The cold, hard truth is that our schools are not being run for the children, they are being run for the teachers, administrators, unions and vendors who reap profligate rewards from building, servicing and supply school systems.
Ask yourself, if school systems are always in debt, facing teacher shortages and larger classroom sizes, and teachers need to dip into their own pockets for supplies, where are the billions of federal, state and local dollars going? Certainly not into the classroom. But into the profligate salaries, benefits and retirement packages of unionized personnel, including the teachers, janitors and other employees. Into vendor contracts and building programs. And into the pockets of the special interests who control the educational process.
Why did the Los Angeles Unified School District need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a payroll system to service the deliberately complicated pay schemes devised by unions and administrators?
Why did the Los Angeles Unified School District need to spend billions on a building program that included $500 million for a school located on a toxic waste site and a $230 million dollar downtown high school necessary to soothe the modern-art loving ego of a billionaire who is said to exert enormous influence on school board elections. Who profited from these building programs – certainly not the limited number of students accommodated with in these facilities. With a drop-out rate approaching fifty percent, what the hell is wrong with the Los Angeles Unified School District? The answer is simple: politics and the well-connected or well-heeled liberals who have bought their board positions with political subservience, donations and continuing favors to the unions and other special interests.
So why should we believe Obama can change the system he honors?
It is almost beyond belief that the President Barack Obama would urge troubled school districts to fire underperforming teachers and close failing schools when the democrat party panders to the teachers unions that make it next to impossible to fire a teacher for underperformance, let alone malfeasance. Has he not heard of tenure, union contracts and the fact that the local democrat party, in conjunction with the unions and local school administration controls the entire process.
As reported in the New York Times …
“President Obama said Monday that he favored federal rewards for local school districts that fire underperforming teachers and close failing schools, saying educators needed to be held accountable when they failed to fix chronically troubled classrooms and curb the student dropout rate.”
More money to be funneled into personnel costs …
“The president outlined his proposal to offer $900 million in federal grants, which would be made available to states and school districts willing to take aggressive steps to turn around struggling institutions or close them.”
As with all democrat-inspired education programs, this one will not be limited to $900 million nor will it have the accountability and transparency the President is so fond of touting. It will be the beginning of a new massive union entitlement program which will not serve the students well.
Why should we believe that any federal programs or any amount of federal money will make a difference? Because in the final analysis it will be the politicians and the special interests who determine how the money is actually spent. Comingled with other funds to the point of disappearing into the unfunded union pension liabilities.
Michelle Obama lauds cafeteria workers as helping to strengthen national security …
”First lady Michelle Obama said at the School Nutrition Association Conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday that individuals who work in school cafeterias across the country not only educate and feed children, but help to strengthen national security.
’Every day, with the food you serve, you're teaching them these critical lessons about nutrition and healthy eating,’ Obama said. ‘You're shaping their habits and their preferences, and you're affecting the choices that they're going to make for the rest of their lives.’” <Source>
Truth-be-told, removing the toxic influence of the unions from the American educational scene and depoliticizing education decisions would have more of an effect on our global readiness and national strength than government-sponsored and supported lunch programs. Imagine the savings if textbooks could be developed and printed en masse? Supplemented with state and local references if needed. Mathematics is fairly constant, so why all of the changes needed to the textbooks? Because the textbook vendors have a hook into the very school systems they serve.
Not to say there was any wrongdoing, but consider the fact that the LAUSD Superintendent receives hundreds of thousand of dollars to serve on the board of one of the largest textbook publishers in the United States. <Source>
What jobs? The ones that are being outsourcing?
“’We know that the success of every American will be tied more closely than ever before to the level of education that they achieve,” Mr. Obama said. ‘The jobs will go to the people with the knowledge and the skills to do them. It’s that simple.’”
The truth is that the jobs will go to the people who offer the knowledge and skills at the lowest possible cost. The multinational companies will do business within the United States as long as it is to their profit and benefit. Outsourcing to maximize profits whenever and wherever possible.
