Voltaire “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Stupidity: Behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment.

Recently the news show 20/20 aired a story about police officers breaking speeding laws when not on a call. One officer was convicted of killing two young people when his cruiser crashed into their vehicle at a speed of more than one hundred miles per hour.

Even more recently, the Democrat & Chronicle ran a story about our local government officials being caught by red light camera enforcement breaking the law. The story reported that even Police Chief Sheppard received a fine.

In both instances, law enforcement officials were involved in destroying or losing evidence that would implicate many more officers and government workers than were discovered.

This is the result of mis-education.

Those who have achieved a position of power in a particular society have a responsibility to all those who have not, to role model the adherence to and respect for the laws and moral attitudes of that society.

Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be true in America.

As a result of this stupidity, we have a government that is trillions of dollars in debt and currently “shut down”, police officers and government officials believing that they are above the law, and children who are confused and lost in a world of “do’s” and “don’ts” that do and don’t matter depending upon your financial and/or political status.

An excellent education would not allow this unthinkable and unrealistic attitude to exist.

An excellent education would make children aware of the fact that one cannot be proud of oneself when one chooses to do wrong.

Currently the focus of education is on learning the “basics” which most believe are Reading, Writing, Math, and now Science.

The basics of education must also include Social Studies. The study of the social behaviors within cultures.

Education must focus on the child so that we maintain our humanity in order to live responsibly, evolving into respectful, loving, kind, and caring individuals.

This is the result of a child-centered excellent education.

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Fear: An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Guilt: A bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something bad or wrong.

Fear and guilt, unpleasant emotions and feelings that have ruled the current system of education for decades leading to its current state of failure.

Teaching was once considered a noble profession. To be a teacher meant that one had the knowledge and understanding necessary to enlighten those who were ignorant.

A teacher was held in high regard in the community and having a school in the community meant having the promise of a better future for self and family within sight.

Traditionally teachers were not paid well. They were housed and fed by the members of the community in which they taught.

Teaching was a dedication, not a job.

Teachers were models of truth, pride, respect, integrity, honor, ability, trust, and intelligence.

Teachers worked with parents to guide their children towards an easier life, a better life, a more successful future.

Today teachers live in fear. They fear their administrators, parents, and even their students. Teachers live in fear of loosing their jobs at the end of every school year.

They are no longer seen as the hope of the future but the reason for failure. They are no longer considered knowledgeable even after receiving their Master’s Degree in education.

Teachers are made to feel guilty for the failure of education to provide children with the necessary skills to become successful adults even though they have no control over the system of education in which they teach.

Teachers feel guilty for not being able to provide the type of education they know children deserve.

Teachers are at odds with parents who feel that teachers are responsible for the system of education that is failing their child.

It is time for teachers to stand up, raise their voice and reclaim their profession.

It is time to become the role models our children deserve.

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Deadline: A date or time when something must be finished : the last day, hour, or minute that something will be accepted.

A recent communique from the New York State Department of Education reports that the Rochester City School District Office of School Innovation was two days late with their submission of the 2013-14 District Comprehensive Improvement Plan.

Further inquiry found that there would be no repercussions from Commissioner King for having submitted the information past the deadline.

It is this lack of accountability by the State that allows for the incompetent and inefficient management of elected and appointed administrators in our district that creates and maintains the failure of our current system of education to successfully prepare our children for their future.

Commissioner King has no problem holding teachers accountable for student failure.

Teachers are evaluated on their ability to instruct students by means of arbitrary standardized tests, yet educational leaders, making twice their salary, are allowed to, without consequence, submit incomplete and incomprehensible plans of improvement and ignore deadlines.

These same incompetent individuals are responsible for assessing and accepting the individual School Comprehensive Education Plans of all Priority and Focus schools within the district.

This is the type of top down, organizational mayhem that perpetuates failure in our district and across the State.

The Board of Education and the Superintendent, in accepting the inefficient and ineffective operation of the Office of School Innovation is also accepting the failure of our students.

Individual schools are expected to align their goals with a DCIP that is virtually non-existent, leading to the RCSD being a focus district.

To spend $360,000 in educational dollars to contract with private corporations that provide consultation on how to properly manage their responsibilities as educational leaders is irresponsible.

It is more prudent to elect and hire educational leadership that is capable and will hold all others accountable for the efficient and effective execution of their duties.

Adults are a child’s role model. Our children deserve educational leadership that models integrity, respect, and pride in a job well done.

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Four stories dominated the news yesterday, the shutdown of the federal government, a young woman killed in Washington, DC, another young woman abducted, and the attack of an SUV driver by a group of motorcyclists.

The shutdown of the federal government has left thousands of government employees unpaid until Congress settles their disagreement over health care legislation.

In a country that provides free health care to individuals who have never worked, how can we argue over affordable health care for those that do?

Why are low salaried government workers not paid when high paid Congressmen will still receive their salary?

A young woman, with an 18 month old child in the car crashed into security barricades near the White House.

Why did security personnel shoot into the car to kill the woman, endangering the welfare of the child instead of shooting into the car to disable the vehicle and arrest the woman insuring the safety of the child?

