The Echo

Education is a marathon, not the sprint that proponents of Race to the Top would have you think.

Christina voted to sign the MOU last night with two dissenting votes.  While I sincerely hope that the RttT grant will lead our children to great success, my vote reflected a greater concern:

We are mortgaging the futures of our students.  At the end of the four year grant program, Federal Guidelines require districts to not only continue funding programs created under RttT, but to assume the state's share of that funding as well.  

As two board members admitted last night, Christina's financial infrastructure is fragile and failing: 

Thanks to WDEL 1150 AM for posting their video of the debate at http://www.wdel.com/video/?v=race2top.wmv  Pertinent Text Below:

"From a fiscal responsibility and looking at the district and the changes that we need to do; I look at what status quo is currently.  No current operating referendum.  We're looking at the budget and fewer and fewer dollars next year to sustain even what we are currently doing and yet still failing miserably and debating whether we have five, six, ten, or twenty schools on aparticular list, we know where the hell we stand."

And

"We are not in a good place now and I think this points us to a better place.  The four years and done spend down doesn't have me that worried ... four years is a long, long time ... our current model will completely collapse in less than four years financially anyway.  So as as John Maynard Keynes says, 'It doesn't pay to look too far into the future because in the long term we are all dead.'"

As the parent of a young child in our district with another getting there, it is prerequisite that I have my eye on this district's long-term financial picture.  If we are headed to "financial collapse" within the next four years, how are we to plan to support more expenses when those four years are over?  And in four years, my children and our many elementary age children now and to come will not be dead.  They will; however, be struggling to attain a world class education in a system that is likely to be completely broken.

It is with that concern and my refusal to subscribe to short sidedness, that I cast my no vote last night.  I believe that it is better to build a realistic strategic plan, to enact true and proven best practices, not unfounded ones, and engage in thoughtful financial planning.  Instead, it is my opinion, that our board chose to engage in an open-ended and ill-defined BINDING agreement. 

Finally, it is not a character failing to "vote your conscience" when the futures of 17,000 children weigh upon you.  Rather, I believe it is your obligation. 

A vote against an unproven reform and for sounder financial decisions cannot be equated to a vote for the failure of that reform.  I pray it works. It is now all we have.