Not much. They have the same bag tricks in Spokane that they use in New Rochelle.
As Laurie Rogers makes clear in her article Hold Ed Bureaucracy Accountable or Lose Your Right to Do It in the current edition of Education News, school districts have become all about money and control. Educating children is towards the bottom of the priority list. Yet anyone critical of the school district is anti-teacher and anti-kids.
She writes:
Those who still think America’s public schools are focused on academics are behind the times. Money, control and influence are the priorities now. You can tell because of the battle being fought behind the scenes in our school districts over open government.
As has been the case in New Rochelle, the battle is over information and open government:
Citizens who want to know what government schools are doing with our dollars and children are finding that many in leadership don’t want us to know. As we push for information, they’re pushing back. This struggle is taking place earnestly – even fiercely. It’s also happening quietly, largely because the media aren’t much help. (Many of those whose job is to inform the public have become sycophantic defenders of the government and aggressive attackers of the people.)Those who still think America’s public schools are focused on academics are behind the times. Money, control and influence are the priorities now. You can tell because of the battle being fought behind the scenes in our school districts over open government.
She is certainly right when she says the media aren’t much help.
In my four years of attending school board meetings, I have seen a reporter from the Journal News, Sound & Town, and Channel 12 at the meetings on two occasions each. I cannot recall ever seeing Patch at a BoE meeting. I have never seen any of the major area dailies or TV stations (Post, Daily News, New York Times, Channel 2,4,5,7) at a school board meeting.
The only other publication that sends a reporter to cover BoE Meetings is the Daily Voice and his articles are brief bits of drivel, spoon fed to him by the district’s PR firm. Justin Stock, the DV reporter, is one of the sycophantic defenders Rogers is talking about.
Channel 12, Patch and Journal News will report on stories like the arrest of a high school librarian on sex charges but only after Talk of the Sound does the legwork.
If readers want to understand the aggressive actions of the school district towards me and this site, read Rogers’ entire article.
Once Again The False Notes of Form Over Substance Are Heard
The Sound and Town Report issue of July 13 & July 20 did its usual workmanlike job in covering local issues. Foremost among these was the graduation ceremony of 2012. This is a hallmark event for every youngster and hopefully, most are prepared to take the next step into adulthood wherever or whatever the road traveled turns out to be.
Something very disturbing caught my eye; something symbolic of the excess of form over subtance we seem to value in New Rochelle. It comes from safe havens; protected fortresses of privilege or put more delicately, the best of the zip codes.
Nothing wrong with this especially if this privilege and protection is handled with the dead calm it deserves. Even sneaking your child out to a better school or camp outside of the Queen City is, well somewhat acceptable, because you are not rubbing anyone’s face in it too briskly.
But, during the events around the ceremony, I heard the echoes of Doctor Irv, the Diversity Dentist from 10804 who regaled us half a year or so back with his gushing defense of why he moved to New Rochelle in the first place. Maybe Bob can pull it up some day to remind us of the script.
Noami Brickell, a School Board Member, fairly recently elected, came forth with her unique version of this tapestry. I have no issue with her, I am sure she is a fine parent, great neighbor, solid citizen, and worthwhile representative of New Rochelle.
But, let’s hear what she said…. while noting the diversity of the graduating class. “I have heard folks refer to this class as color blind: I actually disagree — I don’t see it that way at all,” she said. “I see a group of young men and women who recognize the colorful diverse threads making up their friends and classmates — a beautiful tapestry woven over the past 12 years.. Color and chaos is the greatest treasure you take with you.”
My God! Isn’t this special or at least excessive. I suppose by chaos she meant the milling crowd, not the day to day educational process, but…
She’s entitled. But if she is such a devotee of diversity what in the name of God happened in the boardroom of the School District?
Ms. Brickell broke the pattern; we see only a sea of antique white weaving through the officer levels of the Board. The tapestry is very frayed, full of age spots and ….
The point is simply this… she was a deciding vote for the elimination of Jeff Hastie, African American, fine citizen, business savvy, non-status quo ante, citizen and community member, who is literally committed to making a difference. Should Ms. Brickell be talking about chaos in the literal sense outside of the ceremony, he will deal with it. It she wants to dare to look at the infrastructure and policies of the District, he is up to that as well.
