A pair of "THANK YOUS". The first is to Assemblyman Green for a reply to my question about $3million mismanagement by the school district during the Howard stewardship. There is no question that the school district has suffered from sloppy at best or incompetent management in the past few years.
That Howard was unaware of the "errors" is no excuse. As Harry Trueman when President said, "The buck stops here". This is not only true of all CEOs be he Superintendent of the School District or the head of the local government. Ignorance is no excuse. In the $3million case blame also falls on the Board who it seems were negligent in their fiduciary responsibility as evidenced by their apparent poor choice in hiring the leader for the district and approving superlative personnel who were not up to the job. There have been too many rumors of patronage etc. filling important positions in the district in the past. To date I have yet to hear any complaints against the present school administration except mine about Dr. Gallon's vocabulary.
JG's Ps is also helpful. If we don't show need or abuse the use of outside funding we don't deserve it. I agree.
The Charter Schools are an element that introduced an unknown into the school budget process. Their need, impact on the system and productivity still needs to be evaluated. Are the public being asked to support unfairly a few individuals who receive special education not available to all.? If it is good why are the course s not available in the public system? I think we need more info on the purpose of the Charter School anomaly and the history of the schools in Union County and specifically Plainfield. (this paragraphy was added at 7:40 AM)
The other accolade goes to Council President Burney for the manner in which he has kept the public informed about protocol in dealing with the Councils legal requirement on the School Budget. 99.99% of my questions were answered and I forgot what the 0.01% was.
His (Burney) commitment to the position of Council President is outstanding. Although as an individual I can not agree with all his actions Plainfield's Council is in dedicated community hands. If only he would go back to the old schedule.
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I agree with your questions regarding the charter schools. The only difference, I see, in the charter schools is that there is more parental involvement, and teach accountability.
ReplyDeleteMaybe all the schools should be small charter schools. Then the ones who have real issues can be dealt with, and the kids who want to learn can be in a positive learning environment.