Parents are uniting to find another young woman who was abducted by a predator.

What has happened to our natural instincts, as animals, to recognize and avoid predators?

Motorcyclists, upset by an encroaching SUV stop the vehicle and attack the driver.

Why didn’t they call the police to settle the situation?

In all of these situations emotions played an extremely important role in the decisions made by every individual involved.

When we are taught to place blame instead of take responsibility, to hide our emotions and not talk about how we truly feel, to ignore our natural instincts of self preservation, to react instead of act, we become dehumanized and subject to chaos instead of calm.

Decades of mis-education has created a chaotic society in which citizens remain silent about adverse societal situations that do not directly affect them not realizing that we are all directly affected by adverse societal situations.

Silence has allowed our government to fail, our children to suffer, and our society to devolve.

Our voice is our most powerful weapon against the injustices of the world.

Stand up and speak out.

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Two days after the NYSED deadline for submission of the DCIP and the Rochester City School District has not posted the 2013-14 plan.

The requirements of the DCIP state:
“The Overview will be made widely available through public means, such as posting on the Internet, by the district. It will serve as the at-a-glance summary of how the district will use various funding sources to improve student achievement.”

Since the 2013-14 DCIP is not posted and the 2012-13 DCIP did not contain the required Overview, the community can not know how the district plans to improve student achievement.

Commanding a salary of more than $100,000.00, not including benefits, the expectation for carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the office to which one is appointed should be excellence.

Unfortunately, when the Board President and Superintendent place their approval on an incomplete and incomprehensible document, the level of expectation becomes “good enough” and accountability becomes a matter of quantity not quality. This “good enough” attitude is then adopted by school administrators, teachers, and eventually students.

The Board President and the Superintendent should never place their signature on any document that proves the district and its leaders to be incapable of following directions.

If the Board President and the Superintendent signed the insufficient document without reading it, trusting that the administrator responsible for generating the document has performed adequately, then one must question the decision making skills of both in their ability to hire and appoint efficient and effective administrators.

The fact that the Director of the Office of School Innovation submitted for approval an incomplete and incomprehensible document shows a distinct lack of respect for district leadership.

The fact that the insufficient 2012-13 DCIP was placed on the Internet for public viewing and was not replaced with the 2013-14 DCIP submitted to the NYSED two days ago shows a distinct lack of respect for parents and community members who were not expected to review the document.

This obvious lack of respect for leadership, parents, and the community has created a culture of failure in our district that must be changed.

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Trust: Belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.

Trustworthy: Able to be relied on to do or provide what is needed or right; deserving of trust

Integrity: Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; incorruptibility.

In order to trust someone you must know what they believe and they must show, not say, they are reliable, good, honest, and effective.

Trustworthiness involves the repeated action of doing the right thing in order for anyone to rely upon ones ability to do what is needed or right.

To be incorruptible one must not owe allegiance to any one or thing that can and will require a compromise of their moral and/or artistic values.

Currently, our elected leaders have shown they are untrustworthy and that they have no integrity.

The question then becomes, “Why do the American people trust them to run our country and its systems?”

In a country that Constitutionally guarantees our freedom of speech, we prefer to allow our elected leaders to speak for us, trusting that they will say and do what is best even though we have had decades of proof that they have not.

The failure of the Rochester City School District Board of Education and the administrators they have hired to provide our children with an excellent education is proof that they can not be trusted to lead our district yet they are continually voted into office.

It is our irresponsibility as citizens that has caused this continuous failure of government since we are the government and we allow untrustworthy individuals to lead us.

The reality is this; America cannot be the great nation it was intended to be until its citizens begin to take responsibility for its success or failure.

To not take responsibility is to not recognize and learn from our mistakes in order to make things better.

Our children deserve a trustworthy leadership that has the integrity to do what is necessary to provide an excellent education to all children and not a six figure salary to adults.

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Concerning the RCSD District Comprehensive Improvement Plan (DCIP), which was incomplete and at times incomprehensible, the New York State Department of Education sent this Email:

“In response to your questions regarding the 2012-13 DCIP posted for the Rochester CSD, the NYS Education Department provided feedback and technical assistance to districts regarding the submissions of the DCIPs for 2012-13. The DCIP format has changed for 2013-14 submissions, and Rochester requested and received an extension for submission. The 2013-14 submission is currently due to the Department on October 1, 2013.”

This means that the district should have completed and submitted the 2013-14 DCIP to the Department of Education by today.

If the plan was completed and sent in by today, it should certainly have been posted on the district website as of 12:01 a.m. today.

With district personnel making over $100,000 in salary, being responsible for the completion of this task, it should be expected that the information sent be complete and comprehensive and available to the public at the same time it was made available to the Department of Education.

Unfortunately, the lack of accountability, transparency, and efficiency of the Rochester City School District office of School Innovation, whose responsibility it was to compile and submit the DCIP becomes apparent when accessing the district website only to find the previous 2012-13 DCIP, shown as the DCEP, is still posted.

