Lofton's response

In Tuesday's Trentonian, you'll read about Trenton School Superintendent Rodney Lofton's response to the fiasco that left hundreds of city students corralled into a gym rather than attending classes the first few days of school last week.
We were pretty harsh with our school superintendent-as-a-clown front page, and Lofton - as the school district's top official - deserved it.
But you've got to respect his response to such harsh criticism, and Mayor Doug Palmer's subsequent public flogging of him.
Rather than cry about being picked on unfairly, scream racism, or point the finger at someone else, Lofton's only public statement has been to own up to the problems, apologize to students and parents, work as fast as he can to fix the problem, and pledge to do better in the future.
That was the public response.
Let's hope the behind-the-scenes response is the only thing that's going to make a dent in problems like this in Trenton's schools ... a take-no-prisoners assault on the tenure system and protection of incompetence.
Lofton needs to fire some people ... maybe a lot of people ... and he needs Doug Palmer's support to do it.

Who's running this circus?

Where do we even begin when it comes to the disaster that was the first day of school in Trenton?

Hundreds of students show up for the first day of school, and are corralled into the gym to twiddle their thumbs because ... AGAIN ... the school district was unable to do something as basic as schedule classes for everyone.

And that's after the district spent $500,000 of taxpayer funds to hire an outside firm to handle scheduling.

Apparently, the scheduling of classes ... something that's been done in every school district in the country every year since the beginning of modern public education ... is too complicated for the bozos running the Trenton School District.

And that's why we ran with the front page you saw on today's Trentonian. Hard-hitting? Yes. But also well-deserved.

And if we did anything to help create an environment that led to Mayor Doug Palmer going ballistic and ordering an immediate fix to this problem, that's great.

His outrage today and our front page are an understatement of the anger that this situation ... the latest in a long string of failures by the Trenton School District ... has sparked among parents and taxpayers.

A typical liberal tax-and-spend non-solution

Maybe you just can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Trenton's school department is so screwed up, so much on the brink of failure, that the state has come out and said it is on the verge of seizing control from city officials, just like it did in Camden.

Parents and the public have lost confidence in the integrity of school administrators in the wake of the Sherman Avenue school report card tampering scandal.

And what is Mayor Doug Palmer's solution?

Extend the school year and the school day.

And of course, you'd have to spend big bucks on more staff, and of course, you'd have to pay the teachers' union through the nose for cutting into their lengthy summer vacation by a few days.

Another tired, unoriginal, tax-and-spend solution that was predictable from a leader of establishment liberal Democrats who know no other solution than to throw money and more government bureaucracy at every problem.

How could keeping students longer in schools that are failing them every day possibly be the anwer to Trenton's problems?

'The deal of the century'

Prosecutors should be ashamed and the public should be outraged that Trenton teacher Sylvester Jones was offered a special form of probation yesterday for having a sexual relationship with one of his teenage students.

As prosecutors described it as the "deal of the century," they should have taken pause at their own words.

Why is Jones "getting off" with a slap on the wrist?

Let's dispel some misconceptions about this case and cases like it.

The girl was 17, practically an adult, right? Well, the girl was 16 when prosecutors allege that Jones started an inappropriate relationship with her. The law is the law, first of all, and statutary rape laws are on the books because CHILDREN CAN'T "CONSENT" to sex. They are too young to make that decision, especially when it involves an adult who should know better.

But more importantly, she was HIS STUDENT. He was in a position of authority over her, and to take advantage of that relationship is immoral and illegal and NEVER OK.

The fact that special probation - designed for first-time offenders who make an error in judgment unlikely to ever happen again and that hasn't had too much victim impact - was applied in this case is mind-boggling considering the factors above and that Jones was charged in this case and then allegedly caught having sexual contact with the girl in a public park while on probation!

Does that sound like someone who made a one-time error in judgment?

Does that sound like the kind of judgment we want to tell our children, parents and the public that it's OK to exhibit as a teacher in the public school system? That's what we're saying by not meting out a proper punishment in this case.

And a proper punishment would be Sylvester Jones behind bars.

Trenton schools get an 'F'

Despite this morning's headlines about the state possibly taking over control of the Trenton school system, the likelihood of that actually happening, for a variety of reasons, is slim.

But holy crap! It's hard to believe the city would need a wakeup call after the report card-tampering scandal at the Sherman Avenue School earlier this year, but they sure as hell got one yesterday with this announcement.

We are so bad at running our public school system that the state is talking about seizing control away from city leaders.

From Mayor Palmer to the city council to the board of education and on down, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

One would expect these leaders to be tripping over themselves today to do something about this. Instead, silence.

