Mar 02 Who Should Have the Monkeys?

This is my follow up to Who's Got the Monkey? post, where I noted that we the public and we the parents have all the monkeys, the responsibility, the blame if you will, for our under-performing public schools.  Other than an occasional "we could have said that better," I can't recall any district accepting the blame for low test scores, low graduation rates, and wide achievement gaps, not to mention their high cost of operation.

I have sympathy for School Board members.  They're not getting rich, work mostly night and weekends, and once they hire a Superintendent, really don't have that much influence on day to day matters.  Most of the game is rigged by the Legislature, and we all know who they work for, or at least used to.  So I can understand why they might push back on us taxpayers, parents, and business owners to help them out.  It's for the children, whose educational success helps us all.

But we outsiders can't fix everything, for we can only control the input.  Suppose your child is taking French in high school, loves it, or would but the district's only French teacher est incompétente.  What can you do about it?  Nothing other than complain, drop the course, or find another school if you can afford it.  What can the district do about it?  Almost nothing given the union rules unless the teacher is truly willing and able to step up which I fear is too often the exception, especially once tenure kicks in.

No, the only ones with power to truly change things around are in St. Paul, ignoring Washington D.C. for now.  As such, they should have at least some of the monkeys that the districts think belong on our backs.

Let me put it this way.  I as a parent have great responsibility for my child's success in school.  I as a citizen have responsibility for electing competent, courageous Legislators to create an overall framework for success.  But I don't need the district pretending that the latter has indeed happened, that the district is doing the best they can, leaving just me and my child with the monkeys.  The district further blurs this situation by lobbying the legislature directly in my supposed behalf, for which they have no standing or moral justification.

The school boards (not the administrations since this is politics) should stop giving the Legislature wish lists and start giving them monkeys.  Whatever money you get, you set class sizes accordingly, and make it clear to the public who's in charge of what.  Do the same with regulations, have a little fun even by exposing the ridiculous complexity, how much it costs to comply, how little it contributes to actual education, and how it precludes the transparency that would truly serve us all.

We also must let our Legislators know that the current pro-union, anti-choice, low standards, outdated methodology is no longer acceptable.  Neither is another Minnesota Miracle, given the failure of the original and its smaller versions since.  They have the monkeys.  If they can't fix the districts, pin that money on the students and let us try.

Cross-posted and comments welcome at Speed Gibson.