Joseph Gerth

@Joe_Gerth

It’s a damn good thing business leaders around the country don’t have the internet.

‘Cause if they did, they’d probably read that the Jefferson County’s public education system is a “disaster” and an “absolute unmitigated mess.”

They’d know that if they opened shop in Louisville, they’d find the students here wouldn’t be prepared to go to work for them and don’t have the skills necessary, because the education they got here is a “disaster.”

These aren’t the words of unscrupulous business recruiters from Cincinnati or Indianapolis, or Birmingham or Chattanooga.

They’re the words of Matthew Griswold Bevin.

The Governor.

Of Kentucky.

There are issues in the Jefferson County Public Schools. We know that.

Far too many of the district’s schools are underperforming. In fact, 18 of them are considered persistently low-achieving schools based on annual tests, according to the state Department of Education website. There are only nine other such schools in the rest of the state.

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But there’s no district in the state that’s anywhere near as large as Jefferson County — and that poses problems all its own. Students in Jefferson County schools speak 136 different languages and 7 percent of them have limited ability to speak English.

And more than 60 percent of students are on free or reduced-price lunches, meaning that they live in homes with low incomes — a key indicator that puts them at risk of failing in school.

The state Department of Education announced Tuesday that it was undertaking a full-blown management audit to see if it needs to step in and handle the district’s finances, administration, operations and other responsibilities.

Students have been physically abused at the hands of teachers and administrators, and the district hasn’t done an adequate job of tracking and recording instances in which school personnel have had to restrain students.

But an “absolute, unmitigated mess?” A “disaster?”

Nope.

The district, overall, meets the proficiency standard.

DuPont Manual High School has 44 national merit semifinalists this year. It is one of four Jefferson County schools that have gold or silver status in U.S. News & World Reports' national rankings. Those four schools — Atherton, Brown School and Male are the other three — rank in the top 12 of all Kentucky High Schools.

Doss High School, which is one of the under-performing schools, recently posted the seventh-largest gain in overall achievement of any high school in Kentucky.

Western High School students — also on the list of under-performing schools — saw students complete 1,606 dual-credit hours last year. More than half of the 2016 graduating class received college credit and 10 students this year are on pace to graduate with not just a diploma, but an associate’s degree as well.

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Bevin’s words might be the words of a candidate. They might be words of an activist. But they shouldn’t be the words of a governor.

I’m not suggesting that a governor shouldn’t speak out and speak up, especially when things are amiss. But a governor’s words carry more weight than others and those words should be measured — and yes — tempered because those words harm his state and his constituents.

Bevin’s words were anything but measured. They were angry. They were inflammatory.

He was mad that the district had passed a resolution to resist requests from federal immigration officials to share data or resources that could help identify students or families who are in the country illegally.

So he lashed out at the district.

Now, every time a company that is considering moving operations to Louisville or whether to keep jobs here will see what the governor had to say about Louisville’s schools.

A “disaster.” An “absolute, unmitigated mess.”

This isn’t the time to be taking gratuitous shots at the schools in Kentucky’s largest city that produces more wealth than any other part of the state.

This week, Humana called off its merger deal with Aetna but it remains a prime takeover target — especially since Anthem and Cigna also called off their merger. Why would Anthem or Cigna want to keep a large base of employees here?

Just wait until Humana is purchased and its new parent company sends its 15,000 employees and contractors elsewhere because they don’t want its executives' children in a school system that the governor says is a “disaster.”

That would be an “absolute, unmitigated mess.”

Joseph Gerth's column runs on Sundays and at various times throughout the week. He can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courier-journal.com.