If I Had My Way I'd Tear This Building Down

Last Friday, all of the administrators in my building received notices of dismissal. They were to report to a Board of Education meeting for further notice as to whether they were being fired, transferred, or demoted. Tonight, the Board convened and decided to place "emergency" help in our school by adding two more principals. That would total three principals, one in charge of "climate," one in charge of "community," and one heading curriculum instruction. On top of our four vice principals (we started the year with six), one would hope we could provide a suitable school environment for our students to feel safe and our teachers to feel supported. Unfortunately, this will be the eleventh principal in ten years for our high school.

A veteran teacher that has advised and mentored me the past five months filled me in on the historic challenges of the High, the district, and the state, convinced that the Board of Education does not want our school to succeed. According to this teacher, it is in the Board's financial favor for our school to fail. The state runs the district from afar, and provides funding according to population size (we have 2000 on roll and 800 showing up), so the district gets more money for the number of students. This contributes to the "dumping" of students from "programs" (read prison), charter schools, and the other high school. We receive all students expelled form other schools. Perhaps this is one of the reasons behind our location at 316 out of 316 schools in our state. In fact, students have even been thrown out of elementary schools and ended up on our books due to "social promotion."

The second half of the district's motivation for ensuring failure is that as an Abbott school district, we receive funding proportional to our failure to meet standards. Supposedly more money can bring higher test scores because the more money we have, the smaller the class sizes can be and the more resources can be available. So, if we succeeded in academic progress the district would bring in less money. Now, in a city where three of the past five mayors are incarcerated for fraud and the supervisors of the schools are cycled through pending investigation after investigation, why would they want less money? Fraudulent redistribution of funds in our board of education depends upon the failure of our schools.

The effect is less money making it to the classroom, teachers burned out and frustrated, administrative rollover every year, and a different initiative every two or three months. We have burned through five state backed reform initiatives this year when such initiatives are supposed to last for three to five years. Nothing about this system empowers teachers or students. They would rather buy a new car than see their schools improve.

This latest shake down followed an interesting chain of events. The board told our school to undergo a drastic scheduling reform. A teacher called the state and complained. The board answered the call from the state and needed a scapegoat, so they tried to fire our principal. There is more going on here, and more history than can be elaborated upon here, but an essential crux to our problems remains constant: corrupt supervision. Welcome to public education. If I had my way, I'd tear that building down.