, now there are 73. We have also gone from seven to 29 ‘B’ schools, which means two-thirds of our public schools are ‘B’ or better,” he said.
Pratt-Dannals attributed much of the improvement to the district’s re-evaluation of academic standards and its efforts to address a discrepancy between what he called “premier” schools, including Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, Stanton College Preparatory School and Paxon School for Advanced Studies, which are ranked in the top 10 in the nation, and the rest of the schools.
He said there has been a threefold increase in the number of students taking college-level classes in high school. Some are in the dual enrollment program and graduate with an associate’s degree along with a high school diploma.
He said FCAT scores have improved, with gains in reading as high as 46 percent, gains in mathematics as high as 71 percent, 38 percent in science and 16 percent in writing.
The graduation rate in 2008-09 was up 3.2 percentage points compared to the previous year and 7.1 percentage points compared to the 2005-06 school year.
“The challenge is to build, from pre-K, a high level of expectation and support. Every high school has some sort of advanced education program,” said Pratt-Dannals.
DCPS has also addressed school disciplinary suspensions, which at one time were the highest in the state among metropolitan school districts. Pratt-Dannals said DCPS established out-of-school suspension centers and reduced the number of suspensions last year by 60 percent. It’s still an issue when it comes to crime, however.
“Students who are not in school are potential perpetrators and often victims, particularly teenage girls,” he said.
Schools depend on funding to provide a quality education and Pratt-Dannals said budgets continue to be a challenge. DCPS has reduced staff and curriculum. “It’s to the point we have to minimize the experience for students in order to save money,” said Pratt-Dannals.
DCPS needs the support of the community, particularly businesses, to continue to improve public schools. When he became superintendent, he set a goal to have 20,000 mentors by 2020. There currently are 5,400. “Each year it gets tougher to recruit mentors,” said Pratt-Dannals.
Club President Cindy Stover agreed.
“There is nothing more important to our community than education. That’s what leads to jobs and a better economy,” she said.
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