Readers Write: Slane Shows Great Vision; Culver Manipulates

We received this e-mail this morning. It comes to you unedited.

[appears to be addressed to the school board as a whole].

I found this scrawled on the inside cover of a copy of "Robert's Rules for Dummies" and figured one of you must've dropped it. Sure wasn't anyone sitting up front. Please return to the author for use as he/she sees fit.

I would like to commend Al Slane for attempting to be proactive in addressing the interrelated issues of class size, FTEs, and course offerings. Though wordy, it is the first alternative I have heard yet to the status quo, which is waiting for Dr. Culver to hand us a poop sandwich and tell us that the kitchen is closed and there are no alternatives.


Speaking of Dr. Culver, I marveled at his response to the suggestion that he conduct a study to examine these details. He looked like an education major who had been accidentally given an engineering exam and said he didn’t understand how he was going to be evaluated on the results. News flash, Dr. Culver, THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES HERE THAN HOW YOU ARE EVALUATED. Since Dr. Culver has no clue what the assignment is, I’ll take a crack at it. Though I don’t have the education in education or experience in higher education administration, I dated an El-Ed major in college, and I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I’ll give two options on how to proceed, and let the experts choose:


Option 1: The status quo
We keep all the classes that enjoy high enrollment, and then take a survey of students to see how they like the offerings. His evaluation (the primary consideration), like the course schedule and prom queen selection, will be based primarily on student popularity. We say we are sorry, but we have stupid taxpayers so that is how it is. Oh yeah, we need 4 more administrators and 1.3 new computers per child, most of which will stay in the box until it is time to pay to dispose of them. The hiring of the new assistant principal followed a(n) (il)logical sequence something like this:


--we are doing just fine with the current level of administrative staffing
--the new school is designed to be easier to manage
--we need more administrators and fewer teachers in critical job skills


In the interest of full disclosure, on the SPASD website we publish a list of career fields that we are not going to support, and that if you think that your child may want to be one of those when he/she grows up then there are some lovely houses in Middleton or DeForest and maybe you should live there.


Option 2: The “My kid needs job skills” option.
We look at course requirements and recommendations for university programs and employers and make sure that our students are not disadvantaged when they get to college or on a job application. There is probably a counselor or someone around there who took a course in vocation selection and preparation at one time or another, and with the extra assistant principal they should have a little more free time. This may mean larger classes in some core curriculum courses, or fewer core offerings. We take advantage of the 32 CCTV cameras at the new high school for the force multiplier that they are and pare administration costs, taking advantage of the fact that we paid extra to have the new high school constructed in such a way that it is easier to manage. This lets us keep the same number of assistant principals without blood running in the streets.

Once again, kudos to Mr. Slane for having a little foresight. He should be encouraged to take the time and effort required to break this project into simple enough pieces that even Dr. Culver can understand. I understood the issue at “We are in a mess this year, so let’s start now to avoid the same mess next year.”

(signed)
Long-time listener, first-time caller
(SP-EYE: just so that this e-mail is viewed in the proper light, it comes from a prominent local attorney)