Saturday, March 05, 2016

Reader: Give C. J. Huff credit for getting rid of trashy teachers like Turner

A few moments ago, I received a comment from a reader who was quite upset with my earlier post saying that the departure of more than half of the Joplin R-8 School District's faculty over the past four years has created serious problems.

For some reason, I have a feeling that this reader is not from this school district, though I could be wrong, but is simply one of those people who likes to take advantage of every opportunity they get to cut me down to size, using everything except facts.

This reader is trying to lump together every teacher who has left the school district with me. He also repeats the same statement he has used every time- that I was fired for cause.

He never mentions that I have made the complete, unedited transcript of my hearing available. For a considerable time, it was available free of charge to anyone who wanted it. I would still be happy to send anyone a copy.

It should be noted that Huff and the entire board of education that was involved in my firing are no longer connected with the school. I am not claiming that has anything to do with my case, but it shows that I am far from the only one who thinks, with considerable evidence, that the Huff years were a nightmare.

It should also be noted that I did not say anywhere that C. J. Huff was responsible for the school shooting threat or the alleged rape on Joplin High School grounds. I blame him for the lion's share of the disciplinary problems that exist in the school system and the behavioral problems that have been mentioned several times by Interim Superintendent Norm Ridder. When you fail to back your teachers and intimidate younger, more inexperienced teachers into thinking they are in trouble if they write any disciplinary referrals, and when you drive away a disproportionate number of the experienced teachers who were able to help to maintain whatever discipline was left, you should quite rightly expect to take the blame for the general atmosphere, if not for specific incidents.

The text of the reader's comment is printed below:

This entire blog has but one premise: It is ALWAYS the fault of CJ Huff and anyone and everyone who had something to do with the inevitable firing of Turner. This entire blog is nothing but Randy Turner trying to re-write history in favor of simply letting the teachers teach whatever they please without accountability or restraint.

Forcing young people into confinement in which they have no ability or willingness to learn whatever foolishness is fashionable at the time there might well be incidents in which like prisoners they get all violent or at the very least unruly. The solution is to segregate classes upon the ability and willingness to learn the necessary curriculum offered, teach them up to the limits of their abilities, and let the rest go do something which they find profitable to themselves and their future.

Turner's solution to everything: Listen to Turner and punish CJ Huff and the former school board who detected Turner and gave Turner a hearing and fired Turner for cause. Otherwise Joplin will become another Columbine or Sandy Hook.

This is not only self-serving but patently ridiculous.

The last thing anyone should do is to listen to Turner other than to figure out what not to do. The basis for public education is that taxpayers and parents elect school board members who set policies as opposed to public educrats doing so. Any teacher who wants to personally set school policy and curriculum will end up like Randy Turner and usually sooner rather than later. These mental and moral mediocrities get into something that they think is easy going for those of their limitations and for a few years they energetically do what they are told. Then they get some "experience" and think about how easy it would be if only the school board comprised of non-educrats would listen to their "wis-dumb". Then they try to implement on a limited fashion on their own limited classroom their pet theories, and either get slapped down and buckle under back to democratically-elected policy or they get rebellious and are caught again, fired, or made to resign.

The CJ Huff Administration, for all its faults, was excellent in detecting such teachers like Turner and sending them packing. The glaring fault of the CJ Huff Administration and the Joplin R-8 School Board of the time was in going through the tax money while blaming the tornado. CJ Huff and the board of that time was sent packing by the taxpayers for such financial wastage, and NOT for firing incompetent teachers like Turner.

Turner got caught out several times, given the choice to "move on", decided to publicly fight the matter as opposed to sneaking into another district and then either behaving or getting detected again, given an open and fair hearing in which all sides were heard, and then publicly terminated.

Now in Turner's forced early retirement -- nobody will ever hire Turner as a teacher ever again -- Turner re-writes his memoirs in the form of this dishonest whining blog.