And while it sounds racist and is somewhat of a generalization, look at the Hispanic and Black children washing through the Los Angeles Unified School District. Now look at the Asian children and notice their superior performance – even surpassing typical white children of similar age and grade. The difference is how the various cultures value education and the government has done little or nothing to promote education to the parents within failing communities. And lacking parental motivation and support – or even a parent’s ability to help with homework – the results are foreordained in most cases. Thus the liberals wish to take over parenting children. Why not spend that money in the disadvantaged inner cities, not so much on schools, but on job creation.
A disingenuous example …
“He singled out Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, where last week the school board voted to dismiss the entire faculty as part of a turnaround plan for the school, which has a 48 percent graduation rate.”
“At Central Falls High, he said, just 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests. Mr. Obama said he supported the school board’s decision to dismiss the faculty and staff members. “Our kids get only one chance at an education and we need to get it right,’ he said.”
Perhaps the President forgot to mention that the actions of the Superintendent of the Rhode Island school is under heavy attack from the unions and that there are already indications that the unions may decide who is hired back – thus preserving their power and toxic influence over the educational process.
“The president’s comments incensed the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers, which criticized Mr. Obama for ‘condoning the mass firing’ of teachers at the Rhode Island school.”
“’We know it is tempting for people in Washington to score political points by scapegoating teachers, but it does nothing to give our students and teachers the tools they need to succeed,’ the president of the union, Randi Weingarten, said in a statement.”
If the President was sincere about giving the students and teachers the tools they need to success, he would outlaw unions as being the single most detrimental factor in obtaining a decent education in the United States.
Wink-wink, nod-nod …
“In their efforts to overhaul failing public schools, Mr. Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have frequently drawn the ire of teachers’ unions.”
This faux opposition is as much Kabuki Theater as is the government’s opposition to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries which got special interest deals in Obamacare while both sides bashed each other in the media.
Gaming the system …
“In his speech on Monday, Mr. Obama said states would be asked to identify schools that perform at persistently low levels, with graduation rates of 60 percent or less.”
“To qualify for the federal money, known as School Turnaround Grants, he said, the school districts must agree to take at least one of the steps: firing the principal and at least half the staff of a troubled school; reopening it as a charter school; or closing the school altogether and transferring students to better schools in the district.”
As we have seen with school districts which declare unfunded and unoccupied teaching positions – to allow for the appearances of trimming personnel, there is no doubt in my mind that the system will be gamed.
1. Special interests in Los Angeles are clamoring for the creation of charter schools to be run by politically-connected people pursuing their own agenda and adding unorthodox teachings to the standard curricula.
2. Many administrators and teachers would love to leave their decaying schools to move up the road to better facilities.
3. Many special interests look at abandoned schools as a great real estate play – not so much in this economy – but for later years. Especially since schools sit among large residential areas.
“If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year,” Mr. Obama said, “if it doesn’t show signs of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability.”
There is supposed to be accountability now – so what is President Obama talking about?
“The $900 million grant program, which would be subject to Congressional approval, follows $3.5 billion included in last year’s economic stimulus plan that also was aimed at improving school performance and lowering the dropout rate. The program would support interventions at 5,000 of the nation’s lowest-performing schools over the next five years.”
It never ends. First, the federal government does not belong in the education business and there is no Constitutional mandate for its involvement. And second, billions of taxpayer dollars are being shoveled down educational rat-holes with little transparency or accountability. This $900 million is just the latest installment of a never-ending unproductive stream of wasted cash.
Bottom line …
Another payout of taxpayer funds to the special interests which will not make a rat’s ass bit of difference in the educational system. An initial amount which will be supplemented with more continuing cash. All to buy influence with voting teachers in the upcoming election cycles.
Like I said, if the government was serious about education, they would outlaw the union control of the educational process and make it a crime to divert funds from the students to special interest projects which have little or nothing to do with test scores and teaching.
And before you complain: teaching is a noble profession when it is done for the benefit of the children and free from political influence. Both of which are hard to come by in today’s unionized environment. Perhaps the teachers should revolt as their dues and tax dollars are being used by the union’s rather self-serving and corrupt leadership.
-- steve
Reference Links …
Obama Backs Rewarding Districts That Police Failing Schools - NYTimes.com
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