Jon Narcisse Breaks Another Promise
We at The Vortex have been pretty critical of Jon Narcisse lately, so it is time to say something nice. He is consistent. He breaks promises to pay his debts. He breaks promises to his supporters. And now he has broken a promise to the community.
He promised to quit the school board if his interpretation of the graduation data was proven incorrect. Guess what? Des Moines' school superintendent, the tough as nails Nancy Sebring, called his bluff. She demolished his claims on camera at a recent school board meeting. Undaunted he huffed and puffed and pontificated and spewed nonsense, throwing out meaningless, faceless names, and skewed, misinterpreted calculations from four years ago, but in the end it didn't change a thing. He was wrong and she was right.
Then he thought he had found support from a study by an organization loosely associated with John Hopkins University that used the same flawed methodolgy he did. But as the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz knows, simply having a diploma doesn't make you smart. (By the way, where did Narcisse go to school? Does he have a high school diploma? Does he have a college diploma? We know he makes a big deal about playing chess. Being a chess player doesn't make you smart, it merely makes you weird. See Bobby Fischer.)
Sebring skewered the John Hopkins study too. Read her piece from the Sunday, November 18, 2007 Des Moines Register: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071118/OPINION01/711180308/1004/
But let us reprint the key paragraphs here with one small change, we will insert Narcisse's name for John Hopkins:
"For example, according to Jon Narcisse, students who move to a different school district or transfer to a different high school within a district are dropouts. Students who move into alternative programs during high school (in Des Moines, that accounts for more than 500 students) or to a private school or are home-schooled are dropouts. Students who die are dropouts.
"Jon Narcisse also ignored the artificially high "freshmen" enrollment found at many schools. If a school requires 24 credits to graduate, students who successfully complete six credits per year are on track to graduate in four years. A student who earns less than six credits in ninth grade may be reclassified as a freshman for an additional year, or until they complete enough credits to return to their original class. This results in an artificial enrollment "bubble" in ninth grade at many high schools.
"In fact, Jon Narcisse didn't even consider students who graduate early. A commencement speaker last year at Hoover High School in Des Moines graduated at the end of his junior year. Yet, according to Jon Narcisse, this straight-A student was a dropout."
Enough said. Quit, Narcisse, Quit!
-The Vortex