Photo By ADV/Leuzzi: Bellport resident Joseph Gagliano with his new book, “Public Education: F+ Fixing a Failing System.” The book will be available next week.

Getting back to the a, b, c’s of education

Story By: LINDA LEUZZI, 
13 August 2014

LI Advance

Joseph Gagliano’s book, “Public Education: F+ Fixing a Failing System,” published by McNally Jackson Books, will grab you with some startling facts, including the source of our current educational system’s testing craze. Three publishing corporations produce the standardized tests that are driving public education towards a cliff, he says. McGraw Hill and Mifflin Houghton Harcourt produce the exams and NCS Pearson grades them. 

It’s a billion dollar industry controlling educational industries and big business is behind it, pushing for legislation that requires standardized testing.

With an agenda like that, and not students’ overall welfare, it’s no wonder there was an uproar with Common Core, which Gagliano calls ‘Uncommon Core.’

At 24, Gagliano was the nation’s youngest high school principal at the Eastport School District; his overall 35-year career there included his position as the district’s acting superintendent. He has been a sought-after educational and motivational speaker at colleges and universities, as well as internationally, including countries like China and Africa.

His appearance on the Charlie Rose Show in April 1999 after the Columbine incident was the book’s impetus. “He recommended I write a book on education,” Gagliano recalled. “I guess I was slow.”

Gagliano, a Bellport Village resident, began his book last year. His educational battle cry, if you will, is ‘Commitment, Communication and Compromise’ and he has specifics for changing the way the education system should evolve. “We’re missing the core of education,” he said. “We’re not focusing on the student and supporting our teachers. We’re burdening them more. There’s too much testing. The family structure has changed and schools have become an expensive babysitting program.” Along with administration, teachers and families, a holistic approach is needed that also involves the board of education and the unions.

Dr. Scott Augustine, an associate adjunct professor of school law at Dowling College, has invited Gagliano into his classrooms. “What Joe provides is valuable insight based on his 30 years of hands-on experience as to how the law translates into actual real-life situations,” he said. “It’s one thing to hear the law, it’s another to hear how it works in real life from a guy who’s been doing it for over 30 years, especially if you want to be superintendent, principal or administrator. His most valuable insights are how to work with parents, teachers, school boards and children. I think he has a gift.” 

For one thing, Gagliano espouses an individualized educational program, or IEP, a specialized course of study designed to work on a specific student’s unique challenges. Gagliano supports project-based assessments. The standardized tests today simply demand a regurgitation of facts, he said.

The 152-page book is an easy read, outlining practical suggestions such as internships for potential board members before they run for a board position so they can witness the time and intricacies involved and fact-finding early on for budgets. Generations should be brought together, he said. His school witnessed the touching aspects of holding a “senior prom” for seniors, those adults who didn’t have one because they were slugging it out at jobs for their families during World War II. There are also checklists for parent-teacher conferences, parent-guidance counselor meetings and parent-administrator meetings. 

One of Gagliano’s most riveting chapters underscores the horrible, corrosive impact of bullying and a bad ending, the result of non-intervention.  “Everyone thought Columbine was the exception,” he said. “It turned out to be a daily occurrence. Everyone thought it was happening in city schools, but it’s happening in rural areas as well.”

In Chapter 9, The Uncivil War, he writes about a student who was a loner, a good kid, absent a lot but with exam scores that were OK. He won a history fair in seventh grade with a Civil War diorama. Bullying started in middle school against this student; lunch aides witnessed food landing on his shirt with kids laughing; in gym class he would wind up on the floor. When he walked home with a Civil War relic one night, he cut through a park and came across a taunting group. They asked what was in the bag. The bully blocked him and the bayonet caught him mid-stomach. The bully wound up in a casket; the student, in a jail cell.

Gagliano purposely placed an ‘abc’ after his name to get a dialogue going and hopefully the evolution this book will prompt. 

Augustine is clearly one of his admirers. “Anyone who wants to be a district leader would benefit by sitting down with Joe for 20 minutes or reading his book,” he said.