If you were to believe Osceola County Public Schools, which after the bewildered bovine blunder of the past couple of days we doubt that you do, free markets and competition are bad. A proposal to bring a privately funded International Baccalaureate program to Celebration High School was ignored by the Osceola County School District. Outgoing superintendent Blaine Muse showed little interest in supporting programs dedicated to higher educational achievement even if the program was not going to cost the school district any money.In an Orlando Sentinel article, the reason given for turning down the offer by school officials was that they believe 'Magnet' programs were designed to bring high-performing students into low-performing schools. Their argument is that Celebration High School which has been a consistent 'C' school is not low-performing. The WayneWho staff would have to agree that when you set the bar that low, high performance is easy to achieve.
The next argument offered by school officials went something like this; "They also said they want to protect the district's only IB program, which is at Gateway, and avoid 'brain drain' from neighboring Poinciana and Liberty High." (Pause for a second to wrap your thoughts around that level of stupidity, we know it is painful, but this is what we are dealing with as a community.) It seems that the simple idea of finding and creating opportunities for students to excel has been lost in the bureaucratic empire know as the Osceola County Public Schools. Even County Commissioner Paul Owen, who was puzzled by the rejection, agreeded that competition in the educational system would make it better.
The school district spokesperson Dana Schafer responded in an e-mail that "Enrollment in our district is not sufficient . . . to fiscally support two programs," which means that enrollment is down so far that they cannot afford to financially support a program that is actually going to be funded by some one else. This statement is also the first confirmation that we have been able to find that enrollment is down and that the district is out of money.
In a complete contradiction to spokesperson Schafer, school board member Jay Wheeler said he understood the complexities of managing a fast-growing school district... but that he thought the decision to reject the program was "incredibly foolish" and detrimental to good students. This begs the question, is enrollment down, or is it up? Or is it the fact that while student enrollment is down, staff at the school district continues to grow? The WayneWho staff is just glad to see a school board member acknowledge that district staff makes "incredibly foolish" decisions that are detrimental to good students. This also explains the missing cases of tainted beef.
The question posed by the WayneWho staff is that if we are going to work to build a better economy as candidate after candidate trumpets, don't we actually have to create an educational system that attracts corporations into our community? The background stories of each missed opportunity for economic development center around the lack of high educational standards in our community. Companies like the area, but then turn tail and run when they take a look at our schools. Ask the St. Cloud Chamber President what an under performing dirty looking school will do to sour a relationship with an economic partner. If we are going to improve our economic crisis, then some control must be exercised over the lackluster performance of our school board and the staff members that answer to them. We cannot afford any more "incredibly foolish" and "detrimental" decisions.
11 comments:
ITS A SHAME FORMER COMMISSIONER SCOTT BROOKS WASN'T ELECTED. HE, TOGETHER WITH WHEELER, MIGHT HAVE BROUGHT SOME SENSE OTO THE TRAGEDY OF OSCEOLA COUNTY. MAYBE IF BROOKS RUNS FOR OFFICE AGAIN, ANY OFFICE, THINGS WILL GRADUALLY CHANGE. FOR THE BETTER.
graffix... did you not read the quotes from wheeler??? he has not idea what is going on with the district staff. he might no more than the other board members, but even he is clueless. brooks might have been better, but he did not run a good campaign. he needs to work harder if he wants to win. wheeler just needs to learn the facts.
Maybe Scott could get in the race for District 3 County Commissioner. He would sure make a better commissioner than Van Meter.
Fire the entire school board! The ex-chairman has feathered his nest and is moving on. Coach Greer is attached to a developers butt and goes to orange county to tell them how to run things. Wheeler wants to blame everyone else and spends all his time trying to bully everyone. He's right and any other idea is wrong.
Meanwhile, no one has a plan, money goes back to the state, teachers leave because of poor working conditions, and student grades continue to drop.
They keep getting grant money and piss it away. Free meals for everyone!
Anybody can make a better Commissioner than Van Meter. Graffix, Wheeler has lost it. He's out in left field. Then again, he never was in the ball game. He just tries to talk a good game.
The real question for the beef recall is if the students were served the bad beef before the recall? Supposedly they did not serve it after the recall notice, but what about before that? If we need to get our kids to the doctor, maybe you should tell us the truth.
Wheeler was a much better person when he was running for office. Now that he has an office, his demeanor has changed. He will not consider the possibility that he can be wrong, and everyone he wants to brown nose is now his good friend. Jay has hundreds of good friends.
Get rid of them all. One person at a time. That's including all and previous elected officials. New blood and new ideas for a better Osceola.
IB is not what you think it is. It's the UN's attempt to do what Hitler did -- brainwash all our kids into allegiance to WORLD GOVERNMENT under the UN.
IT should be ignored, booted, trashed and the UN should be burned down.
www.edwatch.org has more info
I wish the would tell us how much of the beef was fed to our children. We know they found cases that had not been used, but what was the count before that?
Did you see the news story tonight about the teacher yelling at students? I guess he must have had some of the tainted beef!
Post a Comment