It takes me back to my oft-chosen script on form versus substance. Ms.Brickell has put herself squarely in the camp of those parents and citizens who, at best practice noblesse oblige, and at worse, treat one of the most important aspects of citizenship in the wrong, abjectly wrong way, that is to promote the margin over the core. My recent posting on the Margin will emphasize this more.
Perhaps she was happy with young Ms. Asokan’s unfortunate reference to ex President Bush’s grammatically gaffe. She is very young to seek humor in human error, perhaps a visit to the African Continent in the future will show her that George Bush, yes, a failed President, has been the most influential savior of stricken Africans from many countries in terms of AIDS and Malaria. They will not forget that and this was truly substance.
And, I want substance in this City. I am sick and tired of the shrill voices that tell us how wonderful it is to live here while less than a mile away, other members are crime infested, hungry, and subjected to the indiginities of yet another zoning intrustion on their turf.
Ms. Brickell, if you truly want substance, revisit your words. The graduates will not remember color and chaos; that is your ceremonial bow to political correctness. They will remember their school experiences and as Donald Conetta said, their friendships, and experiences.
It is up to you to make these experiences count in the future. It is up to you to ensure that we attract the Geoffrey Canada’s of the world to lead our educational system. It is up to you to ensure that our best and brightest are nurtured city-wide and perhaps you can help to lead a total revision of the process and content that drive our district.
Things change very slowly around these parts. Read Bob Coxs’ post carefully and you will see that these sort of things are endemic nationwide. So, your job is of the highest importance and cannot be truly handled with the typical ideological or pedantic babble we see too often in the districts nationwide.
The New Rochelle School Board shares an affliction with many districts nationwide and they have the comfort to know that their city governance has the same disease. It is called non-affiliation syndrome and the after affects hit children and families like second hand smoke can infect non-smokers. It is well past time for the Board and City to come to a formal working arrangement for the benefit of our children and community.
It is past time to cut to the chase on equity as well. Enough of this tapestry, feel good stuff. Do the subtance, get away from the margins, see what active citizens like Killoran of Habitat can accomplish.
And, get Hastie back where he belongs. He is going to reach there sooner rather than later and he will not be alone. You see we are truly a diverse city, but not a divided diverse city.
Brickell voted with Hastie
Warren,
Much of what you wrote here is undermined by the fact that Naomi Brickell is the person who nominated Jeffrey Hastie for a second term as VP. She voted with him when the vote was called.
To her credit (and Jeffrey’s) they did not follow the usual practice of asking to change their vote and then voting with the majority so that the record stands as 5-2 for Polow. Hastie and Brickell did this in voting on the contracts for the three Assistant Superintendents last March. That was also a 5-2 vote against the new contracts (on the grounds that they were overly generous on benefits, if memory serves).
If you go back and read the articles I wrote on this, it was clear that Brickell and Hastie are a team on the board.
You are right
I clearly mispoke and misposted. It wasn’t necessary to read your article anew; I had closer sources but I screwed up on matching a surname and a first name.
Yes, I have lost credibility in the eyes of the community and in my own sense of being able to match surname to first name.
If this does irreputable harm to the much larger points that we live in a community and society that rewards form over substance or that the school board has made a devastating point of removing an agent for change from a low functioning school district and board, then I did myself and the community much more harm than an error of this sort implies.
I suppose the graduation ceremony was too much for me to handle.
Again, Naomi, forgive me…. a much better person than me told me before you ran of your quality and I should have remembered the words of Mary Bonner.
It is important that the readers remember that I am totally responsibile for my error. Mr Hastie was not involved in the least.
I do think Bob Cox is a little harsh in his view that much of which I said is “undermined” by my gaffe. Depends on whether you accept the themes proposed and not so much the example which, again, was from my standard, much more than anyone elses, a terrible errot and an affront to whom I believe by all accounts, is a fine human being and a valuable member of this community.
I am by an evolving process, a very positive person and this impacts me more than it would most people. I have been critiqued by many on TOTS as being too optimistic. Not a nice time or situation for me to make this sort of error.
