Hey Tom, What about the Diaper?
“This dirty diaper won’t change itself.”
So declared D11 board member Tom Strand several weeks ago when discussing the issue of shuttering D11 schools, selling the buildings to wealthy developers, putting teachers on the streets, and destroying the very foundation of our public schools.
Strand was making the point that while past boards did not have the courage to do the right thing, he was going to ensure that this board would move forward and close the schools that needed to be closed. No more delays, declared Strand; it is now or never!
Uh, Tom? How does that diaper smell today?
On Wednesday evening, the D11 board punted the issue of school closure down the road yet again. Strand sat by helplessly and didn’t even offer up a fresh Pamper. In fact, he appeared to be the starting punter.
Everyone understands that the D11 school district is facing growing financial hardships as parents take their kids to districts that tend to focus their budgets on educating students rather than filling the wallets of administrative fat cats who add no value to the education equation. D11 CFO Glenn Gustafson has wanted to close schools for several years as he has watched the budget numbers grow tighter and tighter. Being more of an appeaser than a leader, Gustafson has never had the courage to publicly state his position, nor has he had the courage to speak out against the practice of superintendents hiring more and more administrators, further straining an already stretched financial position. Rather, Gustafson depends on committees and board members to carry his water. That way, if or when the public expresses its dismay over losing their neighborhood school, Gustafson can point his finger elsewhere.
Gustafson is a party to the financial mess in which the district finds itself. He claims to have trimmed over $1 million from the administrative budget last year. He claimed the same thing while I was on the board. To prove his point, he showed charts of administrative positions that were eliminated. Of course, he only showed half of the story. In response, I showed charts that showed where positions were created under different titles, leaving the spending levels exactly the same. Gustafson and other administrators also tend to “hide” administrative hires by using the purple packet process, which I have explained previously.
After spending several months discussing the 2008-2009 D11 budget with the board, the administration only recently announced that it was going to shut several neighborhood schools. Even board members who have always been absolute apologists for the lethargic administration were taken aback by this last minute attempt to close buildings with no notice, no plan, and sadly, no evidence that their actions were designed to improve education in any way. What were the criteria that the administration used to select the schools on the list? No one knows. How will these closings help the academic environment in the district? Again, no one knows, because that question was never analyzed by the administration.
Every member of this current board opposed the idea of site based management, which directs the budget to the schools based on student population and special needs at each building. Only after the schools were funded would the administration receive money for hiring administrators. Obviously, the administration adamantly opposed this type of budgeting because it would mean that the administration would certainly shrink in size. The board members opposed the site based budget concept because they were convinced by labor union handlers that this was the first step in “privatization.” In other words, if it could be shown that a school could perform well while managing its own budget, and money flowed to school buildings based on the student population, then that was an obvious attempt to make the schools function like private entities, where people would be attracted to schools that actually performed. What a horrible concept.
The only rational method by which to determine which schools should survive and which should not is by utilizing a site based budgeting model. If a school building is performing poorly and under enrolled, the budget would be equally small. The only way to increase the budget would be to increase the student count. The only way to increase the student count would be to have a quality education environment. There is nothing difficult about this concept. The communities would then be in the position to take charge of their own neighborhood schools. If they would want their building to remain open, then they would have to participate to improve their school. Teachers and administrators would have to go the extra mile to attract students to their building. If no improvement occurred, and if no students came to a building, it would die a natural death. The school budget would not sustain a failing school.
The reality today is that the district budget is being forced to sustain buildings that are half full. Money is being taken from other places in the district just to maintain the status quo. It is time to move to a site based budget and let events dictate which schools survive and which die a natural death.
It appears that the current board members are finally awakening to the reality that the administration is not going to lead D11 to excellence. It is instead leading the district towards financial troubles. Diaper Strand and other board members act surprised that the administration really doesn’t have a well thought out plan when it comes to school utilization. Oh really? Welcome to the party. Some of us have been telling them that since 2003 and before. It appears that the recall that the current board members all supported was nothing more than a $250,000 cure that targeted the wrong disease.
By the way, my comments in the opening paragraph about Strand’s desire to destroy the district and sell the buildings to developers is not true, just as it wasn’t true when Strand and his ilk made those claims about the reformers during the recall campaign in 2006. Funny that we have yet to hear from recall mouthpieces Norvelle Simpson, Annie Oakley, and Mary Ellen McNally. Who said that the recall wasn’t at all about politics?
