Part Time Prison

It's official. DeKalb County Schools are Part Time Prisons.

We've known for some time of the "Thug Culture" permeating DCSS: students, faculty and administration. We have close to one hundred "School Resource Officers", a secretive police force doing the administration's bidding with little or no public oversight. But now we have it all. We have Parole Officers in our schools.

That's right. Parole Officers.

The naive are wondering what in the world these officers could possibly be doing in the schools? Why aren't they out in the "real" world, where the criminals and probationers live? Sadly, it turns out they are just where they need to be because for some time now we've been creating, nurturing and harboring felons in our public schools. 'Bout four hundred. Convicted. So far.

And these are not your garden variety Mall Cop PO's. No sir, these are certified police officers. But not to fear, they'll be in their civvies and leave the "ruff 'em and cuff 'em" law enforcement to the SRO's. Jurisdiction and what not. They'll also be chatting up ALL students, not just our tatted young felons, so as not to damage the fragile at-risk self-esteem of those with whom they have official business. Right. That should fool everybody.

No doubt about it, we have come a long way from the little red schoolhouse. All of it down hill. We've burdened the system with false responsibility for every aspect of a child's life from the age of five to nineteen except the one thing it was supposed to do, and still hypocritically claims responsibility for: educating children. And heaven forbid anyone, especially a mere taxpayer, should suggest that public schools are no place for felons and parolees. On either side of the desk.

But you just keep on believing that YOUR child is getting a world-class education because YOUR child goes to the best school in the country!

Dissin' Well Behaved

A recent traffic jam resulting in the time and opportunity to read a rather disturbing bumper sticker:

Well behaved women rarely make history

It should be noted this sticker wasn't actually ON the bumper but was instead affixed to the driver's side just below the back window--'twas an Ess-You-Vee. In the "no surprises" category was the driver. A female, no additional description needed. Your imagination will suffice.

Now many things are impossible to know from these chance near encounters. Might not have been the owner driving. Might have been a gift from a friend or loved one, which might explain the location. But it is much more interesting to jump to conclusions. To wit, that for a woman to make a significant impact she must be at least as big an asshole as any man might be in her situation. Additionally one might assume that the owner/driver of a 10 year old SUV isn't about the daily business of "makin' HIStory". Just isn't very likely. Probably just another asshole looking for a PC justification.

While that was fun, perhaps the bumper sticker, and the mentality behind it should be taken at face value. Is it true?

Hardly.

Sara Teasdale
Edith Head
Gracie Allen
Grandma Moses
Georgia O'Keefe
Beatrice Potter Web
Katherine Dunham
Emily Post
Leontyne Price
Doris Day
Mother Teresa
Laura Bush
Hillary Clinton
Elizabeth Browning
Edna Millay
Michele Obama
Eleanor Roosevelt
Sonja Sotomayor
Ruth Ginsberg
Sandra Day O'Connor
Shirley Temple Black
Golda Meir
Oprah Winfrey
Angela Merkel
Margaret Thatcher
Ruth Gordon
Reba McEntire
Dolly Parton
Barbara Stanwyck
Joyce Brothers
Clara Barton
Elizabeth Kenny
Marie Curie
Grace Hopper
Ann Landers
Rachel Carson
Ada Lovelace
Indira Ghandi
Benazir Bhuto
Maya Angelo
Niki Giovanni
Twyla Tharpe
Ana Pavlova
Pearl Buck
Ariel Durant
Edna Ferber
Judith Viorst
Abigal Adams
Barbara Jordon
Maria Shriver
Christiane Amanpour
Barbara Kingsolver
Meave Benchy
Helen Hayes
Marlene Deitrich
Sojourner Truth
Ayn Rand
Juliet Gordon Low
Harper Lee
M. Bethan McLeod
Amelia Erhart
Julia Child
Diane Fossey
Jane Goddard
Margaret Meade
Audrey Hepburn
Babe Zaharias
Julia Ward Howe
Florence Nightingale
Maria Montessori
Anne Sullivan
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Beverly Sills
Carol Burnett
Hattie McDaniel

There are probably many, many more. You may argue with specifics of the list, time frames and what constitutes "rarely" or "well behaved". But it should be clear. Women do not have to be hysterical to make history. The bumper sticker is wrong and so is the sentiment behind it.

