Calling the dispute over the sale of Central High a war is hyperbolic…..an exaggeration. But in a larger context it is one more battle in political wars over what public education is and ought to be. I remember early in my School Board career when I switched from one of DFT President Frank Wanner’s benighted serfs to one of his antagonists. Frank was mad as hell about President Ronald Reagan’s critique of public education and his reliance on a report Nation at Risk. It summed up the risk this way:
“History is not kind to idlers. The time is long past when American’s destiny was assured simply by an abundance of natural resources and inexhaustible human enthusiasm, and by our relative isolation from the malignant problems of older civilizations. The world is indeed one global village. We live among determined, well-educated, and strongly motivated competitors. We compete with them for international standing and markets, not only with products but also with the ideas of our laboratories and neighborhood workshops. America’s position in the world may once have been reasonably secure with only a few exceptionally well-trained men and women. It is no longer.”
The report came out in 1983 but it served as a template and justification for a great many Republicans initiatives like the now unpopular trade agreements and currently popular charter schools and other educational “innovations” like school vouchers. Both issues gravely undermined unions the latter affecting the teachers’ unions. The sale of Central is like a gravity wave ripple thirty-five after a black hole eats a star. Even as I write this Rep. Erik Simonson is shoring up his support by fretting about the sale and his frets, if not threats, have won him considerable union support as he steps up to run for the Sate Senate. From today’s Trib there is this:
“Simonson has obtained a number of endorsements already, garnering the support of Reinert, the AFL-CIO Central Labor Body, Education Minnesota, the DFL Veterans Caucus and OutFront Minnesota.”
And of course there is Simonson’s enthusiastic support from all four Duluth School Board members who oppose selling Central to Tischer Creek.
I’m inclined to support Simonson as the non-partisan I’ve found myself becoming. I doubt that Sharla Gardner would be any less dangerous to Edison and, in fact, until the sale came up Erik was working hard to straddle the fence and be fair to the Duluth Public School Academy.
The gravity waves I mentioned before still affects us here. The “winning” four are still carrying the unions and Frank Wanner’s old torch. But their win will be a pyrrhic win. Named after Epirius, the Pyyrhic War pitted the Greek states scattered around the Mediterranean against an emerging Rome. Their General stomped around Italy unmolested but couldn’t defeat Rome thereby not losing the war but never winning it either. Neither have the teacher’s unions been able to stop the tide of “reform” which has put them at a disadvantage. However, in this Duluth battle their victory will be a costly one to the Duluth Public Schools.
Today, two weeks after the Board decision not to sell, angry citizens are still writing in to the Trib ridiculing the logic of the four Board members who have taken on Eprius’ battle. Here
“$10 million was a good offer from a developer for the Central High School property. Then, School Board Treasurer Nora Sandstad wrote in a column in the News Tribune that $14 million wasn’t a good enough offer from a different developer.”
and Here.
“The inaccurate, disingenuous and misleading information offered by the teachers union and the four majority members of the board was insulting to the intelligence of all who educated themselves on the sale.”
I have sensed a jubilation by opponents of the sale but they are celebrating a Pyyric victory.
1. They will be lucky to realize an $8 million profit assuming a $10 million sale minus $2 million for Central’s demolition.
2. That sale may lie years ahead costing an additional $170,000 of maintenance costs until it takes place which will in turn…
3. Stand as a constant reminder of how the Board bravely fought President Reagan’s ghost – futilely.
4. Risk renewing an operational levy of $9 million ($1.8 million annually for five years) at a public referendum, which is only a little over half the $14.2 lump sum being offered to ISD 709 by Edison.
5. and by waiting for some miracle lottery win continue losing ISD 709 students, not just to an uncapped enrollment at Edison’s new high school, but by a much bigger new Hermantown High which already hosts over 200 Duluth Students and the soon to be new Middle School north of Duluth in Lake County.
The 4 board members are putting at risk half a billion dollars of public investment on the Red Plan School that their predecessors spent to win back students. The irony is killing.
And I have my own pyyrhic victory to celebrate. Good Ole Lincolndemocrat is getting lots of visits. In the next few minutes I will have had 4,000 visitors to the blog in April with ten days left of the month:
Apr 2016..Unique Visitors…3,921…number of visits…9,009..number of pages…29,402…number of hits…50,488…band width used…1.30 GB
Its been said that if you don’t take a swing you can’t hit a run. Well, there will be a public meeting Monday next week. I think my chances of getting something other than another pyyrhic victory are dim but I have to take that swing. I got elected not to help our hurt the teacher’s union but to save ISD 709. I can’t see how even the teacher’s union benefits if our enrollment plunges from an already 100-year low of 8,293 students to 7 or even 6 thousand students.
Their leaders have filed a complaint against the wrong person.