While this may seem inconsequential, the District Comprehensive Improvement Plan is the driving force behind the policies, plans, and procedures of the School Board and Superintendent.

If the Comprehensive Improvement Plan of the district is incomplete and nonsensical, how then can the decisions made by district leaders make complete sense?

As well, if the district’s major plan is flawed, how can those who filed that plan with NYSED assess the validity of the individual schools plans submitted?

These are issues that should be raised by the School Board and Superintendent when holding people accountable for the completion of their assigned tasks.

If we do not expect excellence from those employed by the district, how can we expect excellence from those served by the district?

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In the past, children would get up in the morning, do their chores, eat breakfast, walk to school, come home, eat dinner, do their homework, and go to bed.

What you learned in school was connected to everyday life to make understanding easier and more relevant and your classmates were neighborhood friends.

Reading involved discussion, Math provided consistency, Science explained life and Social Studies made the world more interesting. Homework was a reinforcement of the days learning and was reviewed the next day in school.

At the end of the school day children would come home, open their books, do their homework and chores, eat dinner, and go to bed.

If you were able to complete your homework and chores before dinner, you could go outside and play until you were called in for the night, before it got dark.

Saturday and Sunday were the days children had to relax and play.

Today, children are in school for breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner in after-school programs. There are even Saturday school programs.

Subjects are disconnected from each other having little to no relevance to the child’s life experiences making comprehension difficult and in some cases, impossible.

Homework is no longer a reinforcement of the days lessons but an extension of learning that cannot take place in class due to test prep and reviewed only in rare instances.

Children cannot bring their books home to help them study because they may be lost or damaged and their friends who attend different schools with different school work, cannot help either.

Education has become a “place holder” instead of a tool for advancement, learning time has been replaced with “time on task” and school has become a “babysitting” service with free transportation.

The concentration is no longer on the child but on graduation rates and children are not being prepared for life but for the workforce.

Education no longer leads to success but overwhelming failure.

Children and their learning styles have not changed, our system of education and the learning environment has.

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In the past, the goal of public education was to provide children with the experiences and opportunities in life that their parents could not.

Bringing children together in order to broaden their interpersonal skills and understanding of the various cultures that exist throughout the world was part of the curriculum.

To be educated meant that you were given the skills to survive in whatever environment you happened to find yourself whether it be forest or fancy restaurant.

In the past, public education prepared children for their role as an informed citizen that was able to read the daily newspaper, understand, and discuss current events at home and around the world.

Please and thank you, excuse me, after you, were expected human kindnesses and helping one another was a heart felt value not a monetary one.

Being an elected official was more than a popularity or beauty contest, you actually had to have your “finger on the pulse of America”.

In the past Americans took pride in themselves and in their country.

Today, the goal of education is to get children college or career ready. It separates children by placing undue attention on arbitrary concepts such as wealth and race.

Environmental survival skills have been removed from the curriculum and reading the newspaper to learn about and discuss current events has become an obsolete concept.

You rarely hear adults say please or thank you to children in a respectful way, excuse me has become an ultimatum, me first has replaced after you, and giving at the office has replaced helping your neighbor.

Being an elected official means forwarding your own agenda regardless of what Americans actually want or need.

Get over to get by has made it impossible for anyone to take pride in themselves or in America.

It is time we took a few steps back to figure out where we fell off the track. We have to return to that time in our history when love and happiness were coveted in order to replace the hate and discontent we are currently experiencing.

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According to NYSED, “Instructional Expenditures for General Education are K-12 expenditures for classroom instruction (excluding Special Education) plus a proration of building level administrative and instructional support expenditures. These expenditures include amounts for instruction of students with disabilities in a general-education setting. District expenditures, such as transportation, debt service and district-wide administration are not included.”

According to the New York State Department of Education’s district Report Card, this district’s per pupil instructional expenditure for General Education students is $9,594. The per pupil instructional expenditure for Special Education students is $26,624.

The Rochester City School District has reported that 56% of its students receive Special Education services with a classification rate that is 5.1% higher than the State average. One does not need to be a mathematician or an accountant to understand that the district received three times more money for classified, Special Education students than General Education students.

Rochester citizens are told that schools will have to close due to decreased enrollment yet the NYSED Report Card shows that enrollment at the Pre-kindergarten and Kindergarten levels has increased.

The total number of teachers decreased from 3018 in 2009-10 to 2717 in 2011-12 (301) with the total number of assistant principals doubling in the same period.

According to the Accountability Report, the only group to achieve a Performance Index(A PI is a value from 0 to 200 that is assigned to an accountability group, indicating how that group performed on a required State test (or approved alternative)) greater than or equal to the EAMO or Safe Harbor Target for Secondary ELA Performance was African American Males which happens to be the group with the highest classification rate.

The resistance to change the focus of education so that it concentrates on the gifts and talents of every child is because districts receive three times more money to educate a “disabled” child. As well, a classified child can remain in the system two or more years longer than the average Gen Ed student.

It is time we stop using our children to fund an inefficient and ineffective system of education that produces nothing but failure.

Join the Movement to Save Our Children!