DCSS is Doomed

Since the Whirled Wild Web is not V-Chip equipped it is only fair and right to warn you, dear reader, that the following diatribe will drop more bombs than the allies did over Dresden. If the Eff-bomb, especially when discussing the DeKalb County School System, offends your delicate sensibilities, then by all means, do us all a favor and click here NOW!

We are about to discuss, to parse, a single paragraph from our Lords of Education at DCSS that is so asinine, so intellectually bankrupt, that in the absence of profanity it leaves one speechless. So therefore we bomb not out of joy, and not without a certain degree of revulsion. But bomb we must for they have left us no other option.

Open

the

bomb

bay

doors...

What you are about to read is one paragraph of a mere four sentences spanning seven lines (in its original form) consuming one hundred words and only six hundred and thirty one characters (including punctuation and spacing). Though a fraction of the size of the Gettysburg address it clearly and completely exposes the horror that is public education in DeKalb County Georgia.

Without further ado.

The DCSS Management Information Systems Department (MIS) has created the Technology Plan to keep up with progress and excitement. The plan resonates the passion for extended and expanded learning fueled by efficient and effective integration of technology and the mission and goal of the district. The mission of the MIS Department is to establish and maintain a technology-rich teaching and learning environment where students and staff develop 21st century skills to be successful citizens in a global community. More so, the mission is to enable students with the skills they will need to work, learn, and live in their future.

Please. Take a moment and re-read this paragraph. Once more. Now, again.

Had enough?

Good. Let's talk amongst ourselves.

This was authored by three members of the DCSS administration including the superintendent with the assistance and guidance of a professor at Kennesaw State University. No kidding. Fact is you simply cannot write this kind of drivel with a routine education and a normal background. This requires the kind of PhD one is so proud of that one would never indicate the field (probably "Classroom Management" or "Playground Administration") and a background in the insular bubble of the Education Industry. These are the kinds of "professionals" whose "professional" web page includes links to "See My Children" and "Birthday Pics". No siree, it takes a special kind.

And lots of them. In addition to these four intellectual giants, referred to as the "Core Team", a "Planning Team" of four additional dim-bulbs was required. But wait! There's more! Clearly the genius of even this one paragraph cannot be the work of a mere eight educrats. And it isn't. These eight were supported by a brain trust of THIRTY FOUR others who participated in the brainstorming sessions resulting in what we have before us today. In order to appreciate this genius, the inspiration, the perspiration, perhaps the least we can do is give it just one more read.

The DCSS Management Information Systems Department (MIS) has created the Technology Plan to keep up with progress and excitement. The plan resonates the passion for extended and expanded learning fueled by efficient and effective integration of technology and the mission and goal of the district. The mission of the MIS Department is to establish and maintain a technology-rich teaching and learning environment where students and staff develop 21st century skills to be successful citizens in a global community. More so, the mission is to enable students with the skills they will need to work, learn, and live in their future.

Now admit it, you could never write something like that, even if you have an advanced degree in education something or another from a top online diploma mill. Though it will hurt, let's try to examine this masterpiece so we can better appreciate the genius behind it. One sentence at a time.

The DCSS Management Information Systems Department (MIS) has created the Technology Plan to keep up with progress and excitement.

It is common practice to spell out an acronym and immediately follow this with the first usage in parenthesis. This one sentence blows it twice. MIS should follow "Systems" and just what is DCSS? And you're thinking "it's DeKalb County School System--everybody knows that". Indeed. By the same token anyone writing or reading a Technology Plan should know that "MIS" is "Management Information Systems", but it appears this is written by idiots for even more profound idiots. Perhaps the best way to fix this slip-up is to change MIS to MISD. Pronounced "missed" as in "wouldn't be".

