[Winona Online Democracy]
Roy,
Thank you for finding this information. I think this illustrates my point
almost perfectly.
"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."
My contention is that the word "failure" is not being applied equally in
Business and Education and that perhaps it is the model of our education
system that should be applied to our businesses rather than vice-versa. You
have given us a perfect study group to test that statement. If these school
district failures are somehow equal to the failures of World Com, Enron, and
etc. then we should find that a majority of them will meet these standards:
Have all of their employees been fired save a small skeleton staff to
oversee the liquidation of assets?
Are their bond holders now in possession of nothing but worthless paper?
Have their pension and benefit plans been plundered to pay off creditors?
What you describe in relation to these districts sounds to me like not much
more than a management reorganization, or at worst a hostile takeover.
Perhaps the more interesting comparison is that even by this obviously
unequal application of the term there appear to be fewer than 100 districts
who have fallen below that standard in the past 20 years or so.
I suspect that many businesses have already failed so far this year, on just
the 4th day of the year.
By the standards of Business, Education has been tremendously more
successful.
Bryon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roy Nasstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Tom Severson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "'Winona Online Democracy'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 1:03 PM
Subject: Failed" school districts: A note on the Severson-Bothun dialogue
"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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