Now lest anyone of Turner's groupies and peers yawp about how "Nobody needs to read this blog", which is irrelevant as well as correct, let's say that many of us just love to read how Turner is suffering, how neither Turner nor Turner's fellow flunkies have any intention of learning from the consequences of their stupidity, and how upon every occasion Turner and those like Turner will seek to blame "society", i.e. the very foundation of public education (elected local officials to disburse and set policy for local tax moneies and local public property), which gives them employment in the first place.

They think that they all are Socrates -- who came to a bad end when the restored democracy has enough of Socrates "teaching" the very traitors and tyrants who destroyed Athens' Golden Age. Rather, these "teachers" are more like Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote: Unable to learn from their mistakes but wanting everyone else to suffer from their failed amoral stupidity.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randy, you are either exceedingly modest or you have no idea of the role you have played in the changes in the Joplin school district. You are directly responsible for the complete turnover of the board by helping people become aware of the things that the Joplin Globe has not been telling us and if it were not for you, CJ Huff would most likely still be the superintendent. I was skeptical about you at first, but I have read the transcript and your book, which reveals even more information, all documented, about the lengths CJ went to to make sure that you suffered. The reader who wrote this comment appears to be unaware that you never intended to go through with the hearing, but were forced to do so. Even if Randy's critics say that he naturally wrote that to build up his side of the case, I ask just one question. CJ hinted in his testimony about all kinds of horrible things Randy had done, but it has been almost three years, Randy has totally destroyed CJ's standing in this community and has done it with facts and documents, but most of the time by repeating things CJ has said. Does anyone truly believe that if CJ and his supporters had anything on Randy they wouldn't have used it by now? His people have attacked Debbie Fort, Jennifer Martucci, Jim Kimbrough, and anyone else that crossed them, but the worst they have been able to say about Randy is the claim that he is hurting the students and the teachers by writing negative things about them. And anyone with a brain knows that is not the case. Turner has been the biggest supporter the teachers, students, parents, and taxpayers of this district have ever had.

Anonymous said...

Well said 3:24

Anonymous said...

, I may not agree with everything that readers had but 80% of it is definitely spot on. Just as CJ and his cronies cannot continue to blame everything on the tornado, you have got to move on and cannot continue to connect every single negative thing in the district too hot. He really is very self serving and ridiculous to think that every single problem in the organization is related to CJ. The progress that should be made is not being made yet. I was hoping to see more positive changes in the district and although there has been some reorganization of administration, I can also tell you that there are many many teachers who need reassigned or should not be teaching in the district. It's not always the administration's fault, sometimes in math teacher is can cause these problems as well. Quit blaming the schools for everything people, take a look in the mirror and accept some responsibility for the actions of your kids. Its not my fault, it's not the schools fault, it's no society's fault. It's yours.

Anonymous said...

Ummm ....... what?

Anonymous said...

The real accountability lies with the then BoE who gave CJ Huff complete control over the district. They were elected to represent the voters and taxpayers and they didn't. If anyone is truly responsible for the financial mess the district is in it's the then BoE. If anyone is truly responsible for the ongoing lawsuits related to construction it is the then BoE. Remember, they could've told CJ “NO!” on many occasions but didn’t. (Do you remember several previous BoE Presidents shutting down opposing voices to the rubber-stamp consent agenda? How many secret deals have been hidden from the voters? We’re just now finding out about some of them.) The voters need to remember this in April. The BoE is elected to represent our best interests and to protect the resources (finances, real property, and personnel) of our district and not let them be squandered. Let’s make it clear that we want a transparent BoE!

Anonymous said...

I guess the reader in question just can't read data. The data tells what a bad job Huff and the former Board did. The data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education says it all. Turner and the teachers and citizens who follow him simply report that which can be and has been measured. They have simply seen the mess made first-hand. So, Bitter Pill, accept that Huff and Co were horrible failures, that the incorrigible behaviors being seen at this time were a result of the no-discipline policies set in place to make the academic data less damaging, and that Jason Cravens and Jennifer Doshier were a large part of enforcing the no-discipline policy. They are still in charge for a few more months, and it will, as Dr. Ridder has said, take years to right this ship. You can try and deflect the damage back onto Turner and the teachers, but it won't work. The evidence is too strong and too easy to provide.

