[Winona Online Democracy]
"Failure" of a school district is not simply an opinion but a recognized
situation and cause of action by state governments. Consolidation sometimes
may hide failure, but it certainly does not always imply outright failure.
States can, however, designate districts as "failures" and directly or
through other agencies simply can take them over, sometimes for several
years. Reasons for designation as a failed district vary, but they have
involved issues of failure to meet important goals, inadequate organization,
fiscal mismanagement, corruption, poor academic performance, illegal hiring,
or a combination of these. I suspect that low graduation rates will
constitute a significant basis for takeover in the next few years, although
causes for low rates may extend well beyond district actions.
Takeover takes various forms. It often involves removal of the board and the
top administrators. The most common action is assumption of responsibilities
by state-appointed boards and administrators. Another is the handing of
fiscal and many other administrative responsibilities to the cities in which
the school district operates. States will not close down schools as long as
children in the area need education. But in effect states create districts
that are no longer independent of other agencies. In Pennsylvania, the state
government handed administration of the Philadelphia school system over to a
third party.
During the past two months, two "failed" districts-one in Arizona and one in
Missouri-have been taken over by state governments. During the past 15
years, I'd guess that at least 60 districts, both small and large, have been
designated "failures" and have been taken over by states. Among the large
ones have been Newark, Jersey City, Cleveland, Compton (California), Boston,
and Lawrence, Massachusetts. Washington D.C. was taken over by a new
government body. Partial takeovers have occurred in several large cities.
In any case, "failure" is not limited to business enterprises. In education,
some designations as failure are fair; others may not be, but the
consequences of the designations are very real indeed, and failed school
districts are a very significant part of the American educational scene.
Roy Nasstrom
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Severson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "'Winona Online Democracy'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 2:12 PM
Subject: RE: [Winona] School Administrators/NPR bias
[Winona Online Democracy]
I think some schools have some astonishingly high percentage of drop outs.
You could say this is a failure of the social system, Or the school
system.
Someone needs responsibility. How do we decide who?
Tom Severson
Severson Oil Co.
P.O. Box 736
Winona, Mn. 55987
507 452 3402 ext 214
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 12:43 PM
To: Tom Severson
Cc: 'Winona Online Democracy'
Subject: RE: [Winona] School Administrators/NPR bias
[Winona Online Democracy]
"I believe some have failed their mission worse than Enron and World Com."
With all due respect Tom, you just can't be serious. Worse than World
Com?
That's just not possible because NO public school districts have ever been
shut
down.
I will admit to being (a bit) intentionally provacative with a couple of
my
statements and I do enjoy a good debate but I don't want this to become
overly
heated so I want to make the point that I do respect and admire your
contributions to this board. That being said....
I think the problem is that we have consistently been blasted by a media
that
says our schools are "failing" when the truth is that the media just isn't
using
that word correctly. I spent some time in the "gang" high school of a
major
american city so I agree that there are schools that have serious problems
but
even in those schools the majority of students are not failing. Even our
worst
public schools produce at least a few college entrants each year while
World
Com will never again produce another long distance phone call. We have
some
schools that are struggling, but failing? By what standard?
Imagine if our schools really did mirror our economy where people are
allowed
to fail, where 5% of the population is unemployed (and that doesn't
include
the
dropouts), where another 12% live below the poverty line, where nearly
half
of
all new businesses fail in the first few years. By those metrics our
schools
are still amazing successes. What motivates the bottom 15% of our
students to perform in school knowing that their reward is likely a spot
in
the
bottom 15% or our economy either way?
In our economy the unemployment rate improves when someone becomes so
discouraged that they stop looking for work. In our schools a poor
dropout
rate causes you to be cited under NCLB.
Our schools are failing our students in almost exactly the same
porportions
as
our economy is failing our workers and why should we expect anything
different?
Bryon
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