Sunday, March 25, 2018

Breaking News: Schools Superintendent to Quit

Schools Superintendent John Rubio 
Calls it Quits

Breaking News
Embattled Emery Unified Schools Superintendent John Rubio has announced to the School Board of Trustees he plans on quitting his position with the following statement released today to the public from Emery Unified:  "Dr. Rubio has sent a letter to the board indicating his desire to not complete the 5th year of his contract, and instead move to a larger school district."  Mr Rubio's two year contract had been re-upped in December 2016 and it is presumed he vacates Emery at the end of this term on June 30th of this year.  This would make the forth Superintendent in 10 years for the tiny school district that has slid in academic performance since Mr Rubio took over in 2014.
The Tattler will report as details come in. 

23 comments:

  1. That's fast! We're going to have to come together as a community to pick a suitable replacement. It's all hands on deck for the schools. Let's try to do a better job of it this time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fair winds and following seas, John Rubio! May the road rise to meet you, the wind always at your back, Sun shine warm on your face, until
    We meet again, may the almighty hold you and your family in the palm of his hand!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rubio! That is the best fucking news I've heard since my son is been in this school district. Please do not let the door hit you in the ass I want you to move that fast. You corrupt piece of shit!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I swear I just want to get up and do a backflip because this is such good news. I know that it isn't popular or seen as karmically smart to wish someone bad but, Rubio, I do hope that some really seriously bad shit befalls you because you have done some extremely corrupt shit in the Emeryville School District. As superintendent I've been witness to actions by you that back in the day would have had you tied to a tree and beaten. I wish you all the worst.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Now, please! Can we please have an individual that actually gives a shit about more then his hair and looking good in front of the camera. Speaking of looking good in front of the camera. Hey Rubio! Did you post the video of the school board meeting when I stood before you and called you a criminal and the crook to your face? I've been looking for that video and I see every video but that one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. 4th Supe in 10 years! Emeryville needs to be cleaned out. All of these Klan members....OOPS! Did I say that? I meant politicians.

    Politicians: (poli)= many (tics)= blood sucking creatures. I'm not being cute. This is a fact.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rough winds and blood in your pee.

    ReplyDelete
  8. He is leaving because he knows the next election may elect people who dont agree with his agenda. I hope the next supt will provide opportunities for the public and teachers to have a real voice.we need someone who isnt afraid to reveal and openly talk about the many problems which exist

    ReplyDelete
  9. Good luck to the "larger school district."

    ReplyDelete
  10. For what it's worth, I was planning on sending my son to Anna Yates next fall, but given this news I will likely reconsider. I felt Rubio was doing what was needed to get the district back into shape. However, without him there and the likely chaos that will ensue in the coming transition months/years, I'm probably won't send my son there next year.

    I've read all of the posts on the Tattler regarding why people think he was bad for the district, and what I came out with was the following:
    - High teacher turnover.
    - Racist
    - Decisions outside of public view
    - Lagging test scores

    Please tell me if I'm missing anything, but for every point, except for being a racist (I have no way to verify this since I've never met him personally), it seems like those actions were required to save a sinking ship.

    The articles written here criticizing him were met with comments defending his actions that made sense. Those comments may have come from Rubio himself, but that doesn't preclude them being correct.

    He got rid of poorly performing teachers. I agree with that.

    He made decisions/met with people outside of public view. While that may seem sinister, the environment in which he operated was less than accommodating. I can't fault the guy for trying to get things done outside of the normal channels if those channels were hostile to the tough decisions he felt he needed to make.

    Poor test scores have been my biggest gripe with the district's performance. How else are parents supposed to measure improvement, if any? Yet given the situation with the ECCL and the transition, it made sense that progress wouldn't happen all immediately. I was willing to give him a few more years to right the ship regarding test scores, but we'll never know now.

    Emeryville's school district is perceived to be horrible. I felt Rubio was doing what needed to be done and am sad to see him go. I still don't know where I'll send me son, but the likelihood of sending him to Anna Yates has decreased dramatically.

    I'm not a Rubio fanboy. I'm just an optimistic parent who wants the district to improve to avoid the $25k tuition for private school that I may now need to pay.