So declared D11 board member Tom Strand several weeks ago when discussing the issue of shuttering D11 schools, selling the buildings to wealthy developers, putting teachers on the streets, and destroying the very foundation of our public schools.
Strand was making the point that while past boards did not have the courage to do the right thing, he was going to ensure that this board would move forward and close the schools that needed to be closed. No more delays, declared Strand; it is now or never!
Uh, Tom? How does that diaper smell today?
On Wednesday evening, the D11 board punted the issue of school closure down the road yet again. Strand sat by helplessly and didn’t even offer up a fresh Pamper. In fact, he appeared to be the starting punter.
Everyone understands that the D11 school district is facing growing financial hardships as parents take their kids to districts that tend to focus their budgets on educating students rather than filling the wallets of administrative fat cats who add no value to the education equation. D11 CFO Glenn Gustafson has wanted to close schools for several years as he has watched the budget numbers grow tighter and tighter. Being more of an appeaser than a leader, Gustafson has never had the courage to publicly state his position, nor has he had the courage to speak out against the practice of superintendents hiring more and more administrators, further straining an already stretched financial position. Rather, Gustafson depends on committees and board members to carry his water. That way, if or when the public expresses its dismay over losing their neighborhood school, Gustafson can point his finger elsewhere.
Gustafson is a party to the financial mess in which the district finds itself. He claims to have trimmed over $1 million from the administrative budget last year. He claimed the same thing while I was on the board. To prove his point, he showed charts of administrative positions that were eliminated. Of course, he only showed half of the story. In response, I showed charts that showed where positions were created under different titles, leaving the spending levels exactly the same. Gustafson and other administrators also tend to “hide” administrative hires by using the purple packet process, which I have explained previously.
After spending several months discussing the 2008-2009 D11 budget with the board, the administration only recently announced that it was going to shut several neighborhood schools. Even board members who have always been absolute apologists for the lethargic administration were taken aback by this last minute attempt to close buildings with no notice, no plan, and sadly, no evidence that their actions were designed to improve education in any way. What were the criteria that the administration used to select the schools on the list? No one knows. How will these closings help the academic environment in the district? Again, no one knows, because that question was never analyzed by the administration.
Every member of this current board opposed the idea of site based management, which directs the budget to the schools based on student population and special needs at each building. Only after the schools were funded would the administration receive money for hiring administrators. Obviously, the administration adamantly opposed this type of budgeting because it would mean that the administration would certainly shrink in size. The board members opposed the site based budget concept because they were convinced by labor union handlers that this was the first step in “privatization.” In other words, if it could be shown that a school could perform well while managing its own budget, and money flowed to school buildings based on the student population, then that was an obvious attempt to make the schools function like private entities, where people would be attracted to schools that actually performed. What a horrible concept.
The only rational method by which to determine which schools should survive and which should not is by utilizing a site based budgeting model. If a school building is performing poorly and under enrolled, the budget would be equally small. The only way to increase the budget would be to increase the student count. The only way to increase the student count would be to have a quality education environment. There is nothing difficult about this concept. The communities would then be in the position to take charge of their own neighborhood schools. If they would want their building to remain open, then they would have to participate to improve their school. Teachers and administrators would have to go the extra mile to attract students to their building. If no improvement occurred, and if no students came to a building, it would die a natural death. The school budget would not sustain a failing school.
The reality today is that the district budget is being forced to sustain buildings that are half full. Money is being taken from other places in the district just to maintain the status quo. It is time to move to a site based budget and let events dictate which schools survive and which die a natural death.
It appears that the current board members are finally awakening to the reality that the administration is not going to lead D11 to excellence. It is instead leading the district towards financial troubles. Diaper Strand and other board members act surprised that the administration really doesn’t have a well thought out plan when it comes to school utilization. Oh really? Welcome to the party. Some of us have been telling them that since 2003 and before. It appears that the recall that the current board members all supported was nothing more than a $250,000 cure that targeted the wrong disease.
By the way, my comments in the opening paragraph about Strand’s desire to destroy the district and sell the buildings to developers is not true, just as it wasn’t true when Strand and his ilk made those claims about the reformers during the recall campaign in 2006. Funny that we have yet to hear from recall mouthpieces Norvelle Simpson, Annie Oakley, and Mary Ellen McNally. Who said that the recall wasn’t at all about politics?
posted by Craig Cox | 10:56 PM
4 Comments:
On a lot of counts, you're right about the current D-11 central admin. They aren't thinking things through, and they have fallen in love with the strategy of artificially creating "crises" that require immediate attention by the BOE, so that nobody has a chance to realize how ill-conceived admin's plans are. Criticize Strand and the others if you want (and you undoubtedly will) but they're seeing through admin's smoke and mirrors and throwing on the brakes when necessary. They did the right thing by not making a snap decision on closing Longfellow and Pike. That doesn't mean they won't be closed come 2009-2010.
