Dear Source:
I have Googled Ms. Spampinato throughout the internet network and the most major problem I have discerned is she is an academician without a very nice bedside manner. As opposed to developing a team; she acts as an avenging angel who knows without doubt her theories are correct. She has based her turn-around theories on identifying problems with success based on use or not use of her theories. She has stated quite eloquently of academic achievements but there appears to be very little beef. But, do not stop her from serving and having an opportunity, just make sure if she fails that too is known and she is held accountable for her tried and failed theories in sufficient time that the system is recoverable.
A manager at her level must stop denying an existing system and its faults and start to implement her/his solutions. One begins by explaining ones theoretical methodology in an effort to enlist a cooperative team. The wrongs in the past are historic failures that no one wants to be reminded that they were part and parcel too. We must develop our successors as we do not know whence we go.
The mistakes of a past commissioner of our police criticized the expected participants, police officers, whom he expected to enlist and to become a part of his team of success. He was a young manager attempting to use immature methods using name-calling to make it appear that he and his theories are the only non-crooked theories to be respected and tried. Unless one intends to replace all of the existing team having proven failure with a new inspired team one must not dwell on the previous member team players who by example have failed. One may not have been exposed and be a failure only by omission of not knowing. They want the opportunity so much to succeed they hate to admit they do not know.
The small problems of SAT scores, academic achievements and other measurable outcomes mean nothing to a failed school or education system. While those measurable outcomes previously mentioned may mean quite a bit to the future acceptance of our youth and society. Teachers want to prepare our youth or their students for a job while parents want to be honest, decent and grown human beings. After all, corporations and industry needs their academic successes, parents need them to get out on their own.
Failed systems exist because of breakdowns of respect for the system, respect for the participants, both students and staff, and the disrespect to and for the parents desires, an honest committed adult from their child, are little recognized and given little attention in the education resolve collective.
Admittedly, schools lose accreditation and other statistically measurable outcomes fail that are not what education is all about. Education is all about the metaphors, similes, nostalgia and charisma in an inspired tale of exemplified knowledge. Education is about telling an excellent story about success leaving the crude, vulgar and human failures out and developing connectivity with the person being taught. Education is about establishing parameters of interactive civility especially in a voluntary law abiding civilization such as the United States and its freedom commitments.
Simply put, if teachers do not return to inspiring their students to doubt and how to fill those doubts with credible knowledge the education process will become the bean counting game that Ms. Spampinato attempts to earn a living and lifestyle. Ms. Spampinato must become a sophisticated person coupled with her only proven academic successes and inspire her staff who will further inspire our students to achieve. She must develop policies for her staff to pursue and obey, not discovery of new ways to spend and account for allocations, a band-aide affect. The outcome measuring will improve on its own if inspiration is jointly coupled with human respect, earned and demanded.
Ms. Spampinato has become a trouble-shooter based on theoretical solutions without touting not one tangible success other than her academics and making a lot of angry persons in her wake. She is like the U. S. Marines who can manage quite well an assault but cannot stay for the diplomatic long haul. She has found a way to accommodate politically correct methodology of the day and transmogrifying it into a profession so that she can travel from community to community fixing, or allegedly fixing, ones education problems by pointing out their failed attempts at proper and appropriate uses of resources while leaving the inspiration of taking our students to academics. Then, she demands that the people, community, politicians, students and parents, drink from the pool of knowledge without questions or doubts.
Ms. Spampinato and our legislature, please do not deny assistance no matter where it comes from just put in place the policies, methods and reasoning that the one you hire or confirm knows what your and our communitys expectations are and then hold whomever accountable for achieving that success. I implore you to give this very academically charged and inspired Ms. Spampinato an opportunity to test her theories on how it works just you must demand that she develops a team inspired to continue her work when she tires of troubleshooting, unload her weapons in our community and reload with new ammunition as a result of her soon to be touted successes here in our community where we helped her to succeed.
It may be very possible that once she pisses our local education staff off they will develop theories unique to our culture and community and send her packing and then again, just maybe as a developed team player and leader she might very well unload her guns and for once leave a community that teamed with her to succeed in the delivery of the best education ever.
Remember, we in the Virgin Islands had a lot of so-called unqualified non-college graduate teachers who inspired our students sufficient to pass the entrance exams for Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Hampton and even Howard University; and, we did it without the help of the Spampinatos of our mainland colleagues but because we heard the voices of our historically caring teachers inspiring us to do better because we are and were not inferior to anyone to include the graduates of the United States and their obstacle courses in denying opportunities; the outcomes were proven by our success once given the opportunity.
Educational measuring standards will improve once we are inspired that those scores do not measure ones ability to be successful they only measure how you can get through school with an accredited supposed education. I succeeded in my chosen living-style because someone gave and initiated an opportunity for me to qualify based on my character, experience, honesty, integrity and reputation. My earned successes if any were through formal education and through on-the-job training and because of my personal commitment to those qualities, successes prevailed.
Give Ms. Spampinato a chance otherwise she leaves our community stating that we did not want change as much as we touted it; and, that our commitment to education was not sincere but political. Do not let her leave our community without either proving her theories about education and community or not proving and failing so that she will never be allowed in another community to fail using rhetoric and earned academics as an excuse. Help her to help our students and educational system to succeed. And, yes, we have people so qualified but they very well have lacked the commitment to share their qualifications so that our community is successful in spite of their personal success of only achieving a title. We do not listen to our own and usually like them to much to give them professional respect for knowledge they are attempting to share. I stand ready to help her succeed for as she succeed so does our community; I will never knowingly help someone in our community to fail as when they fail we fail as a community.
Krim M. Ballentine
St. Thomas
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