Yes, I have one. I have a big ego. Its a prerequisite for running for public office. The same can be surmised for everyone who ever ran for the Duluth School Board.
Today ego seems to be the charge hurled at me and Art. Our egos stand in the way of the smooth functioning of the Duluth School Board. Our critics have apparently gotten together and decided that this is the problem. That’s the gist of what is likely to be a flurry of letters to the Duluth News Tribune. Two such letters made their way to today’s editorial page. More about them later.
I’ve had some concerned email lately from supporters who felt my recent pledge not to criticize my fellow board members through the holiday season was some sort of unilateral disarmament. I couldn’t quite remember what I’d written in that post so I just checked it now. This is what I promised:
As my blog is likely to be the chief reason I can only speak to them at School Board meetings I’d be inclined to stop blogging altogether if that’s what it took for them to back off the perilous course they have plunged toward. That’s a genuine offer and through the Christmas season I pledge not to write anything unflattering about them.
There is a second quality of good political leadership, humility. It can be expressed many ways. My hero Lincoln, unlike many of his Northern supporters, refused to say that God was on the North’s side. For me I’ve always tried to be the first to point out my own flaws, foibles and checkered past. But, maybe that’s just ego masquerading as some perverted sort of pseudo humility.
Be that as it may let me set the record straight on what we as a school board are supposed to be doing ego be damned. We are supposed to keep our schools in good order. Making a spectacle of ourselves does not lend itself to that purpose. I hope the two following observations are not viewed as a violation of my Holiday pledge.
Observation number one: The simple fact of the matter is that in representative government the majority makes the decisions.
I’ve been on both sides of majority/minority school boards and I’m comfortable with that. The voters determine the majority and the majority has its way. I would have endured being in a 5-2 minority for two years with dignity even though the minority was being denied a chance to put items on the agenda for the sake of discussion. That is a foul violation of the spirit of representative democracy. Art Johnston and I could have lived with this until the 2016 election. That, however, is not the hand we were dealt.
Observation 2: Just as we have put copious amounts of money into new buildings we diverted half of what we used to levy locally and spent it instead on building the Long Range Facilities Plan (Red Plan). More on that in a moment. What has the consequence of removing ten million local dollars from the classroom been? Among the results are these in no particular order: A. We laid off a couple hundred teachers. We have made children walk to school from farther distances than they formerly had to. We have crammed more kids in classrooms especially at the secondary level. We have eliminated a seventh hour and dramatically reduced the chances for children to participate in music, languages and other academic endeavors.
When I campaigned I did not mince words. I wrote a long series of blog posts about “gangrene” spreading in our district. Was that ego or a concern for the direction of our educational program?
I also wrote that the gangrene I saw in the western part of our district would not stay put but would spread eastward. If we still had that ten million a year to put into our classrooms (instead of Red Plan debt servicing) I don’t think that wouldn’t be happening. As I predicted Parents out east are feeling the pinch.
I recently heard about a PTSA meeting at one of our eastern elementary schools where parents hurled angry questions and demands at our superintendent for forty minutes about what they regarded as problems in their children’s school. That is not what I would have expected to hear if the new school buildings were meeting the expectations raised by its ambitious publicity campaign.
But then again, there may have been a little ego involved in the Red Plan’s early promotion.
