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School Daze

Some of these Indiana school districts never cease to amaze me.

First, Indianapolis Public School Superintendent Eugene White basically flips the state the bird and says he’s going to ignore the law and ban any students who leave the district to go to charter schools or township schools from returning after the official count day for attendance.   Never mind the fact that state law says you can’t deny a student who resides in your district the right to enroll, absent a a serious disciplinary issue. You would think a district that is going broke would want to find a better way to spend what little resources it has left.

And while we’re on the subject of schools, after losing the referendum last week, someone must have lifted up a few couches in Franklin Township and found more than $3 million dollars.  The school district made the announcement the other day, saying it had worked out a deal with its teachers for concessions and a change in the school funding formula also brought in more dollars.   It’s always interesting how people mysteriously “find” money that wasn’t there before, especially after crying poverty and bloody murder if the taxpayers don’t come up with more money.

And schools wonder why most people can’t stand them.

Posted: 05|12|11 at 6:45 am by Abdul Hakim-Shabazz
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  • MH

    Yeah..I just read in the Star that White stated the only thing that would make the district change it’s course would be legal action against it. I’m fairly certain that would happen, repetitively. And as long as the monies paid out to the kids’ family comes from White’s over-inflated salary, I dont see a downside.

    Either he’s a sociopath regarding actions/conseequences or just a cretin. In either case, he needs to go.

  • pascal

    What floats to the top in toilets and socialist organizations is similar. However, some consideration should be allowed SuperWhite as he does not have the coercive powers those administrators of collective farms had-not that even having them could produce minimal performance.
    Once one understands the underlying problem-proper cures (you don’t have to throw money at the symptoms if you know what you are doing) are easily devised. If you don’t know squat then you keep on lying and spending.

  • Pogden297

    I’d like to apologize for my comments yesterday. Apparently “Dr.” Whte is that dumb.

  • Think Again

    I’m sympathetic. To the IPS taxpayers and students. And staff.

    I was sympathetic toward Dr. White. He’s made tough decisions to close schools in an attempt to cut costs. Big plus.

    Then he takes two steps backward hiring his own son for an inflated salary in a brand-new position. Then he expels a Michigan camera crew from a community meeting, via his media flunky, because he doesn’t like their message. Then he tells the school board, publicly, to agree with his restructuring ideas or find another Superintendent. Then he threatens this, that, and everything….like a child throwing a tantrum.

    This guy is suffering from Overblown Worth Mentality. He needs to pick one or two fights and stick with them.

    It’s probably too late. For IPS anyway. They’re socialist anyway, so they’re probably not worth saving.

  • cynical sam

    Ok, so burning down the schools is a little extreme. Better idea; turn schools in to homeless shelters. Busses can also be converted to hippy hostels with a little paint and some flocking.

    Parents: You made em’, you educate em’.

  • Dave

    Indiana Superintendent Tony Bennett could put the issue to rest, by releasing an overriding statement of clarity; could save court costs & time.

    Shazam! Imagine what those Franklin Township folks might find with a little more routine cleaning.

  • cynical sam

    If a concerted effort was made, the following may be found:

    Amelia Earhart
    The Ark of the Covenant
    Aliens
    the missing $2 trillion from the “war chest”
    Donald Rumsfeld’s soul
    the Flying Dutchman
    the former president of the AFL-CIO (can’t remember his name)
    Ambrose Bierce

  • Think Again

    Well, except for that Constitution thing…

  • Think Again

    Sam, that’s priceless! Rummy’s soul. LMAO. THAT is an impossible search.

    I believe the union official you’re thhinking about, is Jimmy Hoffa. The late (?) Teamsters president.

  • Pogden297

    Clarify what? This isn’t a case of the law being vague. White just doesn’t care about the law.

  • Anonymous

    TA, what are you talking about? Where in the Indiana Constitutin does it mandate school attendance?

    If you read Section 1, then the General ASSembly SHALL “encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”

    Simply put, the mandate of the Constitution if for the GA to make tuition-free education AVAILABLE to all.

    The GA may have written a statute ‘mandating’ school attendance, but such language is absent from the text of the Article.

    Now, let’s look at funding (Section 2). Where is the taxation of a person’s private home for the support of public schools authorized? I cannot find it in the funding scheme at Section 2.

    Can you??

  • Dave

    Yep, exactly; given Bennett’s position, he can clarify the law, for Dr. White & correct his misapplication, on behalf of the public they serve.

  • Think Again

    I’m talking about the Constitutional mandate to provide a free and appropriate public education.
    Attendance is a statutory thing.

  • Think Again

    I think so far it’s just a threat, Dave. You’d probably have to wait until he actually does it. Or, in other words, until it harms kids. Sadly. I’m not a Bennett fan at all, but if he can pre-emptively strike on this matter, I’m all for it.

  • cynical sam

    You may not have heard that the US Constitution is dead, irrelevant, and a living document. Quite the trifecta. Plus, there is no more rule of law for those earning less than $10 million. Quaint thought, but just a little antiquated.

  • Anonymous

    Okey dokey. However, the phrase ” tuition shall be without charge” is distinctly different from ‘free’. Per our Constitution, public school education in Indiana is not ‘free’.