Cox did the right thing by bringing it out or else it not only would have misinformed, it would have damaged a human being unjustly.
But, I will continue to post albeit at the risk of being seen as less than what I would like to be.
I am going to post today a brief blog on Greening Downtown. Hopefully this will help me differentiate between names like Rachel and Naomi.
This really sucks.
Dejavu all over again!
Do we see pattern here with the 5 – 2 voting on the board, it is the same as the New Rochelle City Council. Both are in need of a wakeup call. Until we get citizens that vote and take an active role in the schools and the city we are left at the mercy of the five every time something is discussed or voted on. The School Board needs to correct the representation of each district regardless of votes. Again, they can’t or won’t. It would be voted down 5 – 2. No accountability for our city and our schools. Put them together and they represent 80% which is a large portion of our taxes. Especially the school taxes which are 60%.
The City Council and School Board need to get it together. Stop blaming the county and state mandates for everything. Put responsibility where responsibility lies. It’s in their hands. We need to watch out for the sight of hand tricks from both of them.
Now you see it now you don’t!
Important Posting
Bob you raise an excellent precis on one of the major issues facing our lack of keeping pace nationally with our place in the world pecking order especially in key areas such as Science and Mathematics.
Ironically, the Graduate School at the University of Washington has, for a number of years, been in the forefront of research on topics such as decentralized districts, student based criteria, and something as simple as debunking “teaching to the test” rather than ensuring the tests measure expected performance at a grade level and demanding that districts meet grade level expectatios in ways that best support both teacher and student creativity.
I wish I kept the files I collected; sadly there have not survived cleaning out the debris, but the Manhattan Insitute is an excellent source of current information on what is happening in districts.
Spokane would be seen by most as a highly advanced, sophisticated system surrounded by academic institutions such as the aforementioned as well as down the road some… California at Santa Barbara which has done a great deal of useful work.
Your posting broadens the base more than much of what we see in the media. We have forgotten …. be it an socio-economic advanced community or one that is certainally not depressed, New Rochelle….. in looking at many of the contributing root causes of the issues and identifying these properly. Many fall in the lap of nurture, community, even-handedness of opportunity, lazy, non-motivated kids, and even sadly, indictments such as “we don’t need no white man’s education.”
Of course this releases the dogs of diversity who would monitor everything from where and who a child sits with at lunch to not providing motivated faculty with the management team and support they deserve.
I think I read recently that 46% of new teachers drop out after one or two years. On the upside, I hear of extended retraining of teachers in laboratory settings using modern technology that forces new applicant teachers to cope with violent and disruptive classroom behavior, bullying and other impediments to learning.
At the core of course is that chanage makers such as Jeff Hastie are marginalized by the same chorus of inefficient, anti change voices compounded by the simple truth that the city administration cannot or will not see they have a role in this and more basic, Richard Organisciak is an overpaid and overprotected incompetent.
Keep this sort of thing going if you will. Parents need to get a grip on core issues. If they want the best for their children and for the community, they are going to have to come to the fore and stop with false presumptions that this is not in their backyard.
We both know it is. I also know that some of the best youngsters I worked with are African American and Hispanic kids. To that point, we surely must find a Geoffrey Canada someplace and we need a board that recognizes this reality.
If you want to see the reality in 2012 of some elasticity on immigration, look at the background of kids who garner so many of our science and math awards. Many are from the India sub continent, Korea, China, Russia, Central Europe….. I love the fact that they are here. But, with some years of applied and community supported improvement in education, I can easily see a rich mosaic of New Rochelle, Topeka, and Cupcake South Dakota kids (made that one up) moving to the fore.
Stop with the bullshit of a “white man’s education system” and just make it the best it can be and surely that would and should include contributions from our African American and Hispanic cultures.
We have no problem in teaching Algebra even though it is largely due to our Muslim brothers and sisters that this came into our understanding. Try Euclid for Geometry, Newton the Brit for Science, etc.
Here is a test for any reader especially the African American.
Who is Elizabeth Freeman a/k/a Mumbet? It saddens me that this woman is practically unknown in our City.
Keep it up and keep it coming.