Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

tbt* claims there is a terrible trend going on in local schools (you’ll have to flip to page T5, and you’ll have to do it today):

YET ANOTHER CHALLENGE FOR POOR SCHOOLS: THEY GET LION’S SHARE OF MISCREANT TEACHERS

The gist of the article is that schools with a high rate of low-income students get more bad teachers than those schools with fewer kids in poverty.  The problem is that this may or may not be true - we simply don’t know.  And they do throw a single sentence in there to cover their ass:

But Pinellas and Hillsborough teachers punished by the state for serious misconduct appear more likely to have been working in high-poverty schools, a St. Pete Times review shows.

Note the word “appear.”

However, they also encourage readers to find out more:  ”For the full story, go to education.tampabay.com.”

In the St. Pete Times online article, the headline is a bit more accurate:

Review suggests more teacher misconduct at poorer schools in Pinellas and Hillsborough

In this longer piece, they specifically admit that their review of school records is not conclusive:

The Times review has shortcomings. The volume of local teachers in the database is small, making it unreasonable to draw strong conclusions.

And although they gloss over the fact, the real paper reports that at least one school with higher income kids also has as many problem teachers as some of the poor schools.

After Dixie Hollins and Riviera, the schools that have had the most state-sanctioned teachers in Pinellas were Pinellas Park High, Northeast High and Tarpon Springs High. Pinellas Park and Northeast have also been among the district’s poorest schools.

Ignored in that second sentence (and through the rest of the bit), Tarpon Springs High is not full of low-income students.

So, should this article have been written?  Does it tell us anything?

Of course this is an important article and story.  Stuff like this is the first step to looking into an issue, and we should absolutely try to find out if poor schools somehow getting screwed.

But for tbt* to scream with an all-caps headline that it is already a foregone conclusion is misleading and irresponsible.

Tampa Bay isn’t that different from any other post-WW II collection of sunbelt suburbs in search of a city. LA, Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Houston, Orlando, Jacksonville - the built landscape is pretty much the same. 

Designed to isolate us in autos and ranchettes, these sprawls give us lawns and shopping malls and de facto segregation by class and ideology as well as ethnicity.  (Thanks, Greatest Generation.)

This isn’t good for the creative class.  And a diverse creative class is a big part of what makes cities livable and attractive to the knowledge workers who generate the dollars in the post-industrial economy.

Oh, yeah, and that includes tourist-dependant economies — Pinellas, I am looking at you.

Mayor Iorio signed on to this concept. In 2003, anyway.

The man-made environment in the bay area — sprawling, low-density, built-for-cars– doesn’t throw people together in a stimulating creative stew the way it does in high-density environments. A friend of mine, visiting St Pete a while back, summed it up for me:

“The most important art contacts you’re gonna make– they’re at the laundromat, at the coffeehouse, on the bus, on the street with a really ugly terrier on a leash. You can’t help but run into them. I mean: Run. Into. Them.”

Tampa Bay is hemorrhaging its creative class, and that is worse than you think. They are leaving for places where they can find respect, employment, amenities, and like-minded people.

Can intentional design break us out of this creativity drain?

Where do you go every day to rub elbows with creative, stimulating people?

From July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008, the Tampa Bay area lost over 23,000 jobs. As a percentage, the Bay area’s job losses are second-worst nationally:

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater lost 1.8 percent of its jobs over the year ending in June

That’s second worst for major metros (population of 1,000,000+). Smaller areas such as Fort Myers (down 5.1 percent), Naples (down 4.2 percent) and Bradenton-Sarasota (down 3.6 percent) had bigger percentage losses.

Texas cities Houston, Dallas, and Austin all had job gains.

Check out the US Dept. of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report for June.

According to a new report released by the Corporation for National and Community Service, 60.8 million Americans volunteered in their communities in 2007.  That represents an average of 26.2 percent of Americans age 16 and older.

The study also reported the percentages of individual states as well as metro areas, and those findings are highlighted on the Volunteering in America website.

The number of volunteers from the State of Florida is below the national average, and ranks only third from the bottom of the list:

• Volunteer Rate Ranking: 49th within the 50 states and Washington D.C.
• Average Volunteer Rate: 20.0%
• Volunteer Hours Ranking: 45th within the 50 states and Washington D.C.
• Average Volunteer Hours per Resident: 29.3 hours

Most of those (32.4%) volunteer with religious organizations.