Where you get it quite wrong (as usual) is in your logical fallacy that, since admin is "wrong", your old cronies on the prior BOE had to be "right".
You ignore the fact that you clowns ran off two decent superintendents, which left Bishop as the only remaining option. And, if memory serves, you voted for Bishop as superintendent, didn't you?
It's not that the recall targeted the wrong people; the problem is that the public cannot also recall some of the higher-ups in admin. Your buddies (and you) more than deserved to be recalled, as you made a bad situation worse.
Craig, What do you think about financially reinforcing programs such as orchestra, band, drama, choir, sports and etc. that have shown to improve test scores and motivate students to stay in school?
AND, what do you think about Dr. Bishops' DESTINY idea?
Thanks
Anony #1, you are really chasing your tail on this one.
You bemoan the fact that we sacked two good superintendents, then you claim that because of that, we went from “bad to worse.” I guess I will take that as an admission that the superintendents that you seem to miss are the “bad.” You must have very high standards. For the record, nobody fired Norm Ridder. Superintendents traditionally spend three years in a given district and they depart just as the community is figuring out that they aren’t doing anything to improve their district. Ridder fit that category. It was your buddy Karen Teja who tried to orchestrate an early release for Ridder in the Spring of 2005. I’ve challenged you on this before: name one or two proposals that either Ridder or Sharon (what motorcycle?) Thomas brought forward that would have improved D11.You can’t name any, so that is why you correctly state that times were “bad.” Nor can you educate us on what we did that made the situation “worse.”
You pat Tom Strand on the back for realizing that the administration enjoys creating crisis to push certain agendas past the board, and for realizing that the administration creates ill-conceived plans, and for seeing through the administration’s smoke. You then show a desire for the public to be able to recall the administration. Read my post again. I welcomed you to the club, and I welcome you again. These are the same issues that we recognized with the administration back before 2003. That is why we took action to remove incompetent superintendents and freeze administrative hiring.
You have the fundamental problem of not having any idea of the relationship between school board and superintendent. This is your chosen school board. You cry about the administration, but you supported the lifting of the administrative hiring freeze. This superintendent, by law, works for the administration. The public can recall the administration through the actions of the elected board. Funny how you cried when we took action against incompetent administrators, but now you cry because no one will do anything about the current situation. You couldn’t believe that we could criticize these administrative “experts” who you said didn’t need direction from non-educators, and now you are stating that these same administrators are not competent. Did I already welcome you to the club?
As far as hiring Bishop, I voted against two out of three superintendents on my watch, so that isn’t all bad. Remember how the most important issue to you and your anti-parent colleagues was the issue of “civility?” Remember how it was more important for the board to work together and to get along than for anything substantive to ever get accomplished in the district? Bishop was hired on a 7-0 vote. That was the ultimate in “getting along.” Bishop was following instructions from the board with regards to the site based initiative while we were serving. If he is not following the board’s lead at this juncture, that is a failure on the part of the board for not exercising its authority.
All I heard for 3+ years on the board was that we should never criticize the administration. They were the professionals, we were told. As Gudvangen said time and again, let the board set broad policy, and let the professionals do their jobs. That is called “wearing blinders,” wouldn’t you now agree? I sure hope that you aren’t creating more chaos with all of this criticism of the administration? Our dear children can’t handle more chaos.
You are two years too late, but I am happy to see that you now realize that the administration is NOT interested in what is best for the community or the kids. Welcome.
Anony #2, as you said, these programs have been proven to help kids academically. I personally believe that any plan to remove these from the curriculum is wrongheaded. Kids need the physical fitness and the arts, music, etc.
Destiny. Is it a cooincidence that D11 will free up $400,000 from school closures, just to spend $400,000 on this program? The program is supposed to draw kids into D11. With almost 10,000 kids living in the district, but attending classes elsewhere, why not draw them into the schools by offering a quality product? When will this administration learn that people aren't looking for bells and whistles? They are looking for an education for their kids. Until the admin focuses on that fact, the only destiny for D11 is that it will continue to whither away.
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