Living With Inflation

First came Bidenomics. Now we look forward to T2 Tariffs. Looks like excessive inflation is about to be as normal as global warming. Except for a few folks. Who would that be? The 1 percenters? The Three Percenters? Nope, and nope. 

It is far worse: it is public schools.

That's right, the folks that brought you school closings and a generational setback for the children of America hold themselves above inflation, and you. Georgia passed a statewide law, by referendum approved by the public, to limit property appraisal increases to the rate of inflation. This means that local governments, including public schools, would see their revenue increases limited to the general rate of inflation. Your average working stiff is not guaranteed a raise to cover inflation, but the schools are. 

But that is not enough. The law offers taxing agencies a means to opt-out of these appraisal increase limits. They have to post public notice that they will do this which some might think would name and shame them. Some would be wrong as the folks running these systems have no shame. They are greed incarnate.

And it isn't as if their revenue is really capped at inflation. Not all properties are subjected to this limitation and those that are mark-to-market upon sale. But they will tolerate no restriction on their current or future revenue. They will claim they need the money to address the pandemic learning setbacks which were largely of their own making, and given free rein at the time they would have made it even worse. And no, they don't think you're stupid, they know you are. After all they probably educated you.

Just remember this the next time you vote for a school board member or an eSPLOST.

What's With All The Blind Squirrels?

First it was our favorite semantic vegan whose word salad-spinner inadvertently spat out a truth. Which had to go back in the spin machine. No five second rule for accidental truths. 

Close to home we now have a School Board member best known for open loop rantings who spoke truth to power. Well, really, to the powerless as it was fellow board members who recently hired a new supe effectively their last chance at a power play until they hire the next one. In a couple of years. But this particular, rogue member pointed out that this "new and improved" supe is really just the same ole same ole. What her pollyannish see as the great, new hope, she sees yet another rinse and repeat. And here is the shocker: she is absolutely correct. The new supe, like those before, is bloating admin, adding positions to be filled with prior colleagues--his hallelujah chorus. Next we'll be treated to multi-million-dollar trendy edu-babble junk program with materials, training to waste teachers time even while they are terribly understaffed. 

There is an interesting metric: student/teacher ratio. While this number is manipulated by including "teachers" without any direct classroom responsibilities, it is a metric. Maybe we need a new one: student/administrator ratio. Oh, and we should include those non-teaching "teachers" in the admin headcount.

Keeping Secrets

Or not. In this case, the shenanigans of a closed, "executive" session of the DeKalb BOE was exposed by one of the board members in attendance.  This apparently broke no laws and isn't an ethics violation but instead is a breach Board rules. It should come as no surprise that the breach comes from one of the most outlandishly outspoken members who gives Trump a run for his money when it comes to open-loop rhetoric, disdain for facts and a very flexible relationship with recent history. That she continues to be re-elected should scare the living daylights out of the anti-Trump crowd. How does this happen?

The board's disciplinary options rise [almost] to the level of nanny-nanny-boo-boo with the most interesting option the imposition of a formal, public apology from the now named and shamed violator. This should greatly expand the wealth of "apology that isn't an apology" that we have been getting from politicians for the last several decade. Cannot wait to watch the toothless board gum their way through that.

Will This Really Fix It?

Over at decaturish.com suggestions have been put forth that might address the long running, systemic, perhaps even structural dysfunction of the DeKalb County School Board. Specifically this includes: term limits; pay rises; and super districts. The second of these suggestions sounds alarmingly familiar to anyone watching the circus that is public education. No matter the problem the solution is always [more] money. Always. Despite the fact this invariably ignores TOD's law: where there is no solution there is no problem, only a situation. Since [more] money has yet to show even partial success in addressing education's issues, it is difficult to say there is a problem. Unless we avoid the attempts to take money for a solution.

The similarity is also strikingly similar to the incessant calls for teacher pay rises. Every year. Every budget. The feigned logic is that better pay will attract better teachers, ignoring the elephant in the room: it is all but impossible to fire underperforming teacher to make way for these better, and better paid, candidates. 

So maybe decaturish is onto something. Though incumbency is a powerful force, it is possible to remove elected officials by the ballot box or, as we have seen, with action by the state. If these pay rises are combined with the first suggestion, to impose term limits, we might well see improvements at a less than glacial pace. Otherwise we can expect to witness ongoing degradation of the system.

