Surprise, surprise. The republicans who thought Brownback was nifty when he led some silly-assed public prayers (some people will fall for anything) are now disenchanted with his Republican approach to the educational needs of children. The only reason the grownups here can be blamed is because they were all warned that the education budget would take a big hit if Brownback were re-elected; the real victims are the children.
A solution that has been resisted, so far, by Northeast Kansas is consolidation of all the public schools in Kansas. Instead of a bunch of small, largely disenfranchised and independent school districts run by uneducated morons with more interest in downloading porn than in educating children, school districts could be divided by counties; the way other states manage schools. All counties would answer to the state for all matters, from curriculum to finances. Academic requirements would be the same at all schools, rules would be the same for everyone, and there would be no push to keep tiny, under-performing schools open for nostalgic reasons, despite their inefficiency. Requirements for teachers would also be the same at every Kansas school; no more hopping from one "independent school district" to another when a license or qualifications to teach are lacking in one district, but not another. We could also eliminate any unnecessary positions held by untalented former teachers, such as "curriculum adviser". (What the hell is a curriculum adviser, USD 380? Just fire the dumb bitch!) because every school would teach the same subjects. Think of all the money that could be saved if every county just had one school board, instead of three or four! Marshall County Kansas has two and a half school districts and school boards! Half of USD 380 is in Marshall County, the other half in Nemaha County, for a county with less than ten thousand people! Just cut off the dead wood and employ one school board.
Rather than booing Brownback after voting for him, maybe Kansas should look long and hard at the way other schools in the nation are run. Stepping out of the comfort zone of doing things that don't work and amount to nothing, such as public prayer and multiple school districts in each county, will probably help a lot more than blaming a politician who's been bought and sold by the Koch Brothers, for the problems in Kansas public schools. Maybe someone will start picketing Kansas Department of Education to stop answering to politics and make some of these changes for our children.
So nice of you to respond in language that was, no doubt, taught and encouraged by USD 380! Jesus and your mother must be very proud!
ReplyDeleteI was not present when the tree was removed; if it was you, thankyou. Seriously. That's still not a reason to write to me, using profanity. I don't think I know anyone like you, anywhere else but here. No one has ever thanked me for potty training an eight year old who had not been taught to use the bathroom by her frankfurter momma, or for teaching two six year olds how to talk; when I married their dad, their frankfurter mom had not taught them a darned thing. Within six months, they were proficient with the language, at a fifth grade level. My "lazy ass" may have cardiac problems brought on by thallesemia, (look it up; my hemoglobin was around 6 when it was diagnosed) but I bothered to teach my children and stepchildren how to use the language in this country. No small task in an isolated community where children are deliberately under socialized. All anyone ever wants to say to me, or to my husband about the fact that his children now achieve, rather than fail, are nasty things. Once again, people like you do not exist elsewhere on the planet, and that's a good thing.
I am so glad you know how to count. Yes, USD 380 does, indeed, have one school board. But learn to analyze numbers more efficiently, please. Marshall County has about 10,000 people within it's borders, and it really only needs one school board. It could probably use three or four small elementary schools, and either two middle schools or one junior high, depending on how the state would decide to manage the system, and one high school. That's all we need. We could offer all the students a better curriculum and better education, and we would save a lot of money. The state could see to it that no one who is unqualified even ran for a position on the school board, and we would all be following the same laws as the rest of the state and the nation. Pretty soon, Marshall County children might even be able to compete, academically, with children from other countries! None of you can now. You know why? Almost all of you, except the "illegals" you keep crying about, are MONOLINGUAL!
To bring geography, as well as mathematics, into this, allow me to also point out that USD 380 has one inefficient institution in Marshall County, and one inefficient institution in Nemaha County. It's much better for the students if all the schools withing a school district are in the same county, following the same laws. That way, fewer of your children get away with taking guns and drugs to school.
Once again, if you were the one who helped with the tree, thankyou. I do appreciate it. I don't know who people are yet, because no one has reached out to me in gestures of friendship yet, since I moved here in 2007, and when everyone looks so similar to everyone else (I mean that in the nicest way possible; I am used to more diversity) and no one even extends his or her hand in a handshake and says, "Glad to meet you, my name is______", it is hard to track down who is involved in what, in order to say thankyou. Believe me, that has bothered me a lot. But there's no need to cuss anyone out over it.