As recent events have already shown, the mismanagement of city schools cannot be gainsaid. The S.R.C. not Harrisburg bears direct responsibility. The liberal media has been far too provincial. Solid investigative reporting of the past not cheerleading for change is needed here.
As ever, the behavior of some of the students misses the form as the reportage misses the point. The primacy of the schools is to free minds by enabling students to think for themselves instead of being interminably dependent upon government subsidies. This errand is one that liberal school reformers do not wish to have failed. It has. Education has been marred practically beyond redress because of it. Fights, damaged books and class cutting together with all of the other emblematic progressive ghouls agentially frustrate our best efforts. We cannot afford to let them. Building principals must fairly and consistently enforce the rules. Morally defective children who chronically misbehave should be appropriately disciplined. Sadly, many are not. Toxic building climates do not result from a lack of funding but from wasteful spending and poor management, the entrails of demeaning reform initiatives like “Imagine 2014”.
Simply put, the district faces a spending not a revenue problem. Obama cut $4B of stimulus funding to the Commonwealth in 2011, of which about $1B were earmarked for the schools. The stimulus was not restored because the nation can no longer afford it. The city over budgeted for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 and outstanding property taxes are still issues which continue to mar city finances, hence the restructuring. These do not make for a funding crisis and should not be leveraged by the school district nor even tacitly implied by Ms. Graham as a pretext for excuse. Crying and complaining about the district’s liquidity won’t win too many friends. Neither will propitiating bad leadership. Rather than evoking public sympathy, the press can best serve the folks by ensuring that the schools operate within their means and are openly transparent. Our citizens deserve nothing less.