Anonymous said...

I hate it when people who aren't very bright try to use philosophy to prove a point. Is he threatening the teachers and Turner with a good cup of hemlock tea if they keep pointing out the truth? I guess no one better partake of any refreshments provided by the district, then. Fool.

Unknown said...

It's not good when someone tells lies on you. Especially when they don't have all the facts or know the person. Just like you did someone I know

It is me again said...

First of all, don't worry overmuch about who it is who criticizes you because most of us think you deserve whatever you get.

In Turner's previous article in which I posted, Turner pretended that the kids taking guns to school and the alleged rape(s) occurred under the CJ Huff Administration. It did not. Turner wants to dishonestly make a causal relationship with CJ Huff and the Joplin School Board when no such thing exists. Any recent gun violence or rapes have occurred under the new Administration and School Board. Are they responsible for this, given that CJ Huff isn't?

Reading the transcript of Turner's hearing it seems quite clear that Turner was simply ground to a fine powder for what Turner was accused of -- namely violating school board policies, particularly concerning after-hours non-school contact with students. Any accusations by CJ Huff were inferences with no more legal standing than Randy Turner's numerous accusations against others on this blog of Turner's. No one who has been the target of Turner's numerous lies and hypocrisies has any problem with CJ Huff sending Turner packing by any means necessary.

Insofar as "disciplinary problems" are concerned, Turner blames CJ Huff for "not supporting teachers" when it is Turner who routinely back-bit, thought that he was so very smart writing libelous and slanderous and semi-pornographic novels and tracts impugning the morals and abilities of his administrative and elected officials set by the public over Turner. Again, Turner hypocritically insists that Turner should be "backed up" by the CJ Huff Administration and Joplin School Board of the time against allegedly unruly students -- who didn't rape or bring guns to school back then -- while whining about how CJ Huff expected and demanded some measure of self-discipline and loyalty from Turner.

There is no job in the private sector that allows an employee to slander and defame his employer, and when the employer gets wind of this, then the employer is free to send the hypocritical, lying slanderous and dishonest employee to someone else who is stupid enough to put up with that nonsense.

Why should CJ Huff and the Joplin School Board be any different in dealing with uppity rogue teachers like Turner? CJ Huff and the school board of the time were sent packing by the voters not because they got rid of teachers who thought that they could do as they pleased but because they wasted taxpayers' tax money.

So now we come to the crux of Turner's blog: "Let teachers teach" -- whatever they please without responsibility or oversight. Turner's fellow teachers mostly "think" the exact same thing. Such "teachers" need to be detected and removed and sent to doing something else, if anything, if they can find a private employer who thinks that he is running a special education class for those of limited intellect and morality common to teachers, now ex-teachers, like Turner.

CJ Huff and the former Jopliin school board certainly were not good stewards of the school district finances. But they certainly were excellent in disciplining both teachers and students. They sent Turner and teachers like Turner packing, and now it seems they also kept a lid on school shootings and rapes.

However, insofar as "school discipline" is concerned, I much prefer to altogether blame Turner for foolishly not working out in advance a "safe word" with C.J. & Angie.

Anonymous said...

10:54 Refusing to discipline students in order to boost graduation rates isn't being "excellent in disciplining students". Driving away experienced teachers when they bemoaned a lack of student accountability and the lowering of grading standards (also to drive up graduation rates) isn't being "excellent in disciplining teachers". Thinking that somehow the students that are being a problem now isn't related to the way that they've been behaving with little or no consequences for the last few years (under the Huff administration), is disingenuous at best and downright reckless at worst.
I've been teaching in Joplin for 20+ years. The central office administration under Huff was the worst years I've seen in my career as far as supporting a positive environment for learning in classooms.
If you think lowering the academic and behavioral standards in order to drive up graduation rates is a good example of administration of a school district your wrong and I'm becoming convinced you are just trolling here and not actually paying attention.