TC & Jefferson-Houston are failing yet Superintendent Mort Sherman has a quarter million dollars a year salary, a taxpayer paid Mercedes, a redecorated office and a contract for four more years. DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY INCUMBENTS ON THE SCHOOL BOARD. That is all. Thanks for reading.

The superintendent said that ACPS would be judged by the state of Jefferson Houston. Several years, rotating teachers, costly programs, and numerous hand picked administrators later and look at the state of Jefferson Houston. The resources, time, and money for the IB program and the school doesn't even make Virginia's basic accreditation. Let election day be judgement day for the school board and the superintendent.

A complete non-story. Over 1/3 of the 1800+ public schools in Virginia, and a substantial majority of the school divisions, were flagged in this document at some particular level. This report was intended to be draconian and to reflect enough effort to justify the Federal waiver of the otherwise-applicable NCLB requirements.

Mark, just because TC and Jeff-Houston are among many other failing schools doesn't make it okay that they're failing.

Bill, the Mark (with a K) Williams who posts here has said he is not the Marc (with a C) Williams who is currently on the school board, for what it's worth.

Gail - I'm troubled by the "taxpayer paid Mercedes" comment. Do you mean directly paid by the city/schools, or paid by Mr. Sherman out of his own pocket. If it's the former, that's awful (and please provide supporting evidence - thanks!). If it's the latter, than, while piggish, it's his own prerogative.

The dire need for improvements to T.C. Williams and Jefferson Houston are nothing new. These schools, in addition to the middle schools, were to be areas of focus for the superintendent upon his hiring. That was four years ago. Since 2008 the superintendent has sought to reform nearly everything under the sun within ACPS. Many of those reforms have been met with pushback, confusion, and at times, scandal. So where are we now? 2012 and we still have the same concerns about T.C. Williams and Jefferson Houston. ACPS is a small school district. The excuses regarding the diversity of our students are ridiculous and are a shameful shift of responsibility. ACPS has nine, count them, nine school board members, a superintendent paid more than the Governor of our Commonwealth, a never-ending sea of central office administrators and staff, yet only one, repeat, one high school. With the amount of supposed oversight in ACPS there must be better results than what we have now. The incoming school board must be held accountable and must hold the superintendent accountable for the state of affairs of our schools. They must justify why they have so many administrators yet are strained for teachers, how they can afford consultants and triples digit salaries yet are passing retirement and healthcare costs off onto teachers (who take home less this year), and why they continue to make changes when the changes already made are simply not working.

I agree with many of the comments on here about the school system. It's imperative that we as parents and taxpayers demand accountability for our children's school's. There will be many new voices on the School Board after the election, and a team of people who know how to balance a budget, listen to the parents/ teachers concerns, organize key people in the community to form partnerships with tangible goals, and most importantly you have to be able to be bold enough to speak up to the Superintendent if a "proposed" change isn't the way to go with our students. I'm voting for Joyce Rawlings in District A. It is a new day in this city, and the School Board will reflect that after the elections take place. It is up to us as parents to hold the people we elect accountable for the decisions that are made.