Dead Cat Bounce

Since the days of the TRS-80 governments, especially public schools, have had a troubling relationship incorporating technology into anything they try to do. It isn't clear why, but to the outside, objective observer it appears they don't know what they're doing, they don't even know what they want to do. And they clearly do not know how to do it. 

And this is odd. Out in the real world technology has been used for over three decades to improve operational efficacy and offer stakeholders new features and improvements to existing services. Over that time systems have been installed, maintained, upgraded and replaced without the disastrous results we see in the DeKalb public school system. It is almost as if they are trying to fail. 

But all is not lost. One board member, leveraging the favorite technique of politicians, relativism, has hope:

“I’m looking forward to an even better report next year.”

Perhaps this member is sure it cannot get worse. Smart money would not underestimate this school system's ability to fail.

Sometimes Fast, Sometimes Slow

That is the way DeKalb Schools operate. Maintaining buildings? Glacially slow. Firing a superintendent? Hair trigger. Hiring a replacement? Fixin' to get ready to start thinkin' 'bout sifting thru some resume's. Almost a year after the abrupt firing. 

And about that firing. No one ever came clean on the real cause, but the board had commissioned a former FBI agent to do an investigation, firing the supe before the investigation was complete. And yet. There was a report. A report exonerating the supe but implicating two top career officials for unauthorized actions. Oh, and keeping the supe in the dark. So, the board fires the supe, retains the dopes at their $200K/yr salary. 

Should this board be hiring anyone?

Pots And Kettles

Folks often go on about the hypocrisy of sinners in church, but where would you like the sinners to be? Don't you expect the mentally ill to be in contact with mental healthcare workers? But, you don't expect the inmates to be running the asylum. Unless it is the DeKalb County School System and their Board of Education.

In that case what you get is a completely broken accounting system, totally in conflict with GAAP and state requirements, which has been broken since time began. But what we also get are the folks running this insanity who refuse to play by the rules. The financial rules.

You'd think a CPA would know better, would do better. You'd be wrong.

Thrown Under The School Bus

One video, a couple of typically worthless board meetings and one letter from the state DOE and Cheryl Watson-Harris has been thrown under the bus, another victim of systemic incompetence and malfeasance in our largely unsupervised school system. Is this what happens when the Wakanda Salute cult loyalty falls apart? Or is this what happens when the Sovereign DeKalb County School System sees a significant portion put at serious risk. Or perhaps Watson-Harris committed the most mortal of sins against Holy Church of the Takers: she let a serious crisis go to waste. Richard Woods pointed out Federal largess had been allocated to their discretionary spending, that it could (some say should) be spent to fix these schools (including DHHS) and yet it sat unused. This was just a slap across the face, though it is quite mysterious that these takers had, well, not. He also put them on notice that the state was to withhold approval of their development, and consequently spending, plan. Now this caused an uproar and probably triggered the firing. Given this school district's track record of ensuring lucrative contracts go to friends and family (former superintendents have been indicted) you have to wonder exactly whose lifestyle was suddenly at risk. Certainly not the students suffering in facilities that would be condemned if you or I or any business owned them. And this stinks more than the sewerage bubbling up at DHHS.

We'll Take Her

Mother Meria has been shown the door by our neighbors at APS with her contract conveniently ending coincident with our shutting down the Dr. Green Machine. If the DeKalb BoE has not already made overtures to Dr. Carstarphen they are fools. And yes, there is much evidence in the dossier that they fools they be.

There are many reasons to aggressively pursue Carstarphen for the DCSD job. She's smart. She's capable. She's ebullient, inciting enthusiasm in everyone she touches: students, parents, teachers and the general public. Yet she's a hard-nosed advocate for students and their education and will allow no one, even entitled stakeholders, to long impede her progress. As best as anyone can suss out she simply ran afoul of entrenched groups more powerful than competent that are directly or indirectly part of the very problem she was hired to fix. Once she'd cleaned up the stink of their cronies they re-emerged to exert their expulsive force. They wanted cleanup and coverup rather than substantial change that would disenfranchise their legacy power base.

