Lynnell Mickelson wrote:
>When GOP candidate Kevin Trainor on the List recommends
>firing everyone in the district and having 18-year-old temps
>take their place---well, I get his frustration in the face
>of all these overwhelming problems. But the disrespect to
>good people in the district who are trying their damndest in
>the face of huge obstacles isn't fair. Isn't right. If I
>contributed to this climate somehow in my first post, I'm
>sorry.
Yes, it was an intemperate thing to say, but unfair to *everyone* in MPS? I don't
think so, and neither do a lot of
parents who have dealt with certified teachers who lack the
basic math skills your average office temp is required to have. Yet, the unions have
fought tooth and nail to keep us
from uncovering such incompetents and getting them out of the system.
Your point anbout Marj Rolland trying to explain the
budget reminds me of the copy of the MPS budget that one list
member was kind enough to have mailed to me. The thing must be
seen to be believed - it is the most unintelligible pile of
steaming fiscal cr*p I have ever seen. If Marj can actually
make snese of this, her talents are wasted in the public sector. Seriously, though, if
the budget is that opaque then
it needs to be redone so EVERYONE can understand it. This is
our school system, paid for with our hard-earned money that
has passed through Washington and St. Paul (where every level
of bureaucracy gets its taste) and if it is churning out
budgets that cannot be understood by the average parent in
Minneapolis then it is not accountable to us and it must be
brought to heel.
I have to say I resent the partisan politicking in favor
of Senator Wellstone. If he's such an advocate of full funding for the special
education mandates, then how is it he
couldn't manage to get his own party to back him on this,
especially with the support of Jumpin' Jim Jeffords? Wellstone's party has controlled
the Senate since Jeffords'
defection, and the education bill passed this year owed more
to what Senator Kennedy wanted than what the President wanted-
how is it that the full funding escaped inclusion? It's so easy to blame everything on
the President, especially with
anonymous quotes, but a little harder to understand why one's
own Senator couldn't get the job done.
Perhaps the reluctance of Republicans at the Federal level has more to do with
education being a local issue,
controlled and funded best by the people it affects most immediately, than with any
hidden agendas. IDEA merely put into the US Civil Code a requirement that the Feds
should not have had to remind us of - we should be educating all the children to the
best of our ability, not just the ones who
are whole in body and easy to teach.
>Instead of saying Tear It All Down and Start Over. Or To
>Hell with it, I'm Going Private. I wish we said, okay, how
>can we help? How can we make it better?
Perhaps because we were told that our help and input
wasn't wanted or needed. Perhaps because we've seen what
happened when we tried to make things happen. Obviously you've
had a different experience than we have, and it makes you think that the public school
system can reform itself if we
just all work together and get the right people on the board.
I don't believe that any more, and neither do a fair amount of
other people. Jack the cooperation. Bring the noise.
--
Kevin Trainor
RPM Candidate HD 61A
East Phillips
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