Message of Reform

This is pretty shocking.
I never thought I'd see it happen.
What am I talking about?
Seems a school district in Rhode Island has the right idea.
Now I'm not going to sit here and wax on, wax off about what's wrong with the present educational system.
Okay, maybe I will.
Just a little.
For one thing, I thought the school that I work at was under performing.
It is, but that school in Rhode Island, I mean, I can't even bring myself to call it a school.
I look at it this way: if your business is not doing what it's supposed to, then you should either change how you are doing it or close up shop.
Seems that particular school wasn't doing what it was supposed to, yet the people there thought everything was copacetic.
Oh, don't worry, we'll take some recommendations and change some things, but other than that, we're okay.
Don't worry about us.
Huh? The kids?
What kids?
Chapeau to the Superintendent.
Now we have a new School Superintendent here, but what happened in Rhode Island is never going to happen here.
The thing is, here, there is only one school district.
One.
School.
District.
For like the whole state.
This wouldn't be a bad thing, if all the kids in the state were the same too.
What I mean is, it would be great if all the kids were of the same ethnic background and had the same socio-economic status.
Would be.
Great.
Moving on, for historical reasons here, the unions have too much power.
There, I said it. I said it for it's true.
A teacher here must get caught dealing crystal meth before they get fired. Or smoking dope in their car before school.
Not getting through to the kids? Don't worry, you got tenure.
The teachers don't even control the teachers union.
See, the majority of teachers I know and work with, care about the kids.
Yet, Hawaii has the shortest school year in these United States.
If you have been following along at home, then you know that due to budget cuts, the teachers have been taking unpaid furloughs on two Fridays a month.
This year, the kids will lose seventeen instructional days.
Three weeks.
The thing is, the teachers are not able to restore any instructional days even if they wanted to.
The union, and the collective bargaining agreement won't let them.
Now to me, I have a hard time understanding all this.
Okay, not really.
I worked in the private sector so I'm just used to doing things differently.
Like firing everyone if the job is not getting done.
Usually though, they just fire everyone from the top down and start all over.
Hey wait!
That's exactly what happened at that school in Rhode Island!
Seems like the teachers(or maybe just the union) there were haggling over being compensated for working more. I guess they forgot they were professionals who don't punch a time clock.
Professionals with a union.
Guess the union made sure they all got treated equally.
Don't get me wrong, asking for compensation is okay I guess, if you are getting the job done.
If you are getting the job done.
What I wish for, hope for, pray for if you will, is that parents will get so fed up with the current system, that they'll just stop sending their kids to school.
The students should go on strike!
The parents and students should form their own union and demand change.
It would be like "we aint' paying you doodley squat until you teach us something."
Now that's reform!
I wonder what would happen at my school if one day, no students showed up?
Boy, wouldn't that send a message.