But that is exactly what DCSD needs. We need someone who will come in unafraid of ruffling feathers if that happens in a drive to put students first. If that means personnel changes she knows how to make those changes. If it requires hard choices and hard sells, she can do it. How do we know this? Because we've watched her do it. What we have with Carstarphen that we will get from no other candidate is that we have been vicariously trying before we buy. She is more of a known quantity than any other candidate we are likely find by any other means and at any other cost. And she is a known good quantity.

In her interview the AJC closed with this quote:

"I know we are a challenge, but if you really love kids, if you really don't mind putting your back into hard work, if you want to be a full-service superintendent like I am, there's plenty of work to do."

Yeah, we'll take her. The question is would she even consider us?

Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue?

What would you think if your neighbor down at the end of the cul de sac took their young child to an ophthalmologist to get the child's brown eyes converted to blue? And what would you think of an ophthalmologist who claimed the most important factor affecting eye color was a good ophthalmologist and he took their money to make them brown eyes blue? Not much, eh?

And just why would that be? Is it because you like everyone else knows that what determines one's eye color is genetics? In fact genetics plays a pretty big part in determining lots of things. Gender, physique, hair color--in fact it plays some role in almost every aspect of what makes a person an individual.

Except education.

Or so the education establishment would have you believe. For some reason genetics is something we just will not talk about when it comes to education. Instead we'd prefer to think of teachers as if they are the educational equivalent of the eye color ophthalmologist. Screw genetics--the most important thing is the teacher. At least until test results paint a picture of some pretty incompetent teachers in which case the most important thing is the parents. But if that becomes politically unpalatable we'll just chalk it up to society or a digital divide or haves and have nots.

But now we really can blame the parents. Turns out that heritability has more effect on variations in academic achievement than all other factors combined. That's right, whether your little darlin' is the next Feynman or Goober Pyle we can all rest easy because he was born that way. These revelations come from the research of Behavioural Geneticists Kathryn Asbury and Robert Plomin who have published a book, "G is for Genes: The Impact of Genetics On Education", providing an accessible overview (and some personal analysis) of their research into genetic influences of academic achievement. (Before anyone gets too hot under the collar this research was centered in England which being an island has long suffered from inbreeding and all manner of genetic issues thereunto appertaining. YMMV) But there is significant value in the material being presented (and for those truly interested the book itself should be given a read).

Everyone with more than one child or any siblings at all understands that genetic transference is probabilistic . No two sibs will learn to read at the same rate, with the same ease or to the same level of proficiency even though they draw from the same gene pool. Nonetheless it is each child's genetic makeup that is the single largest factor influencing their relative academic achievement.

Yet our education systems ignore this preferring instead to harp on the value of teachers, home environment, family makeup, income levels and supplied resources. Perhaps this is because of large interests who have much money and power at stake with the current system. If you've made your career selling the snake oil salve that "cures the academic ills of poverty" then you're not likely to be receptive to the notion that your snake oil is just that. Likewise if your constituency is the poor unappreciated teacher you will sing a chorus of "how great they art" giving a cold shoulder to any notion that their impact is as incredibly small as it really is.

Perhaps it is because speaking of genetic differentiation leads towards conversations that touch upon eugenics though for whatever it may be worth the term eugenics comes from the Greek roots for "good" and "generation" or "origin". While no one is recommending selective breeding or sterilization [ed: not yet] don't you think if you're going to do in vitro it would make sense to consider the implications of what you're doing?

Perhaps it is because genetics is poorly understood by the masses all too many of whom seem to think in simplistic terms and believe genes mean certain things are hardwired. Fact is there are so many genes involved that variations driven by genetics are probabilistic and not deterministic. It's still driven by genetics just not exactly the same way every time. Our gene pool has apparently dried up to the point that concept will not be widely understood.

Then there's the politics of the circumstances and let's be very clear--so long as governments fund and run our schools education will be first and foremost about politics. Politicians speak (and perhaps understand) in sound bites fostering an incorrect but politically convenient assertion that the role genetics plays in variations in academic achievement somehow drives policy. This obscures the facts regarding the role genetics plays in education and ignores the fact that policy is decoupled from genetics and is driven exclusively by our values. Using the same facts we could as a society chose to educate the best and forget the rest or we might decide that our values call on us to bring every member of our society to some minimal level of literacy and numeracy no matter what the cost. Or we could use what we know to provide the individualized education our technology can support.