    If you think I'm misguided, then please respond in an objective, unbiased, untribal way.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To Mr/Ms Anonymous:
      OK…you asked for it; objective, unbiased and untribal [sic] way. But warning: it may not turn out the way you may have preconceived for it to turn out. But of course that’s the risk you take when you’re willing to use objective analysis, isn’t it? Let’s look at it dispassionately, shall we?

      The salient question is: Is it possible to know if a school superintendent is doing a good job? And what would that look like? With the advent of specialization since the Renaissance, we know it should involve giving specialists or experts in the field have a major say in this. After all, when you need gastro-intestinal bypass surgery, you don’t use your friend down the street, hand him the scalpel…no, you seek out an expert in the field. So the answer is: of course it’s possible to know if a superintendent is doing a good job. It just might not be as ‘common sense’ as you think (again, risk of deferring to experts).

      So what do experts tell us as far as the metrics we should use to rate the job performance of a school superintendent? I’ll tell you what they say but I think you should check it out for yourself (warning; make sure they’re real experts in the field and not somebody with an opinion). Here are the top two things that keep coming up over and over when you ask experts outside of Emery:

      1) Teacher Retention- Is the superintendent retaining teachers? Especially veteran teachers….Are they being driven out? If the answer is YES, then there’s a problem. On this score just so you know, John Rubio has the worst record of any superintendent in the entire Bay Area. Since he can’t escape this simple fact, he is using his bully pulpit to overturn long settled objective expert recognized best practices.
      But of course he is! Since he has no other play, if he wants to retain his own job, he needs to tell us the experts are all incorrect. We should instead just trust him. This tactic has served him well up to now…parents, who are not pedagogical experts, generally like the idea of a take charge man at the top. It’s easier than the nuanced but effective practices used by experts.
      But you should use your natural capacity for skepticism if you’re unschooled on the educational best practices; is it possible you’re being fed a line? I mean, this man has a vested material interest to make you believe the experts are wrong and he’s right. You should consider he may be protecting his interests (at the expense of the children). Mr Rubio says he’s doing it right BECAUSE he keeps driving out (presumably bad) teachers. That’s his play. For four years he’s had the worst record in the Bay Area on teacher retention. But what he’s not telling you is after four years at it, he’s driving out the teachers he himself hired.
      He is all about chaos and subverting the dominant paradigm with this massive and consequential teacher churn. Sort of like someone else in the news over the last year, isn’t it?
      But ask yourself this: when do the children’s interests get to matter? When do we get a chance to see how he’s really doing? He’ll tell you to just trust him. The “turn around” is always just around the corner. It’s called the ‘Great Man’ theory so familiar to autocrats the world over and at a school district (and elsewhere generally), it leads to disastrous public policy.
      (Part Two next)

      Delete
    2. Part Two-
      2) Academic Ranking- Is the district going up or down versus other districts especially in its demographic group?

      When we look at Emery over the last four years, it’s clear academic performance has gone down where competing districts in the Bay Area have gone up. Says who? Says the Department of Education at the State of California. Notice how the experts aren’t saying straight up test scores but rather ranking among the districts is the proper metric. That’s because test scores have been shown to bias against poor families. So instead it’s ranking. It has a logic to it: Oakland, who started out worse than Emery four years ago has pulled out way ahead of Emery. Our ranking has dropped to last in the East Bay. How’s that make you feel?

      Perhaps you should take your child out of Emery. I can’t advise you on that. But I DO think you should hold up Mr Rubio, the leader at Emery, to account based on QUANTIFIABLE metrics like educators do. Remember, educators have an interest in helping children. You should listen to what they have to say and not just take the easy way being offered up by someone so obviously with material interest in steering you wrong.

      Delete
    3. Thank you Brian for your objective response.

      I understand how important quantifiable metrics are in judging performance. I am an economist by trade, so I view this matter as short term transitional cost pain for long term stable gain.