Floridian cities make up the bottom of the metro rankings too:

• #50 - Miami - 14.5% volunteered.
• #46 - Orlando - 19.7% volunteered.
• #45 - Jacksonville - 20.7% volunteered.
• #40 - Tampa - 24.8% volunteered.

Sure, Tampa Bay ranks higher than the rest of the state, and is above average for Florida, but we can certainly do better.

Here are the numbers for the Tampa, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (Major cities included in this MSA include Tampa, FL; St. Petersburg, FL; and Clearwater, FL):

• Volunteer Rate Ranking: 40th within the 50 large cities
• Average Volunteer Rate: 24.8%
• Volunteer Hours Ranking: 29th within the 50 large cities
• Average Volunteer Hours per Resident: 34.8 hours

So what about you?  Do you donate your time to any worthy causes?  Fill out the poll, and tell us about some worthy causes in the comments:

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The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Summary this week, and several Florida metro areas are ranking high in jobs lost:

The Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice market recorded the fourth highest percentage drop in total employment nationwide for the past year.

Total employment dropped 3.7 percent in the 12 months ended in May.

Included within the top five were other areas on the west coast of Florida still feeling the hangover from the real estate and construction boom of the past five years: Cape Coral-Fort Myers at No. 2 with a 5.3 percent decline and Naples-Marco Island at No. 3 with a 4.6 percent decline in employment.

Topping the list is Flint, Mich., with a 6 percent decline — hit hard by layoffs in the automotive industry. Behind Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice was Saginaw-Saginaw Township North, Mich., with a 3.3 percent.

Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach were fourth and fifth on a list of areas losing the most jobs. The markets lost 20,300 and 16,500 jobs, respectively.

Florida Trend recently published a list of the top 150 Florida public companies ranked by total revenue in 2007.

Local companies in the top 25 include Clearwater’s Tech Data Corp. (#1), St. Pete’s Jabil Circuit Inc. (#6), Tampa’s TECO Energy, Inc. (#18), and St. Pete’s Raymond James Financial Inc. (#21).

They also list the top 200 private Florida companies ranked by 2007 revenue.

Top 25 locals there include Lakeland’s Publix Super Markets Inc. (#1), Seffner’s Rooms To Go (#12), Bradenton’s Beall’s Inc. (#19), and Clearwater’s Frank Crum (#22).

Dr. Beach came out with his top beaches for this year, and the Tampa Bay area can once again claim the best beach in the United States.  Fort DeSoto was named the top beach in the US for 2005, and this year Caladesi Island ranks as America’s Best Beach.  Caladesi Island is just off the coast of Dunedin.

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Not only that, but Sarasota’s Siesta Public Beach ranked number three in the nation for 2008.  You can find that beach on Siesta Key, just an hour south of Tampa or St. Pete.

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They both look pretty good, huh?

Past Florida winners of Dr. Beach’s list include:

• 2005 Fort DeSoto Park - North Beach, St Petersburg, Florida
• 2002 St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, Florida
• 1995 St. Andrews SRA, Florida
• 1994 Grayton Beach SRA, Florida
• 1992 Bahia Honda SRA, Florida

AutoVantage Road Rage Survey Finds Tampa “Most Likely to Multi-task, and Eat and Drink”: 

The commute to work can be an unpleasant one for people across the country, and the road seems to be getting even bumpier for Tampa drivers.

The third annual In The Driver’s Seat Road Rage Survey, commissioned by AutoVantage, a leading national auto club, found that Tampa drivers, tied with Baltimore and New York, ranked No. 1 for being the most likely to observe other drivers eating or drinking while driving every day, compared to 24 other major American cities.  Tampa drivers are also most likely to observe other drivers multi-tasking (like putting on makeup, shaving or reading) while driving ever day.

Overall, Tampa was named the ninth least courteous city in terms of road rage in the survey.

Thank your gods McDonald’s stopped serving that McDLT (some assembly required). But seriously, you people have to manage your time better. You can’t be eating while driving. After all, your children are watching.

Bonus link for our friends over at Stuck in the 80’s:  Jason Alexander (aka George Costanza) sings his way through a McDLT advertisement, looking a bit like a Miami Vice extra.