Monday, August 20, 2007

Break Time

This blog is on temporary hiatus until I have reliable Internet access again. Just sayin'.

Posted by Dennis at 12:59 AM

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well for goodness sake go to the library, change providers, dial up to my account. Yours is the only rational analysis that I can find of the Lebanon school board fiasco.

Tonight there was a school board meeting in Lebanon and it was only more twisted than the two proceeding. After hearing some comments from potential consultants, the board tried to define what a review of the district's performance might include so as to set some sort of scope to the undertaking. As usual Rick Alexander embarrassed himself, fumbling and bumbling, exchanging strange conspiratorial glances with certain audience members, and blathering a string of confused nonsense. His odd henchman Josh Wineteer punctuated this with his usual intimidation of other board members, his face contorting in contemptuous sneers, eye rolling, and glares.

Rick Alexander really should have the charter school leadership, the football coaches, the shop class advocates, and the teachers' union president write some more detailed notes about what they want him to parrot so that he may more effectively undo millions of dollars worth of in-process, working, education reforms. He hooks up with these interests, critical of the school district administration for their own political reasons, only because he can’t find people with legitimately criticism of the academic programs.

Mr. Alexander might avail himself of the Oregon School Board Association’s seminars that explain the technical business of managing a school district.

That would assume though, that he, in fact, actually wanted to participate in leading a school district to best practices in teaching and learning, the kinds of practices that prepare students for life in this century. The fact that he has not attended these training sessions only serves to prove that his real intention is to undermine this (and all) government entities. Too bad that he did not get a better education himself, including a good social studies class that explained the concept of a government that provides for the common good by banding people together to do as a group what they cannot do for themselves.

Where are the thinking people of Lebanon? Why does an angry fringe dominate the discussion? Fifteen or twenty people regularly attend the school board meetings to support Alexander while ten thousand parents of students stay home. Is their lack of participation an endorsement of the schools? If so, this is the time to show up and witness the gross mismanagement advocated by Rick Alexander and Josh Wineteer, to ask themselves whether this pair, destructive forces with too much time on their hands, elected narrowly in a small voter turnout, really represent the best interest of Lebanon’s children.

August 21, 2007 at 12:17 AM
Anonymous said...

hurry up. i'm impatient... ;)

August 21, 2007 at 10:00 PM

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