As long as we ignore the single biggest factor influencing variations in academic achievement and we continue to elect school board members and other officials who focus on everything but this factor our schools will continually decline and our children and their future will be wasted.

Politi-FACT?

A recent PolitiFact Georgia in the AJC contains this nugget:

"Gov. Nathan Deal removed most of the school board for financial mismanagement and micromanaging that put the district at risk."

As they like to say at PolitiFact this intrigues us. Why? Because it simply is not true.

Gov. Deal gained legal authority to remove the board (it isn't clear if partial removal is supported by the law but that's not germane at this point) was granted by SACS when the school district was placed on probation by that accrediting corporation. It came down to direct testimony provided by Elgart to the State BOE. His stated opinion was that the district stood a better chance of regaining his approval without the board than with it and thereby granted Governor Deal not only legal authority but political cover. Since Elgart runs the accrediting corporation his opinion in this case is an adequate substitute for a threat.

Now a real politifacter might argue one degree of separation by contending that the district is on probation because of mismanagement and micromanaging. Does this pass the smell test?

Not really.

If actions speak louder than words then Elgart has clearly stated that this is not about financial mismanagement or micromanaging. After all we have Crawford Lewis who has admitted guilt in criminal actions as Superintendent while at the same time Elgart was awarding Crawford and his system (now under scrutiny for racketeering) accolades. But if all you can hear are words then Elgart's own statements attest to his understanding of decades long problems of mis and micro-managing that nonetheless garnered a gold star from Elgart's corporation.

No matter how you slice it, dice it or spin it Deal's removal of two thirds of the DeKalb County School Board wasn't because of financial mismanagement or micromanaging so we rate this Politifact as in-your-face-propaganda.

Cobb Schools: Teachers

For the last few decades the Cobb school system has, overall, been the best core-Atlanta has to offer. Not knocking Fayette or Forsyth Counties, just excluding them from the comparison of Counties like Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton--and even Gwinnett. This makes a recent AJC article on the Cobb Board of Education's decision to NOT buy math textbooks very interesting. It also makes it a gold mine of blog posts, so much so that each topic it touches on demands its own diatribe.

Today's is "teachers".

The amalgamated monster comprising teachers, teacher "organizations" and other apologists is a multi-headed beast which spews different and often contradictory stories from each fanged mouth:

"Many teachers say without textbooks, and the resources that come with them, they will be forced to piecemeal together lesson plans..."

or

"Textbooks provide sample problems, step-by-step explanations to complex math concepts and are used to build lesson plans..."

or a math tutor who remarks

"They're now dumping the onus on the teacher to come up with a methodology to share information with the masses in an effective way."

or the apologist parent saying

"Every math teacher is not the same. You're going to have math teachers who know what they're doing [...] but what happens when you have teachers who don't have that level of dedication."

OMG! Where to start?

Teachers, the very same ones who bitch about being reduced to marionettes in a puppet show by being forced to use pre-packaged "education resources" are now complaining that they might actually be called upon to demonstrate they really can teach. They are simply being asked to prove they know the material and that they can present the material in an effective manner. Isn't that what a teacher is supposed to do? Weren't they just whining about how "the system" prevented them from doing just that?

We have in the past pointed out that teachers, throughout their career both as students and as teachers generally don't know their subject matter, particularly math, and no one seems to really care. Now we know why. Like a kid who refuses to remember any fact he can look up on the internet these folks use textbooks as intellectual crutches--as a curtain these great wizards of the Educational Emerald City hide behind to disguise their own ignorance and incompetence.

And heaven forbid after all those grad level classes on pedagogy--you know, the only grad classes in America where students are told to "pull your chairs into a circle"--they might actually have to put to use some, perhaps all, of the "methodologies" they claim to have learned. And "masses"? Ironically that pejorative spews forth from a tutor who largely benefits when the classroom teacher fails.

Certainly no two individuals are the same but do we really want to ask, out loud, whether these "teachers", "professionals" one and all, are even dedicated to their "profession"? Is there a vast undedicated majority? If so we now see the real magnitude of the problem caused by credential and title inflation amongst public educators. If not, get rid of those pompous slackards who bring down the profession.

