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Merchants of Failure
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Business New Haven
9/01/2003
By: BNH
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The release last month of the state schools that failed to meet new U.S. government reading and math standards produced some pretty fancy tap-dancing on the part of municipal public school educrats in Connecticut.
To hear them tell it, holding public schools up to the standards of President Bush’s "No Child Left Behind" act was tantamount to the sky falling.
And, in a sense, it was. Nearly one of every five public elementary and middle schools in the state failed to make the grade based on attaining or raising math and/or reading scores.
The idea of the new standards is to shine a bright light on under-performing schools so that corrective measures can be taken. But, like cockroaches, failing bureaucrats shun the light.
Then, they tap-dance. The fancy footwork assumes many forms. Principal Mary Hourdequin of King Philip Middle School in West Hartford called her school’s inclusion on the list "grossly unfair." Stratford Schools Superintendent Raymond O’Connell (both of whose middle schools made the list) expressed concern that the list of failing schools would "give a black eye to some of the schools where teachers and kids and parents are really trying hard."
Really trying hard? A black eye may be too good for those who fail our children and then resist accountability.
The purpose of objective standards for school performance is not to make individual schools "look bad"; it is precisely the opposite: To give them a road map toward demonstrating improvement, and doing so publicly and transparently.
Placing this in perspective, parents, taxpayers and members of the business community would do well to remind themselves that: 1) public school budgets typically account for 50 percent or more of all municipal expenditures; 2) schools superintendents are typically the highest-paid (or close thereto) public officials in any municipality; and 3) that when they resist having the output (not the input) of their efforts measured, something is wrong.
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