Lofton's response

In Tuesday's Trentonian, you'll read about Trenton School Superintendent Rodney Lofton's response to the fiasco that left hundreds of city students corralled into a gym rather than attending classes the first few days of school last week.
We were pretty harsh with our school superintendent-as-a-clown front page, and Lofton - as the school district's top official - deserved it.
But you've got to respect his response to such harsh criticism, and Mayor Doug Palmer's subsequent public flogging of him.
Rather than cry about being picked on unfairly, scream racism, or point the finger at someone else, Lofton's only public statement has been to own up to the problems, apologize to students and parents, work as fast as he can to fix the problem, and pledge to do better in the future.
That was the public response.
Let's hope the behind-the-scenes response is the only thing that's going to make a dent in problems like this in Trenton's schools ... a take-no-prisoners assault on the tenure system and protection of incompetence.
Lofton needs to fire some people ... maybe a lot of people ... and he needs Doug Palmer's support to do it.

Who's running this circus?

Where do we even begin when it comes to the disaster that was the first day of school in Trenton?

Hundreds of students show up for the first day of school, and are corralled into the gym to twiddle their thumbs because ... AGAIN ... the school district was unable to do something as basic as schedule classes for everyone.

And that's after the district spent $500,000 of taxpayer funds to hire an outside firm to handle scheduling.

Apparently, the scheduling of classes ... something that's been done in every school district in the country every year since the beginning of modern public education ... is too complicated for the bozos running the Trenton School District.

And that's why we ran with the front page you saw on today's Trentonian. Hard-hitting? Yes. But also well-deserved.

And if we did anything to help create an environment that led to Mayor Doug Palmer going ballistic and ordering an immediate fix to this problem, that's great.

His outrage today and our front page are an understatement of the anger that this situation ... the latest in a long string of failures by the Trenton School District ... has sparked among parents and taxpayers.

A typical liberal tax-and-spend non-solution

Maybe you just can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Trenton's school department is so screwed up, so much on the brink of failure, that the state has come out and said it is on the verge of seizing control from city officials, just like it did in Camden.

Parents and the public have lost confidence in the integrity of school administrators in the wake of the Sherman Avenue school report card tampering scandal.

And what is Mayor Doug Palmer's solution?

Extend the school year and the school day.

And of course, you'd have to spend big bucks on more staff, and of course, you'd have to pay the teachers' union through the nose for cutting into their lengthy summer vacation by a few days.

Another tired, unoriginal, tax-and-spend solution that was predictable from a leader of establishment liberal Democrats who know no other solution than to throw money and more government bureaucracy at every problem.

How could keeping students longer in schools that are failing them every day possibly be the anwer to Trenton's problems?

'The deal of the century'

Prosecutors should be ashamed and the public should be outraged that Trenton teacher Sylvester Jones was offered a special form of probation yesterday for having a sexual relationship with one of his teenage students.

As prosecutors described it as the "deal of the century," they should have taken pause at their own words.

Why is Jones "getting off" with a slap on the wrist?

Let's dispel some misconceptions about this case and cases like it.

The girl was 17, practically an adult, right? Well, the girl was 16 when prosecutors allege that Jones started an inappropriate relationship with her. The law is the law, first of all, and statutary rape laws are on the books because CHILDREN CAN'T "CONSENT" to sex. They are too young to make that decision, especially when it involves an adult who should know better.

But more importantly, she was HIS STUDENT. He was in a position of authority over her, and to take advantage of that relationship is immoral and illegal and NEVER OK.

The fact that special probation - designed for first-time offenders who make an error in judgment unlikely to ever happen again and that hasn't had too much victim impact - was applied in this case is mind-boggling considering the factors above and that Jones was charged in this case and then allegedly caught having sexual contact with the girl in a public park while on probation!

Does that sound like someone who made a one-time error in judgment?

Does that sound like the kind of judgment we want to tell our children, parents and the public that it's OK to exhibit as a teacher in the public school system? That's what we're saying by not meting out a proper punishment in this case.

And a proper punishment would be Sylvester Jones behind bars.

Trenton schools get an 'F'

Despite this morning's headlines about the state possibly taking over control of the Trenton school system, the likelihood of that actually happening, for a variety of reasons, is slim.

But holy crap! It's hard to believe the city would need a wakeup call after the report card-tampering scandal at the Sherman Avenue School earlier this year, but they sure as hell got one yesterday with this announcement.

We are so bad at running our public school system that the state is talking about seizing control away from city leaders.

From Mayor Palmer to the city council to the board of education and on down, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

One would expect these leaders to be tripping over themselves today to do something about this. Instead, silence.