And they call themselves teachers? Forget math, they don't even know what that word means.

Whither Technology

One cannot read any blog regarding DeKalb County Schools without somewhere seeing a statement about "how great DeKalb Schools were back in [insert favourite decade here]". Well almost any blog because The Other Dunwoody is in possession of evidence, anecdotal though it may be, that indicates DeKalb County Schools have been a disaster for over thirty five years. Perhaps longer. Nonetheless, let's accept the "tragic, inexorably slow decline" theory.

There are many reasons offered for the decades long decay of DeKalb County Schools: white flight; minority backfill fueling degentrification; poverty; diversity; and general social decline manifested as single parent "families". Could be. Could be any. Could be all. But let us suppose that superpositioning works and independently analyze certain factors and then ask ourselves about another potential element: "what role has technology played"?

Is "classroom technology" a positive or a negative contributor to educational outcomes? Is money better spent on additional classroom teachers or Wi-Fi and smart boards? Would you rather your child sit in a class amongst fourteen other children with a teacher and an overhead or in a class with twenty four other kids bedazzled by the magic of that smart board? Does a Kindle really add anything to a study of "To Kill A Mockingbird"? Really? Does anyone know with the certainty of hard data based on reproducible research what the definitive answer is to any of these questions? Is a visceral vision enough to justify the money we've spent and misspent on technological chimeras? Or is it just another educratic mind fart?

Many, like Clifford Stoll, contend that our affection for the newest dazzling technology has caused nothing but harm. Harm to our children. Harm to their learning. Harm to their future. And at this point he appears to be right.

So why is the Master of our DeKalb County Schools, Mr. Elgart, so damn keen on forcing DeKalb taxpayers to piss away their tax dollars, not his, theirs, on "shiny object" technology with no indication of any positive contribution to any child's learning? First, because he doesn't seem to give a damn whether your child learns anything or simply grows up to be a mental doorstop. And his only readily apparent concern about your taxes appears to be the dollars he, his organization and his cronies get. It would be very revealing to investigate his ties to players in "education tech".

First You Must Get Their Attention

This story about an experience with DeKalb County Schools was told by a graying couple who still live in Dunwoody. Their reasonably bright child was under the academic thumb of a highly thought of Dunwoody public elementary school from Kindergarten thru most of fourth grade. During that time their child's nationally normed percentile ranking on the key standardized test of the day showed a monotonic negative trend. No ups and downs...just downs.

Both had some exposure to education with the mother a former teacher and principal in an unnamed northern state who also taught in DeKalb for two years and the father an off and on adjunct at local colleges so it was with a better than average understanding that they approached school personnel to discuss this disturbing trend. That was the only topic they wished to discuss and while one might think this would be very straightforward were one to think that one would be wrong.

First they got the run around. Teacher sent them to the curriculum specialist who forwarded them to the principal who only wanted to know what the teacher said and suggested this was for the teacher to address. Fair enough. On a second meeting with the teacher she actually reviewed the test scores and remarked "oh, your child should have been placed in the gifted program years ago". These parents knowing a thing or two about education were not interested in the make-work program DeKalb foists on parents under the guise of "Talented and Gifted" and they had no interest in a garage-built paper mache vinegar and food color volcano masquerading as an experiment. They wanted to understand how their child's academic performance was in year over year decline and what could be done to reverse that trend. TAG was not a legitimate answer and that it was even proposed was disturbing as it indicates that these educators clearly understood that the standard educational fare they offered was inadequate for children to keep up.

By end of third grade these parents had begun investigating alternatives. Then during fourth grade magic happened. Their child's teacher gave out books as gifts just before the holiday break (apparently the world was just as PC fifteen years ago as now). Their child received "Witch Baby" which was dutifully read aloud in the back seat as the family did their annual over the river and thru the woods pilgrimage to Dizzy Whirled.