      Regarding teacher retention, my belief was that Rubio was getting rid of the "bad" teachers. I believe that a school is built upon the backs of teachers and parents. If Emery was poorly performing in the past, then it only made sense that Rubio would get rid of the poorly performing teachers. That is the line we were fed and that was in line with how I thought it should work. I know that isn't popular with everyone. I don't believe all teachers are good teachers. If you're a great teacher, you should be paid a lot and retained. If you're bad, then you should be gone. It may take time to find the great ones, thus the high turnover. That said, I believe your comment that "But what he's not telling you is after four years at it, he's driving out the teachers he himself hired" was the most telling part of your response on this topic. If there is a MASS departure of NEW teachers, then this is indeed a problem. However, as I said before, not every teacher is good and you can't know until you hire them.

      Regarding the academic rankings, I believe there was a comment in that post about how the study captured years when Rubio wasn't there and how things leveled out but didn't improve. Lack of progress in these sorts of metrics is disappointing, but understandable given the transition with the ECCL. I know people want to believe progress happens right away, but in reality it doesn't. He was dealing with how to make the school better AND how to get things up and running properly with the new facility. Given this, I was willing to give Rubio some more time, but it seemed like his job was made much tougher with lack of community support. So instead of dealing with two difficult tasks, he was dealing with 3 (trying to turn things around, new facility, and dealing with hostile community). If there wasn't any improvement in Emeryville's academic performance in 2 more years, I would have said he failed, but unfortunately he never got the chance to prove anyone right or wrong.

      In a related matter, you would think Emeryville school's would benefit from the influx of business professional with kids who live here, of which I am one. However, because of Emeryville's poor historical performance, many choose not to enroll their kids here, opting for private schools or other districts. I, and a few others who live here, had hope Rubio would turn things around and were willing to enroll their kids to take a chance, but with him going, the risk of Emeryville not improving has increased greatly. Thus, I doubt you'll see much improvement any time soon. Rubio gave us hope that things could improve and we were willing to chance our kids' education at Emery. But given the opposition to change, he decided to leave, and I fear Emeryville's schools will suffer the consequences for years to come.

      I hope Emery finds a decent replacement for Rubio. Maybe the foundation Rubio set (fiscally and otherwise) will benefit the next superintendent.

      Delete
    4. OK- As you know, public policy must be based on measurability (as much as possible) and not capriciousness. To not insist on measurability is to invite flawed policy of course, but also to open the door for tyrants, rogues and charlatans. These types of people are always there, trying to take over. But the commons must be guarded assiduously against them. It’s hard work to keep a bureaucracy functioning as it should….hard but not impossible. The first job is to insist on good leadership. And that’s where John Rubio has failed (again, the metrics). He has been an agent of chaos with a large ego where this district sorely needs competency. His ego expresses itself in his policy prescription of constant teacher churn as I have reported. It’s the classic “Great Man in History” model. That kind of model is fine in the private sector where CEO’s can make or break a corporation and only investors get hurt. But in the public sector it’s all about measurable accountability instead. So in the case of school superintendents, their job is to support the teachers (and see to the finances).
      Bad teachers are taken care of in one of two ways: either directly by firing them or forcing them out (observing due process) or coaxing them into better behavior by setting up a culture of good teachers within the district. The second method is preferable as I’m sure you agree and that’s where good leadership pays off. The way to do it is expressly NOT to engage in an ego driven war on the teachers as Mr Rubio has done four years running. Educators universally recognize this as I have mentioned.

      Any school district that wants to be successful at educating their children needs to put teachers in the driver’s seat. They’re the ones who actually do the work of educating children…in the trenches as it were. Other countries that do a better job of educating their children know this (check out the Finland model)…America seems to get hung up on the right wing meme of the patriarchal Great Man swooping in and firing bad teachers and somehow that’s all supposed to work out (that and hostility to teachers unions). In the case of Mr Rubio, it's always "we're just about to turn the district over into greatness". Good educational prospects are always just around the corner.

      John Rubio is a nice guy. He has a thick skin and that’s virtue for an administrator (some teachers disagree with my assessment about his skin). Also, he’s amicable. I actually like him. I think he’s reasonable good at building consensus (with new hires still in his thrall) regardless of his Great Man recklessness. These are the harder to quantify metrics for an administrator but nonetheless valuable. But still, it behooves us to pay attention to what the experts tell us and not allow ourselves to be seduced by personality politics. We can know what a good superintendent looks like. And that’s not John Rubio.

