Goldilocks : Choosing Mediocrity

Advocates of the status quo who believe that they have arrived at just right compromise yielding the best benefits to themselves are girding for battle. The battleground? Schools of course.

This time the battle centers around a referendum, which if passed, allows the State of Georgia to intercede at the "local" school level on behalf of ill-served students. Lots of issues here.

We have one of the leaders of Georgia's Teacher non-unions, Verdallia Turner, blasting Superintendent Green who has (wrongly in her view) chosen to avoid takeover by doing a better job:

"Superintendent Green came from Kansas. He is going to leave DeKalb County. We are here to stay."

She much prefers Superintendent Lanoue of the Clarke County School system, not because his failed attempt to leave was aborted by his system's botched handling of a rape situation but rather because he prefers to ask voters to reject the referendum outright thereby preserving the status quo. Apparently Ms. Turner and Superintendent Lanoue like how the system is working...for them anyway. Lanoue seems to prefer a greater cultural or social agenda:

"We need to help you build your community around your school and we can do that outside the Opportunity School District."

Notice that it appears to be your school, your community yet they are required to build anything. Also does not really sound like the "we" being referred to are particularly invested in "your" community. If your community needed help you might even find it condescending.

Then there is the warning (not really a threat) of what happens if you don't do as Ms. Turner and Superintendent Laoue insist is really in your best interest:

"But if you vote this in, what you've said is that you're giving the responsibility to educate your children to someone else." 

Like he and she are NOT someone else? Really? Isn't that the very essence of why we put our kids' education in their hands in the first place? That, in fact they ARE someone else and we, the poor uneducated masses are ill-equipped to educate our own children? Or is she the "Goldilocks" choice? Just right--in her estimation.

The next dodge in justifying tenure-holding "professionals" strangle-hold on a never diminishing stream of funding is the "local control" unicorn. Turner claims:

"People do not understand this will take away our local control. If you don't like your board of education, vote them out."

So all of a sudden she's one of us? Unbelievable. Really. Unbelievable.

Then there is that whole BoE/VoteThemOut line of crap. Anyone who paid any attention at all to DeKalb Schools over the last decade knows what a steaming pile of BS that is. Do the incompetents get voted out? Really? Then why did the Governor have to act and kick them out? And...don't we elect the Governor? How about State Representatives and Senators? They're still elected aren't they? Can't we vote THEM out?

Oh, but the folks that will decide on take-overs are appointed-hired guns. So? Aren't superintendents, ones Ms. Turner likes as well as those she doesn't, also hired guns? Haven't we been schooled by SACS that superintendents rule and no meddling by our elected officials will be tolerated? Do we elect the folks running SACS? Hell, do we even know who they are, what they're qualified to do and how they got the job?

So the next time you're sitting at the kitchen table going over your child's homework, know this: if you truly want control of your child's education you have only one option. Homeschool.