    Further, there is nothing in the Constitution, at all, concerning “appropriate public education”, or other such language.

    The Indiana Supremes have also ruled on this very issue, and (correctly) determined that our Indiana Constitution promises nothing in the way of “appropriate public education”.

    See Bonner v. Daniels, 885 N.E.2d 673 (Ind.App. 05/02/2008) and Bonner v. Daniels, 907 N.E.2d 516 (Ind. 06/02/2009).

    I don’t like stuff added, or subtracted, from our Constitution without benefit of proper amendment.

    Kind of like someone ‘saying’ that taxation of private property for the support of public schools is somehow ‘constitutional’.

  • Melyssa

    This morning I heard WIBC news give an interview with Dr. White/IPS asserting that more than 300 teachers were losing their jobs.

    Since there is about one administrator for every three classrooms, why didn’t Dr. White announce firing 100 administrators? Did no administrators get the axe?

    My guess is that the firing of 100 useless bureaucrats would be met with spontaneous celebrations across the district by both teachers and taxpayers throughout the district.

  • Think Again

    I like your thoughts M.

  • cynical sam

    Ah, thanks TA. The ole memory is just garbage. Way too many illicit narcotics during the “wild oats” phase.

  • Tsmith100

    Since the dollars don’t follow the student then Dr. White is probably correct. No wonder the chatter skools litter the landscape with BS signs all summer then they disappear once they get taxpayer funds in the fall. I laugh at those fool teachers who voted for Mitch and Bennett thinking they were getting jobs and less government control. They got MORE government control, no jobs, weird religious social reform and a well-funded corporate media blitz against teachers, union janitors and public education. Hope they learn their lesson next election.

    FOX Noise- NOT racist but # 1 with racists. OOhaaa.

  • Dave

    What lesson T, has anyone “learned,” from the near 70% failure rates of government run schools in Indianapolis?

  • Rico

    Since when has the Constitution mattered to you? Just curious.

  • Rico

    You’re so effin’ predictable. You’re talking about the former Sec. Of Defense who went into the burning Pentagon to help victims of 9/11.
    Your Party? You’ve got Obama, Harry “this war is lost’ Reid, Bill “I loathe the military” Clinton, John Kerry, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, etc., etc., etc. Shit on the flag lately?

  • Rico

    Yeah, they threaten us with cutting Phys Ed and they can’t even graduate the students. It’s no wonder our economy is being surpassed by the Chinese.

  • Jack

    Going to take the opposite side of things—why should regular schools accept charter schools students after “count day”.  I am not involved in any way with Marion County but the legislature just finished giving the shaft to schools.  Someone has to stand up and say enough and for the Bennett fans–good luck getting anything above average from that source.  Our President candidate governor has taken local control away from local communities on a lot of things–and with the state now responsible for funding AND setting the standards –he who owns the goose decides its fate.

  • Dave

    Jack:  No one, has been more “shafted,” than those most involved in Marion County’s government or union run schools; generations of children, aka student.

    “Average” would be a major step up, from made for failure indoctrination centers, aka “public education.”

    Only socialism would suggest that another living creature be “owned,” vs. in the care of a caretaker.  Children are citizens; not geese or chattel. 

  • Ramon

    I detest the leadership of Eugene White  and the way he is destroying IPS.  However,  he is right on this one.  The Charter schools continue to dump their problem students,  their nonperforming students,  the students with unsupportive parents, and special needs students back onto the public schools in order to cleanse their data.  They collect their money and then dump them.  Then they lie and deny they do it.  This needs to stop.  If they take the money then they need to keep the students.  They are committing a fraud against the public and the state monies.

  • Pogden297

    Jack, regular schools should accept charter schools students after count day because charter schools have to accept regular school students after count day.  It’s the law.

  • Jack

    I realize some are fully comfortable with the positions they put forth on this blog and that is alright, but there is something uncomfortable for me when one gets so far (right or left)  they can not even see the middle anymore.   The “blame game” is not a convincing argument on any subject.

  • Dave

    Where given names have qualities animated by their owners; right, left & center are a divisive marketing abstractions of the agend-ized, who can’t tell you whether the relative placement of those labels occurs on a two dimensional plane or three dimensional sphere.   

    Blame game?  No.  If anything, it’s a game called “lets talk about the problem in search of a solution.”  It’s reported, that 48% of adults in Detroit can’t read and nearly 70% of IPS students don’t graduate- problems much more related than not.    

  • Jack

    I will agree on the comment on “blame” game—how about taking an indepth reveiw of the total situation–societial, parental influence, academic ability of the student population, etc. etc.  –admittedly I may come from a viewpoint based on family situation (my early and current situations), my education experiences (early and through college),  my many years of teaching in a “government school”, my “union” membership where our corporation had one of the first 10 master contracts in the state; experiences in many organizations (local and state); experience in local government (elected and appointed), etc.—thus coming from my observations some of the “blame” things simply are not in my mindset based on experience and study of the situation.  Advocate and blame from an extremely critical position and expect resistance.

  • Dave

    Noticing a hole in the boat while miles offshore (at sea), might be more observant than “critical”…