But that is merely the harvesting of nits. Let's look at something more significant, the phrase "to keep up with progress and excitement". "Keep up with progress"  almost makes sense as progress implies some form of forward motion. We'll pretend it is in the right direction (though we know it isn't). But "keep up with excitement"? What in the [non-educational] world does that mean? Are these people more than just figuratively circle-jerking? Do they need adult supervision? Do they need to be arrested?

But this is indeed one of the diseases that has destroyed public education in America: the notion that any activity even remotely associated with learning must be exciting. Sometimes, most times, learning is hard work. It isn't exciting. It is hard. Ultimately, where there is no hard work there is no learning and if your child is not complaining about how hard a subject is then they are not reaching their potential. And you're a bad parent.

The plan resonates the passion for extended and expanded learning fueled by efficient and effective integration of technology and the mission and goal of the district.

Now that we're all jiggy with excitement let's resonate a little passion.That's right, we just know there's a whole lotta passion out there and it's for extended and expanded learning, whatever the hell that is. And you might think, especially in a school setting, that extending or expanding learning would set a pretty high bar. You would be wrong. But it is a common mistake in DeKalb to assume there is already quite a bit of learning going on, and that any more learning might just pop all those intellectual blivets. By any objective measure (ie: not self-assessment) there is actually very little learning going on in DCSS so any additional learning would be, percentage wise, quite an increase.

We won't even talk about the "mission and goal of the district" as attempting to read even small parts of the document wherein that is revealed has been known to cause projectile vomiting. In readers with a brain anyway. So...not the target audience.

The mission of the MIS Department is to establish and maintain a technology-rich teaching and learning environment where students and staff develop 21st century skills to be successful citizens in a global community.

Wow, this is a platinum mine of insight into how genius at DCSS really works. "Establish and maintain a technology-rich teaching and learning environment"!!! This is pure edu-speak for "piss away taxpayer money on the latest and greatest toys without any proof of efficacy".

And just what are these "21st century skills" and how do they know, barely 10% into the century just what skills are needed for the next 80+ years? Seriously, if they were that smart they'd write something better than this drivel.

"Skills to be successful citizens in a global community" at first blush appears to be meaningless blather or a political nod to the money men who seem hellbent on ensuring public education produces compliant "citizens" to do their bidding. Perhaps if our children learned to read, write, do a little math and picked up a couple of challenging lessons in logic and ethics we might have a better society and a better country. Probably wouldn't have their kind of citizen though.

More so, the mission is to enable students with the skills they will need to work, learn, and live in their future.

"More so"--you gotta wonder--how did this beat out "Moreover"? Can you imagine the meetings? The emails flying around the internet? "What should we do? Should it be 'more so' or 'moreover'?" Dollars to donuts there were meetings where this was seriously debated. They probably brought in lunch. On our dime.

And "more so" than what? "More so" than the claptrap in the previous three sentences? And again with the "skills". Since when is it all about skills? Isn't the current, totally intangible education goal "critical thinking" and "high order though processes". "Skills" sounds like you're training a plumber. DCSS should be so good.

And again, they're the Great Prognosticators, with a clear vision of Other People's Futures. Perhaps it is best to live in the future when you're such a miserable failure in the present.

To wrap up, go back and read it one more time. Doesn't it just sound nice? The problem is that it ONLY sounds nice and it contains no real meaning of any sort. And this is what the entire education industry has become: people, schools, organizations, businesses, operations and processes of no real substance that simply and only sound good. And this takes a lot of hard work. Problem is it has nothing to do with educating our children.

And if you read that one paragraph with the understanding that it took forty-two highly compensated "professionals" and you think "well, that's about right", then you are part of the problem.

Nattering Nay Bobs

The Voters of Dunwoody gave both Bobs, Wittenstein and Dallas and emphatic "NAY!" in Tuesday's run-off election. What are we to make of this?

The losers significantly out-raised and outspent the competition. Perhaps money isn't the deciding factor. Perhaps it was ill-spent and was a deciding factor, but not as the spender anticipated.