The introduction comprises a single paragraph but offers quite the intellectual smorgasbord for a fourth grade mind:

Once, in a city called Shangri-L.A. or Hell-A or just Los Angeles, lived Weetzie Bat, the daughter of Brandy-Lynn and Charlie Bat. A genie granted Weetzie three wishes, so she wished for a Duck for her best friend Dirk McDonald, "My Secret Agent Lover Man for me," and a little house for them all to live in happily ever after. The wishes came true, mostly. Dirk met Duck Drake and Weetzie met My Secret Agent Lover Man and they all lived together. When Weetzie wanted a baby and My Secret Agent Lover Man didn't, Dirk and Duck helped her, and Cherokee was born. My Secret was angry and went away. He stayed with Vixanne Wigg for a while, but he loved Weetzie so much that he returned. One day Vixanne left a basket on the porch of the house where Weetzie and My Secret Agent Lover Man and the baby, Cherokee, and Dirk and Duck all lived. In the basket was Witch Baby and this is her story.

Yet another meeting with the principal was scheduled and the principal actually attended. The parents presented the principal with a photocopy of the book's introduction. Now they had the principal's attention, but not until all the blood had left her face as she had watched her entire career flash before her eyes.

And her first words? "Can I get the book back?"

After a brief discussion of the parents' staunch anti-censorship position and a sincere but otherwise fruitless discussion of their child's academic prospects at the hands of DeKalb's finest educators the parents left with a decision. Upon receiving the results of the fourth grade standardized test (which confirmed the continual decline) they pulled their child, started home schooling and never looked back. 

Lest you think this was a train wreck in the making their child turned out fine attending a local university on full scholarship and continuing on with graduate work in a STEM discipline at a nearby research institute. DeKalb County Schools have not fared as well.

Beware The Flu

There is a move afoot to bombard the new DeKalb County School Superintendent and the Board with emails demanding that the Super and/or the Board allow communities, Dunwoody included, to foot the bill for alternative per-school accreditation. Permission is needed because the accrediting agency will need access to school resources to perform their audit.

Unfortunately neither our recently un-elected Board, nor Thurmond, nor Tyson (who is actually running the show) give a shit what anyone in the community and particularly in Dunwoody wants. For them Dunwoody has been a pain in their ass for far too long and right now they don't have to listen to anybody, except maybe Elgart. And as long as they send Thurmond out on tour to say he's listening, to say "parents are the most important" part of the equation it doesn't matter that he is isn't listening and doesn't even believe what he's saying.

Our Superintendent For Life is special--he operates on epiphanies--he has "Aha! Moments". As it turns out now is a singular time, offering a unique opportunity for the parents of children in Dunwoody's schools to bring rapture to the Super, to catalyze his epiphany and bring him to an important "Aha! Moment".

It appears that we are right smack dab in the middle of CRCTs. Apparently these started this past Thursday and continue until Tuesday (day after tomorrow). As it so happens we are also in the midst of a mini-flu epidemic and it seems to be hitting kids the hardest. Particularly susceptible are those children under stress and what could be more stressful than a four day test? What indeed.

Now all parents know how important these tests are...how they are critical for their children to achieve their potential...to having a fair chance at the college of their choice...how the Super intends to trot out some cherry picked results to a resounding chorus of "How Great We Art...so no one, especially not anyone in The Other Dunwoody would dare suggest that parents might put their child's health ahead of this all important test. Folks outside The Other Dunwoody sure as hell would though. And to their point, a responsible parent would never send a child to school when they suspect that child might be ill or worse yet contagious. And with this flu going around parents all across Dunwoody are asked to be extra vigilant and if their child shows even the faintest sign of illness to keep them home.

The test can wait.

As it turns out this is as true as it is key to parents getting their issue heard. Should the flu result in extraordinarily excessive absenteeism then the re-test[1] will of necessity see a large increase in takers. Barring another bought of flu. While only a few weeks of delay, this gives the Super time to bring his Rapture Road Trip back up to the 'Wood for some listen and learn. Now that parents have his attention of course. In full listen mode we can bring him to the still, healing waters of epiphany and pray with him as he has his "Aha! Moment". Then we can celebrate with one voice as he puts pen to paper offering a testimonial and an iron-clad guarantee that parents in Dunwoody can seek GAC accreditation prudently, payerfully, but with all due haste.





[1] Whenever there is a "high stakes test" anyone who might be penalized based on the results works to ensure there is at least two bites at the apple. Wouldn't want anyone to look bad based on any objective measure.

