Labor Union & Other Anti-Reformers say battle is won!
About the same time that I began this blog just over a year ago, Lois Fornander and a few of her anti-reform friends started a blog of their own. Their blog was created to foment hatred towards anyone who was a proponent of improving public schools. Fornander and her friends used her blog to support the recall effort and to support anti-reform and anti-parent school board members.
Since the anti-reform side has had control of the D11 school board, Fornander's blog has literally been at a loss to find anything about their hand picked school board to write about. While some people think that I am being flippant when I say that this board is a do-nothing board, the anti-reformers very obviously agree with me.
I have pointed out that the anti-reform board members have very little interest in improving D11. I have said that they define success by nothing more than sitting in seats of power.
A visit to Fornander's D11watch blog has once again proven my point. These statements were posted on the web site on November 20th:
"In short, the local problem has been solved--at least temporarily...The local battle has been won, but the war isn't over."
So there you have it. D11 has a graduation rate under 70%, it has a declining enrollment problem that has been sucking dollars from the district for more than a decade, it has proficiency levels in the teens in math, and it has flat reading and writing scores. But none of that matters. The board is once again made up of no one other than anti-reform, pro-labor union, pro-status quo board members. To these people, that constitutes success. Note that their definition does not include the education of kids. They only worry about maintaining complete control and maintaining their status quo.
But maybe I am misinterpreting their blog. When they say that the war isn't over, maybe they are talking about academics.
Well, no they aren't. They mean this: "The November 2007 school board election replaced the last privatizer with a more reasonable person."
The anti-reformers never define "privatizers," but they like to use that word. Why was it so important for them to remove Willie Breazell? Because he was a threat to the over-worked administrators. He asked questions and learned information that made these 6-figure earners uncomfortable. That just didn't cut it. On top of that, the labor union didn't choose Willie. Orders from the labor union bosses were to get him off of the board. Only labor union endorsed school board members are allowed to serve on boards in districts with labor unions running the show, such as in D11.
Not surprisingly, Doherty teacher and anti-reform labor union mouthpiece Tom Watson tells us what many of us already knew in his reply to this Fornander post. He confirms that he and his fellow labor union colleagues focused more on politics than they did on education during the time period that reformers were on the board. His post says this:
"I'm still reading, but I'm nuthin' but a disgraced former union thug.... thank goodness we have at least two more years of ceasefire and an opportunity to actually get back to the mission of educating kids and supporting schools and teachers..." Posted by: Tom November 22, 2007 11:06 PM
Yes, "disgraced" is accurate when describing someone who places a higher priority on fighting reform than on educating students. Sad and disgraceful.
So we can all go to bed and sleep better tonight knowing that the battle is over. As Fornander's blog warns us, though, there might be more people out there lurking in the weeds who want to improve our schools. These creatures just might want to enact and even enforce accountability measures on the district. Only a strong sense of duty towards the status quo will protect the level of mediocrity of which our status quo administrators and board members from years past have so jealously guarded.
Since the anti-reform side has had control of the D11 school board, Fornander's blog has literally been at a loss to find anything about their hand picked school board to write about. While some people think that I am being flippant when I say that this board is a do-nothing board, the anti-reformers very obviously agree with me.
I have pointed out that the anti-reform board members have very little interest in improving D11. I have said that they define success by nothing more than sitting in seats of power.
A visit to Fornander's D11watch blog has once again proven my point. These statements were posted on the web site on November 20th:
"In short, the local problem has been solved--at least temporarily...The local battle has been won, but the war isn't over."
So there you have it. D11 has a graduation rate under 70%, it has a declining enrollment problem that has been sucking dollars from the district for more than a decade, it has proficiency levels in the teens in math, and it has flat reading and writing scores. But none of that matters. The board is once again made up of no one other than anti-reform, pro-labor union, pro-status quo board members. To these people, that constitutes success. Note that their definition does not include the education of kids. They only worry about maintaining complete control and maintaining their status quo.
But maybe I am misinterpreting their blog. When they say that the war isn't over, maybe they are talking about academics.
Well, no they aren't. They mean this: "The November 2007 school board election replaced the last privatizer with a more reasonable person."
The anti-reformers never define "privatizers," but they like to use that word. Why was it so important for them to remove Willie Breazell? Because he was a threat to the over-worked administrators. He asked questions and learned information that made these 6-figure earners uncomfortable. That just didn't cut it. On top of that, the labor union didn't choose Willie. Orders from the labor union bosses were to get him off of the board. Only labor union endorsed school board members are allowed to serve on boards in districts with labor unions running the show, such as in D11.
Not surprisingly, Doherty teacher and anti-reform labor union mouthpiece Tom Watson tells us what many of us already knew in his reply to this Fornander post. He confirms that he and his fellow labor union colleagues focused more on politics than they did on education during the time period that reformers were on the board. His post says this:
"I'm still reading, but I'm nuthin' but a disgraced former union thug.... thank goodness we have at least two more years of ceasefire and an opportunity to actually get back to the mission of educating kids and supporting schools and teachers..." Posted by: Tom November 22, 2007 11:06 PM
Yes, "disgraced" is accurate when describing someone who places a higher priority on fighting reform than on educating students. Sad and disgraceful.
So we can all go to bed and sleep better tonight knowing that the battle is over. As Fornander's blog warns us, though, there might be more people out there lurking in the weeds who want to improve our schools. These creatures just might want to enact and even enforce accountability measures on the district. Only a strong sense of duty towards the status quo will protect the level of mediocrity of which our status quo administrators and board members from years past have so jealously guarded.
posted by Craig Cox | 10:34 PM
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