Wittenstein had incumbency giving him a record to run on and his opponent a record to run against. No councilman can do the job without finding themselves on the opposite side of some issues relative to some constituents. Nor will his successor. But it may be that the citizens of Dunwoody realize that with incumbency and "experience" also comes a certain comfort and complacency. A freshman councilor is not very likely to say "well, that's the way it's [always been] done", but is instead more likely to question the status quo and possibly probe for and arrive at a different and better answer to any given problem. In such a smart city with so many smart citizens it will take many election cycles before we've exhausted all our smart options.

Dallas is a bit more interesting. Whilst touting superior experience and qualification he seems to have spent a significant chunk of his funds on a campaign advisor. Perhaps this is why, in the later days of the campaign, his message went decidedly negative and he went so far as to inject alleged party affiliation into a non-partisan race. This expenditure was clearly ill-advised, but thankfully it was his money, not ours.

One would like to think that most citizens of Dunwoody would have been intellectually offended by these tactics and that alone would turn the tide. Perhaps it was and perhaps it did. But on the matter of party affiliation, it is a sad day when mere association with a party is as blemishing as a leper's sore. It is also of interest that the smearing allegations are offered with citation--county voting records--from which one infers that what really happened is his opponent "crossed-over" in a primary. (It is unlikely even DeKalb county would publish an individual's actual votes on specific ballot items, not because they wouldn't, but because they cannot figure out how.) When the Republican north was dominated by Democrats to the south, how many erstwhile Republicans didn't cross-over to vote against Cynthia McKinney? Would a "smart" voter not take the opportunity to have their voice heard in the opposing party primary if they know that their candidate, no matter how well qualified, simply will not win in the general election, or would they squelch themselves so they can claim a party affiliation as pure as the driven snow? And which action gives them the greatest representation in their government?

Regardless of their real motivations, and there are probably as many as there are voters, Dunwoody has done itself proud.

Jilly Bob

Shrill Jill, meet Farmer Bob.

Farmer Bob, meet Shrill Jill.

What Shrill Jill and Farmer Bob have in common is they ran right up against the Dunwoody Cabal and have been excoriated for it.

In the case of Shrill Jill we had a harsh voice advocating that the Cabal "make haste slowly" and advising their zombie followers of the need for and availability of more information and greater details. She was right, but she was crushed, and was figuratively "run out of town on a rail".

Farmer Bob encountered his field of Bouncing Bettys with the Parks Bonds. Though originally a supporter of the bonds he did a one eighty upon learning that an important Cabal objective was the removal of five hundred undesirable families from our community, and more importantly, to the Cabal anyway, the removal of the lower caste's children from "our" schools.

Neither Jill nor Bob were unequivocally opposed to the proposition at hand, but rather objected to the means by which the Cabal executed their plan. In the first case the objection centered around lack of transparency and inadequate disclosure of facts and estimates, and insufficient vetting of plans. In the latter case, while some objected to the lack of transparency, Farmer Bob took his stand against the plans of a powerful few to purge our community of those they unilaterally deemed unfit while sugarcoating a heinous act as "something for all our residents". While he has been credited with defeating the bonds (he didn't, the voters did) he has been vilified and subjected to ad hominem attacks in comments on local blogs.

At the polls the outcomes could hardly be more different with cityhood winning by a landslide and the Parks Bonds failing by a two to one margin. So is this the beginning of the end for the Cabal? Probably not as the Dunwoody power structure is as well established as it is incestuous. Until we have an election where candidates truly feel that a track record with DHA, Dunwoody Yes! or Citizens for Dunwoody is as much a negative as a positive, the Cabal is alive and thriving.

Kids 'n' Squirrels

Have you ever noticed how drivers in Dunwoody will all but stop for a jake walkin' squirrel, but seemingly couldn't care less about the safety of children in a school zone or crosswalk?

Perhaps Dunwoody drivers care more about limb rats than rug rats.