Low-energy Corcoran abjectly surrenders one battle; but DoE still owes Jefferson at least $20M
The Board of Education didn't even let Corcoran talk as it announced Jefferson's freedom from the corrupt Florida Department of Education's direct emergency oversight.
Something happened between Friday night and Wednesday morning that turned “Lord Vader” Richard Corcoran, Florida’s Education Commissioner, into Dark Helmet.
Corcoran sent a petulant, confrontational Friday evening letter denying basically all Jefferson’s requests for help cleaning up the failures of Somerset/Academica Charter. You can read about it here:
And yet, by Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting, all the passive aggressive smack talk was gone, replaced with low energy submission to Jefferson Superintendent Eydie Tricquet’s request for freedom for her county schools.
Corcoran had nothing to say — at all — about Jefferson as a state flunkie announced Jefferson’s freedom from emergency financial oversight.
There were a whole bunch of reversals from the Friday letter, actually, which I’ll detail later. But for now, it’s most important to remember that Corcoran and the Board of Education still morally owe the people of Jefferson County $20M over 5 years to match what Somerset/Academica got to fail Jefferson as a “School of Hope.”
Much more to come later; but I think you can watch the BoE meeting here on the Florida Channel streaming service. The Jefferson part of the meeting comes about 1:05 mark. But you should watch the whole meeting. It’s a portrait of a state school system in capacity collapse — unable to staff classrooms and basic functions — because of longstanding state mismanagement and bad employment practices, as demonstrated in Jefferson County.
Jefferson is just the tip of the spear of that statewide reality.
And oh, by the way, UF, FSU, or any college or university considering giving FSU-reject Corcoran a plum life raft with which to escape his DoE mess ought to watch his weak, weak demeanor in this BoE meeting — and examine his hideous administrative leadership at DoE.
He will tank your college — like he did Jefferson’s schools — and let other people deal with it.