OC Blog

Privatizing Education

Steve Greenhut of the Register comes up with a great idea, that got hid on their Blog (can't link to it, see "Black enrollment at CSU") rather than making the paper:

When I debated the OC school superintendent at a Center Club luncheon, I made an admittedly radical and ideological argument: Why not shut down the public schools and let the marketplace provide education?

Bravo.  By applying private sector business principles (e.g. meeting goals, performing to agreed expectations, publicizing results, staying on budget, negotiating vs. kowtowing to the unions), how could public education not be better?  Government doesn't outsource nearly enough, and seemingly never in this area.  The time has come, and an open minded OUSD (is that an oxymoron?) and Board ought to pilot this terrific idea.

And they want more money?

With this kind of performance, how does the Teachers Union claim they still need more money?  Also in the OCR today: Calif. Dropout Problem Said Underestimated.  This was interesting too:

The figures were released ahead of a conference on graduation rates scheduled for Thursday in Los Angeles that is expected to draw about 400 education researchers, teachers and policy makers.

And these 400 people would be part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Update: And it's even worse in LA, Nearly Half of Blacks, Latinos Drop Out, School Study Shows.

Blackout At OUSD

Metro Talk, one of myriad e-mail newsletters published by Orange Net News, arrived in my in-box today with a revealing news item about the Orange Unified School District Board of Trustees (emphases in the original):

Metro Talk Commentary: $8000 Too Much for Democracy?
At the February 24th  OUSD Board meeting the Trustees voted to stop taping their Board meetings next year as a budget cut. The tapings have been rebroadcast over OUSD Cable Channel 95. Perhaps critical gadflies, a new Trustee in dark glasses, overflowing Board meetings full of angry citizens, and citizen criticisms broadcast over local cable have been too much democracy for the Citizen’s Board. While the Board voted this month to spend $7,500 to send five administrative staff members to a convention in Las Vegas for a weekend, and paid $4000.00 to a consultant for six hours of work, $8,000 for a year to educate the community on school board happenings, a reform this Board majority originally instituted, now seem too high a price to pay for a Board that claims educational priorities.

That pretty much says it all. The union-dominated OUSD Board would rather spend $7,500 for a weekend in Vegas for five employees, than fund a service that allows voters to watch the Board of Trustees in action.

Or perhaps that is precisely the point. My cynical belief is the OUSD Board -- which has already displayed (and been judicially punished for) a penchant for secrec is cynically employing the thin veil of "budgetary necessity" to scrap televised coverage of their meetings. Who do they think they are kidding?

If anyone wants to drop the OUSD Board of Trustees a line about this action, I'll make it easy:

Board President Kathy Moffat
Vice President Kim Nichols
Board Clerk Rick Ledesma
Trustee John Ortega
Trustee Wes Poutsma
Trustee Melissa Smith
Trustee Steve Rocco

We're Paying For This

Jubal covered a bit of this nonsense earlier:  School Map Plan To Control Obesity.  I'm struck with how absolutely ludicrous this is -- using educational funding to address issues that begin and end in the home. 

Once again, the nanny state assumes responsibilities that parents apparently abdicate -- a classically liberal exercise, and more social engineering.  Where in the Board of Education's charter does it say it can operate a $40 seminar on a school day and invite a 17-year old as a speaker?  Will this "test drive of the eight-point federal School Health Index" actually test anything?  Will any of the attending "school board members, district administrators, teachers, parents, students and school nurses" actually measure and analyze results (assuming there will be any) against the index? 

Does anyone possibly believe this exercise can do one bit of good?  Apparently Messrs. Bachmann and Chorliss can -- and if they fail, will they need to go find real jobs?  Or do they just get Fs?

Since the Teachers Union won't allow testing and evaluation of their tax-supported membership, how did this one slip through the cracks?  Will the schools be any more successful for reducing the weight of the student body as they are responsible for badly educating it?  Will it be tested?  And can the Register publish the results?  Now, that's a set of figures I've love to see.

Rush To Judgment On Santiago A Costly One For OUSD

This is from the most recent edition of Orange Net News' Orange Unified News Digest (all emphases in the original):

The February 10, 2005 Orange Unified School District Trustees Meeting will include paying $50,000 more in educational tax funds to the OUSD Revocation Lawyers firm of Miller Brown and Dannis. The firm is charged with making the OUSD senior staff's legal arguments to revoke the Santiago Charter. It is believed the firm was primarily responsible for the controversial Revocation Report. The Consent Agenda (items not scheduled for discussion and voted on as a group) Contract Services Item 12D (agenda page 6) states:

"Due to the on-going investigation at Santiago Middle School and other legal matters, additional funds of $50,000 are requested to pay for these services."

The next item on the same page is for $225,000 in educational tax funds for an "open purchase order" for the District's regular law firm Parker & Covert to cover the period of January 1, 2005 through June 20, 2005.

The additional attorney fees come on the same agenda that has the first reading of the Budget Criteria (Action Item 14 A. page 16) for this year's deficit budget that will produce teacher cuts, class size increases and elimination of programs to balance it.

Then, in the We're Not Making This Up category, ONN reports this:

OTHER AGENDA ITEMS:
Item 12D (page 6): The Cosca Group (an executive search firm. In the ultimate waste in consultant spending, this item pays a consultant $1,500 in educational tax funds for the following "professional service":

"The Cosca Group will provide professional services over three sessions to the Board of Education using an outline entitled, "A Guided Dialogue between Board Members and Consultants'."

Yes, it appears this $1,500 consultant will teach Board members how to talk to...consultants!

But hey -- it's all for the children.

OUSD Backs Away From The Ledge

So the OUSD Politburo has decided to talk with the Santiago Charter Middle School administration on ways to improve student safety {here's the OC Register story. Once again, no LAT story -- have these guys completely abandoned OC news coverage?).

It goes without saying that this is the initial route the OUSD should have followed after Santiago Middle School teacher Sarah Bench-Salorio was arrested on molestation charges, rather than rush into a jihad to revoke Santiago's charter.

Too bad I can't say better late than never. There's no denying: this is a great victory for Santiago parents. The trustees postponed a revocation vote from Feb. 10 to Feb 24, and left open the possibility of postponing it further. This means the vote will never happen, but the Board doesn't want to cave so abjectly while the spotlight of publicity is glaring on them so intensely.

Unfortunately, by issuing a report containing Bench-Salorio's salacious e-mails to her student paramours -- a report required to begin revocation proceedings -- the District has opened itself up to a lawsuit from Bench-Salorio.

Nice going, guys. And I thought the old school board was inept in handling these sort of things.