About Those Kids

In DeKalb and particularly in Dunwoody we are about to be inundated with public school propaganda for causes that are diametrically opposed. DeKalb Schools will want to maintain structural integrity--about the only integrity they have left--and Dunwoody will not rest until they have their own school system. Dunwoody may settle for a charter cluster but many in the 'Wood will consider that "kissin' yer sister."

What both campaigns will have in common is the stated basis for their plan...for their actions: it's all about the kids. So from the outset let's get clear on that issue. It is indeed about the kids, but make no mistake this is not for the kids. The kids are mere conveyances, walking STDs with $10,000 in government funds in their hands ripe for the taking. If either group can get their hands on that money without actually educating children then that is what they will do. In fact they've built a sophisticated system around that very premise. It's called "public education".

Since neither group is proposing a fee for services structure all you need to do is ignore the blather about the kids and watch the money. Therein lies the truth.

Mary Steenburgen Heads Home

Mary Steenburgen, in an effort to prepare herself for an upcoming dramatic role has been researching the inner workings of post civil rights era urban public schools for her part in an upcoming made by Netflix TV "series".  Unbeknownst to many this has been taking place for the last two years right here in Georgia, in our very own DeKalb County School System.

Some expect the show to be a dark comedy, but others close to the writing team characterize it as sardonically witty, more like Dilbert goes to school than Yossarian goes to war. Witty repartee and intellectual comedy runs deep and strong with Whoopi Goldberg cast as a snarky but passive aggressive school superintendent--a stark counterpoint to Steenburgen's role as a newly elected school board member. Steenburgen's character, who only recently moved from a distant, more rural state sports a bambi-in-the-headlights demeanor backed by a sharp analytical mind and reveals herself to be a mental fencer who deftly kills with the sharp point rather than the dull edge. Ted Danson, who is directing is also co-producing the program with Steenburgen and insiders are expecting a lively set with out-takes that may become a movie unto themselves.

The actress was briefly interviewed while leaving her limo to board a private jet out of PDK and she expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to gain first hand experience in a modern urban school setting and acquire a better understanding of the practical underpinnings of diversity in culture, ambitions and goals as it relates to the community and the practical realities of complex social and political systems. She has been quoted as saying "there are things out there you simply cannot learn by reading a book and are never found in a script's stage directions." Her parting words, "I learned it truly takes a village and a big enough village can afford a number of idiots", will surely find a place in the script.

Mark your calendars, the first season is expected in fall of 2014.

Late Breaking News

Sources close to the Governor are preparing folks for his upcoming decision regarding the DeKalb County School Board. He will remove the board and in an effort to defuse at least some of the legal challenges he intends to remove the entire board and will not reappoint any sitting members including those recently elected. The calculus is not just political but is in part based on the observation that all of the current board members are "duly elected and reflect the desires of the voters thereby laying the responsibility for the current failures clearly at their [the voter's] feet." This has undermined any belief that those most recently elected are any better than those they join or those they have replaced.

There are also credible reports that the Governor has narrowed his choices for replacements to twelve and will be making the final selections this evening. All candidates are considered capable but some concern has been voiced regarding the fact that all are male and all are white. In discussions of the political consequences the Governor is reported to have said that DeKalb is a train wreck and "I'm getting the best people I can to fix this and I'm not going to apologize for their gender or their race--we're getting this done. I'm sorry this has to happen in February--I'm sensitive to the timing--but quite frankly I can hear MLK spinning in his tomb over what folks in DeKalb, using his legacy, have done to those children--the grandchildren of the Civil Rights movement."

Removing The Board

There has been much chatter of late regarding removal of the DeKalb County School System's Board of Education. En masse. There is a recall process for removal of elected officials in Georgia but there are a few problems with that which is probably why some folks want the Guv to do the dirty work.

First is related to the fact you cannot initiate a recall vote just because you're pissed off whilst you can trot down to the Capital and bend the Governor's ear. However to initiate a recall you must have specific grounds:

1. The official has, while holding office, conducted himself or herself [ed: gotta be PC] in a manner which relates to and adversely affects the administration of his or her [ed: again with the PC] office and adversely affects the rights and interests of the public; and, 
2. That official has also:
1. Committed an act or acts of malfeasance while in office;
2. Violated his or her oath of office;
3. Committed an act of misconduct in office;
4. Failed to perform duties prescribed by law; or
5. Willfully misused, converted or misappropriated, without authority, public property or public funds entrusted to or associated with the elective office to which the official has been elected or appointed.

