SCHOOL BOARD REACTS TO PUBLIC

A gaggle of geese?

You might remember the post about the Albuquerque School Board changing a kid's grade from an F to D? And how the public got into the act (looking to recall the free loading Board members)?

Well, the Board took action yesterday to make sure that faux pas isn't repeated. (Just showing off my French. And that's about all there is, too.) How they did it makes me scratch my head and shake it to hear the rattles.

Seems they added "to the student handbook", that poor communication between school officials and parents is not sufficent to alter a kid's grade.

You read that right. "Student handbook." What is that? A job description for kids? What legal standing does a "handbook" have? Click on the header to see it.

In other news, the Board increased its per diem to $85. All of the Board members live in the area. Lunches are expensive.

The Board also unanimously approved keeping the names of cadidates for superintendent secret. That is, until they narrow it down to three candidates. Seems to me that violates a state open records law. But one doesn't expect a bunch of lawyers to know about that. And they also approved $100,000 to be spent on the search. I wonder if that's a reasonable amount?

ALBUQUERQUE SCHOOL SHENANIGANS

Someone seems to be getting screwed here.

At first I thought it was the teacher and principal. Then I thought it was the citizens of Albuquerque. Then I thought it might be other School Board members.

Now, it's entirely possible that all of the above were victims.

But the truly hard hit victims are the uneducated students sent out in the world without a real high school education. But with a diploma.

Just before graduation time, it seems that a former Albuquerque Public Schools board member, Miguel Acosta, and/or his wife, contacted Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Everitt. They had found out that their son was not to be graduated because he hadn't completed his required English course. Ms. Everitt contacted the teacher and the principal. Apparently she let them know that they would, indeed, give the boy a D, not an F (parenthetically, I thought a "D" was a failing grade). Both the teacher and the principal said no, the kid failed. They would not change his grade. So the school board member had a resolution (or whatever) passed and the kid got his "D" and received his diploma.

There are a lot of parents, whose kids had failed courses and had not received their diplomas with their friends, who are mighty upset about what they see as favoritism. And they are, of course, right.

Well, The Albuquerque Journal published an article about it. Wow. There was outrage throughout the school district and the State Epartment of Education reviewed the event. (Should have said "is reviewing".)

This in-fighting goes on and on, but no one involved seems to see who the real losers are.

In my day (when the Red Sea was still in one piece) if you failed to get the required credits, you did not graduate.

As I see it, the losers are the children of Albuquerque. Being sent out into a wild wooly America without even a proper high school education condemns one into menial, low paying and disliked jobs. These kids will fail, whether their parents can afford to send them to university or not. Without a solid grounding in the basics the work load will overwhelm them. There will always being a few anecdotes about an individual here or there (Bill Gates comes to mind), but overall they will become more of the disenchanted, more of the dissatisfied, more of those who see crime as a solution to their problems.