Jefferson County's epic public school defeat of Richard Corcoran and his fellow charter grifters is almost complete
Jackie Pons, who ran the Jefferson K-12 school day-to-day, delivered Jefferson's first ever "B" grade. It wasn't Eydie Tricquet, the charter-backed superintendent Corcoran's cronies left behind.
Under the leadership of K-12 school principal Jackie Pons — who charter-backed Jefferson Superintendent Eydie Tricquet recently fired, seemingly out of jealousy — Jefferson County’s public school district has been graded “B” for the first time in the history of Florida’s rigged, fraudulent school grade system. In tiny Jefferson, the K-12 school is the district (with the exception of one small alternative school for behavior).
My dear friend Sue “Accountabaloney” Woltanski has a great roundup on this victory for Jefferson County and community-based public education in Florida. Here’s the bottom line from me:
Charter and public competed on the same ground in Jefferson — with roughly the same extra resources provided by the state. The charter grifters couldn’t pick and choose their enrollment. And what happened?
Dedicated public school teachers and the small community they serve smoked the cynical, grifting, Jeb Bush-loving charter school operators on their own fraudulent grading system.
Indeed, tiny Jefferson County’s resounding public school defeat of those charter grifters is probably the most important education story in Florida of the last decade. It is the bookend of the “Failure Factories” Pulitzer-winning atrocity from a decade ago that the Tampa Bay Times should account for/revisit.
And every GOPer or Democrat “reformer” or policymaker or legislator or billionaire or person of power will ignore this public school triumph — because they hate what it tells them. It tells them that they’re wrong — in addition to (often) crooked — about public education.
They always have been.
Yes, it’s a fraudulent system. Get rid of it; or deal with Jackie Pons taking a charter’s plunging “D” to a public school “B”
Florida’s school and district grade system is a fraud, rigged by people who hate public education for use as a weapon against public education. My entire political program as an elected school board member in Polk County called for dismantling it. I did not succeed. It has not been dismantled.
It remains the beating heart of Florida’s comprehensive state education failure. It is a core reason Florida’s students lose more ground as they age than students in any other state.
School grades are how Florida’s gross voucher and charter grifters punish and exploit public schools — and the people who attend and staff them — just for existing.
The grade system is what allowed Richard Corcoran, Manny Diaz, and failed South Florida charter operator Academica to take over tiny Jefferson County’s schools back in 2017.
Academica, Richard Corcoran, Manny Diaz (former Academica employee), Ralph Arza (top charter lobbyist/grossest public figure in Florida) all ran away from Jefferson in failure and terror in 2021. They left behind a shameless DeSantis-cover-up of a bid-rigging scandal back in 2021. Full scandal timeline here.
They left behind a plunging “D” grade.
And they left behind Eydie Tricquet, the sleazy elected superintendent they backed in 2020. See my story on that here:
I would pick Jackie Pons, Jefferson, the guy who’s been doing the work
Tricquet hired former Leon County Superintendent Jackie Pons to run the Jefferson K-12 school as Academica was bailing. No one else wanted the job, which involved reversing Academica’s plunging D while state vultures tried to pick the bones of what was left of Jefferson’s resources.
Then the DoE/Jefferson scandal became public.
And suddenly, Jefferson was able to keep the vultures at bay, with the help of the powerful advocacy of Rep. Allison Tant, the Democrat who represents Jefferson County.
Pons proceeded to do his job much too well for Tricquet’s taste. It was Pons hiring the teachers and running the school and matching performance to the school grade rubric each day. He first delivered a “C” — and now a “B.”
Meanwhile, Tricquet was wasting more than $200,000 of funds Jefferson couldn’t afford to waste on a “professional friend” (her exact description) named Steve Ruder. This included a $20,000 wire transfer to one of his companies that she did not disclose to her School Board.
You can see the full ethics complaint I filed against Tricquet over her Ruder spending— and the status of the complaint — in these articles.
I interviewed Tricquet about all of this back on January 14th.
She spent much of the interview trashing Pons and Jefferson teachers for not using her “professional friend” Ruder’s untested product. It was clear to me that she was also jealous of Pons’ success with the K-12. But voters can decide that for themselves. They should ask Tricquet about all of this — and Pons, too.
As I understand it, Pons could sense from hostile daily interactions with Tricquet that she was going to fire him (not re-appoint him) at the end of this school year. Pons, who could easily retire as the “B” hero of Jefferson, did not want to see the work of his staff squandered on Ruder and Tricquet’s wasteful grifting; so he decided to run against Tricquet. And Tricquet fired him.
That’s where we are.
Tricquet and Pons are both Jefferson superintendent candidates. There are GOP and Democratic primaries with other candidates, too. I’ve already heard from someone connected to one of the other candidates attacking the “B” grade as of no value because of the overall fraudulency of the system.
Candidates can make that make that argument themselves directly to the people of Jefferson. My position on school grades is pretty clear. And my position on the election is pretty clear.
If I lived in Jefferson, I would pick Jackie Pons, the guy who did the work to deliver something Jefferson has never had before — and who delivered public education’s most stirring victory in a long time.
Top education story of 2024 -- thanks for bringing it to us!
Intriguing. Outstanding depth from one of Florida's best writers. Thank you, Billy. I'll reread this to let it all sink in.