Just so happens that simple incompetence is simply inadequate. Is anyone really surprised that politicians hold themselves to such a high standard?

But there is a bigger problem with recalls and it speaks to the fundamental problem underpinning the decline of public education all across America. Parents. The same delusion that causes parents to espouse how great their child's school is when it is painfully obvious to the casual observer that is simply not the case causes them to wax poetic about the capabilities of their Board Member. They don't want to recall THEIR Board Member, they want to recall YOURS.

It really doesn't matter if the Governor removes the Board and installs replacements. It doesn't even matter if the System loses accreditation. Nothing will ever matter until parents open their eyes, objectively evaluate the situation and take personal responsibility for THEIR CHILDREN. Until then WE have the school system THEY want.

Unringing The School Bell

A fully mature bureaucracy always maximizes positive outcomes for the organization and the bureaucrats that run it with almost no remaining substantive connection to the original mission. These organizations flourish in government since the competitive environment of free markets tends to weed out organizations that no longer serve a need and government is widely known to never solve a problem and dissolve the agency chartered to address an issue. Think Rural Electrification Administration -- are there not lights in Podunk, Ga?

For most of us the largest government entity that touches our lives are Public Schools and they have matured into exclusively self-serving bureaucracies and it isn't just DeKalb, this is true everywhere. And this goes beyond the school house or even "The Palace".  The non-functioning bureaucracy has built its own ecosystem that includes colleges granting questionable teaching degrees to questionable graduates, textbook and test publishers, unions defeating all attempts at meritocracy, training and consulting groups, modern day snake oil salesmen hawking technology and educational packages, and even architects and builders who have established that schools are "special". All the while these educrats and hangers-on have co-opted the public, particularly parents, on the notion that it is "all about ``our'' children" leveraging the unquestioned precept that there is a societal obligation for everyone to pay for anyone's children.

Public Schools have also expanded their scope of "services" diluting their original mission and reducing, by that dilution, their accountability for "job one" -- education. This is not a recent development. And the public/parents are OK with that. Try pondering with friends or colleagues about "what would happen if we simply shut down the public schools, kids aren't learning anything anyway" and sooner or later someone will pipe up with "well what are those kids going to do all day"? It turns out "stay home with a parent" is no longer an acceptable notion and we in America have truly created a nanny state.

Sooner or later reality will force us to realize that Public Schools are fundamentally and fatally flawed when it comes to educating children. There is no fixing them. It is a difficult and painful realization, but it is nonetheless inevitable--these schools cannot be fixed if by fixed we mean "deliver a world-class education". We can recognize them for what they are -- government daycare -- and deal with the issue of educating children separately.

Once we accept that reality there is much we can do to address the extreme costs and gross inefficiencies of this secondary government. We've already dismissed the notion that "teachers" need to understand the subject matter they teach. In reality they are not teaching so it doesn't really matter and the current education ecosystem acknowledges this.

Consider this. A major Georgia institution will graduate elementary school "teachers" equipped with a shiny new "elementary-education" degree who do not understand fractions. No one is alarmed. These individuals will have a college degree and do not understand fourth grade math and no one is alarmed. They graduated from high school without understanding fourth grade math and no one is alarmed. They graduated from eighth grade with no clue about fourth grade math and no one is alarmed. They were promoted from fourth grade to fifth grade ignorant of material just covered and no one is alarmed. And that is proof positive that Public Schools are far separated from learning and they have spewed forth enough ignorant generations to become fully self-perpetuating. This is not a confederacy of dunces it is an incestuous community of idiots.

The facts are undeniable. These are not educators and should not be paid as if they were, instead they should be paid like the babysitters they really are. We can also dismiss the ancillary costs that come with pretending learning is a part of the program. We are pouring over $300K into each classroom when what we need is someone who can keep the inmates from harming one another. That is not a $300K proposition and we should be able to babysit and feed these children for far less. Yes, it is now a government responsibility to feed children at Public Schools and since the program is unaudited we are left to assume it is as corrupt as every other Public School endeavor.

The sooner we move forward embracing what Public Schools have transformed themselves into the sooner some parents will wake up and take charge of their children's future.