      So we could have (in descending order of dysfunction):
      1) A good administrator that’s also personable and easy to work with
      2) A good administrator that’s an asshole
      3) A bad administrator that’s personable
      4) A bad administrator that’s also an asshole
      Emery is at number three with John Rubio at the helm. We should shoot for number one.

      Delete
    5. Let me remind some of you who have forgotten and inform those of you who haven't been around enough and or are of the demographic of people who are clueless in general. Dr. Rubio was integral in a cover-up that involved his former principal bringing a complete stranger onto school grounds to threaten, harass, and assault me on the school grounds. The argument or statement that dr. Rubio was getting rid of the Bad Teachers is a joke in and of itself. He was the king shit rat! Emphasis on the shit and emphasis on the rat. I know for a fact. Many of us do. Brian Donahue knows and I fully support and stand by him on this matter.

      Delete
    6. Those of you who make statements praising Rubio remind me of the Trump supporters out there who despite the obvious criminality and ineptness of their leader, they purport to support him revealing either they're complete complicity in what is going on or their complete stupidity

      Delete
  11. This district is experiencing these problems because it puts into these various positions, e.g., superintendent, school principals , and in many cases, teachers who are just as corrupt as the city of Emeryville itself. INCLUDING the police department, the school, city hall. ... etc.
    Education is part of the political system. Get rid of racist, corrupt and criminal teachers,principals,superintendents. What now? I have no belief that Emeryville will do anything CLOSE to right.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well I must say that this is good news for Emery. So many highly qualified professionals who LOVE children and worked for NO EXTRA pay left this district because of his ill works. I took my own child out of this district after this man took over. Many of us saw the writing on the walls early. When there is evil at the top the children suffer. Educators worked their butts off to educate children and support families with little of no money. Even with the changing superintendents, the previous assistant superintendent & teachers did more with the little they had than what the public sees now. Pretty buildings and videos will not cover up the suffering staff and children. This really is good news for teachers, staff, families and most importantly children. Emeryville USD has produced some of the best educators, many who moved on to become even more. Unfortunately for these child did not get the benefit because of broken trust and foolishness at the top. Again I know first hand, I worked there for years before leaving myself. Mr. D, thanks for continuing to blog the positive and negative things that happen. So many of us planned to have our career in Emeryville but the actions by SOME caused many of us to move on and prosper in other districts.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I post anonymously too if I was going to say such stupid, stupid things. Anyone who Praises Rubio for anything other than being, at the very least a complete inept asshole, is a complete asshole themselves. Because I refuse to believe that anyone other than the average clueless white American or one of their pet ass-kissers or Rubio himself would post such bullshit

    ReplyDelete
  14. I truly hope we get good decent people in also. I know that we will get teachers who love our children and who want the best for our children. But the teacher's hands are bound by bureaucratic and political positioning which takes precedence over the well-being, mental and physical health of our children. It is hard for me to ignore the fact that the educational system as a whole needs an overhaul. Besides mathematics, much of what's being taught in social studies and history is bullshit designed to gloss over the actions of, speaking on a small scale, assholes like Rubio

    ReplyDelete
  15. Rubio made it into office, as did the asshole preceding him and the school suffered as I understand it, has been suffering for quite a while. What matters now is the big contribution! What matters now are those deals made in the light and in the dark that bring about gain for those willing to sell themselves and their souls for the opportunity of attaining them

    ReplyDelete
  16. I surely hope we get a good person in this spot. It is more accurate to say that I wish we would get a good person in this spot because I truly believe that we won't. In order to keep the corruption that is occurring within Emeryville going and to keep those at the top of that pyramid fat and protected, they have to have certain pieces in certain positions. That superintendents seat is one of those positions and then once that crooked seat gets filled with a crooked cog then that person has to have someone under he or she who they can easily shape and mold. They need their lap dog and yes man or woman. I've seen it since I've been in this District with every changing of any position there has always been the same corrupt outcome

    ReplyDelete