BLOWING "SUNSHINING" UP YOUR...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
 

The MDUSD Board of Education voted to delay the official “sunshining” – don’t you just love all those edu –buzz words – until the January meeting, awaiting the Governor’s January adjustment to the budget, something that has traditionally deepened the hole even more.
With the teacher union wanting the 3 year contract freeze to serve as insulation against what everyone expects will be more of a bloodbath in cuts, and parents angry at their perception that the teachers are greedy and angry at the board for the recent raises, despite the validity of their stance and terrible timing, how can things get any worse?
Well they can! For starters everyone is running around in band-aid mode - quickly trying to fill holes with fundraisers and each group snappy when anything encroaches upon their revenue streams. Come on, grandma can only buy so many cookies before she is tapped out, and people like me do not help your haircut fundraisers - wish I could. The problem is not the quick fix cash flows; it is the underlying issues that start at a state level and must be fixed there before there can be any change. No matter what anyone tells you, the state must stop business as usual and that means that WE must stop business as usual.

It is time to start making solutions. Gary Eberhart called on the community to contact the board with suggestions that they can try to make work. This is crucial. The cliff is just ahead and we have no parachute.

The first thing that must go is that stupid 2/3 vote rule. Sadly 2/3 of us have to agree to get rid of it before we can get rid of it and God knows that will be a lovely exercise convincing people to do so. Despite logical arguments the general populace is a gullible lot - sorry, I wasn't pointing at you when I said that - and with our own daily struggles, cannot get their minds around huge state changes when all they want is to make sure that Johnny gets to play football in his Senior year. They are not wrong. They are misguided because the priorities are so much bigger than what is happening in the MDUSD.

What we have done in education is to pasteurize and homogenize, not unlike milk, the system by which we deliver learning. That coupled with a failure to maintain discipline (discipline in most schools is a joke) creates an atmosphere that is not conducive to learning regardless how many millions keep getting spent on new textbooks. And why do we need new textbooks for English? Have the rules changed? Math? Have the rules changed? Untold millions are spent piloting and adopting new textbooks. Great for the publishers. Not great for school budgets.

All the legal actions against education have declawed any value to the system by forcing it to cater to one size, one safe size that all the little angels can fit into. We can say we have expectations but we cannot force them to it. We can help them (called scaffolding, resource, intervention, remediation, special education, IEP, 504, yada-yada-yada) and still get mediocrity at the end.

We get excited when the AYP, API and Star Scores show growth (my bias against STAR aside), yet fail to compare that to a global standard against our economic competitors. Yes Johnny can read at a 2nd grade level now that he is in 4th grade, but his Chinese counterpart can already read at a 6th grade level and has Calculus mastered. Not to worry, Johnny gets to play football this year because the parents raised the money - regardless his GPA is 2.1 (you can play over 2.0). And you know what - with luck (a lot of luck, contacts, payola and coercion) Johnny may even get drafted to play pro and make zillions of dollars. Totally realistic! Johnny could also go to jail for drug dealing and theft and emerge a new man with a Rap album as well. Go Johnny!

It is time education breaks apart and is reassembled as something that makes sense rather than something to appease the lawsuits and the people who never want to hold their little angels accountable. Schools should be a place of learning, strict in accountability and in discipline. Students should look like they care, should look neat and should be stripped of all technology except that provided by the school. There should be fines for parents when Johnny misbehaves because people understand fines. With enough fines Johnny will be fixed by mommy and daddy, whose job it is to fix him in the first place. And we have fines for everything else we do wrong in society rather than having to assess taxes to pay for programs to work around the fact that the teacher cannot get mad at Johnny.

I am all for fairness and freedom but we have gone overboard. We are insane with freedoms. We have so much freedom that we are intoxicated and act like we are so important that the world must redesign itself to our needs. Whatever happened to JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country?" Of course it is not OUR country anymore. It has changed into a bizarre mish-mash of people who think Osama represents more of a threat than their own apathy and indifference. A simple people who are more annoyed that gasoline went up three cents a gallon than they are that their children are at odds with what represents the morality of the age and receiving a substandard education.

So what do we do? End the 2/3 vote. Review and rescind programs that are inefficient and failing. Get rid of the expectation that every child will be a brain surgeon and provide job training programs in high school that will get students into working jobs upon graduation. Make the exit exam worthy - right now it is at least 3 grade levels lower in content. Hold students accountable for their behavior. School site principals with your candy boxes and grandma will hold you mentality should submit their resignation. Your job is to run the school and hold everyone to the rules, not lip service and a fear of offending the ridiculous parents - and there are always ridiculous parents who seemingly get their way.

It needs to be a cultural expectation that you graduate high school - the drop out rate should not exist. Here is incentive - you drop out and you get enlisted in the military. The military will teach you a skill or two.

Fund programs that put kids at the same level together. Especially for those in the mid range. Allow advance students to excel - GATE is a joke. Require Saturday school for those who need it - not behavior kids. Fund basic reading and writing programs - every child should be literate and it is just not that difficult if you have a good program and someone who makes you do it. Schools should end at 5pm and not 3pm. High schoolers should have to volunteer after school unless they have a paying job.

Get rid of politicians who talk but do little else. Politicians and talk show hosts; two groups we have an abundance of. Politicians should be more than lawyers - we have too many lawyers in existence.

And funding should be straight line. Why is there a Federal Dept of Education, a State Dept of Education, A County Dept of Education and then the districts? Really people, the laws are the same at the top. How about a federal department of education and get rid of the state level or the county level - we do not need both. Or get rid of the federal level and keep the state level with districts directly accountable there. You have a superintendent at every level - and we know about that!

There should be NO categorical funding. Everything should be General Fund. Money should be able to be assigned as needed, not as some political mandate has turned into law.

So how do we get there? What rights are you willing to give up? There is NO way that we can continue to live the way we do and expect that everything will function. Just this year alone you can see visible signs of the fabric of society unraveling. News reports that as police agencies cut their budgets and crime rising that local militias are forming. There was enough crime before. Why tolerate more?

As January approaches and the Governor unveils his adjustments to the already staggering deficit in California, as more people and businesses are fleeing because they see the decline increasing more rapidly, the question remains...just what are you willing to do beyond having the "sunshining" blown your way!

MisterWriter                                            Return to Blog                                        Read or Post Comments