Common sense dictates that Kenny Rotner, in his letter of February 10, has it exactly backwards: it is David Taylor, and his supporters in FORE (the “Friends of Oyster River Education”) who have pushed our District to the brink of disaster.
Let’s start with FORE, a group that Taylor and others organized in the wake of his resounding defeat in last year’s School Board elections. Of the 27 people who signed the letter announcing the formation of the group (on FORE’s website, forenh.org) seven are former School Board members or their spouses. All of those former members were either defeated in recent elections, or chose not to run again. More to the point, almost all of the signatories either no longer have children attending school in the District, or never did. They have no skin in this game.
"Friends” would not seek to deny our children the educational resources they need, whether it be funding or a visionary leader like Dr. Morse, yet Taylor’s second lawsuit has as its sole objective the halting of the Superintendent hiring process. So let’s call FORE what it is: a group of ousted elected officials and fellow-travelers who, having been rejected by the voters, now seek to impose their “vision” on the District through the courts.
Taylor may have the “right” to file suit in order to settle old scores with his political enemies, but he and his and his FORE supporters have crossed a line that should never be crossed: they are holding our children hostage because they don’t agree with the decisions our duly-elected officials have made. They need to stop and consider that what’s only “collateral damage” to them will be devastating to my children’s future.
Sincerely,
Tom Bebbington
Durham
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Links to Case Materials
Final Decision in David Taylor's First Case Against the School Board
David Taylor's Objection to the Motion to Expedite regarding the Superintendent search
District's Response to Taylor's Objection to Expedite Defending the Superintendent Search Process and Timeline
Sincerely,
Tom Bebbington
Durham
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Links to Case Materials
Final Decision in David Taylor's First Case Against the School Board
David Taylor's Objection to the Motion to Expedite regarding the Superintendent search
District's Response to Taylor's Objection to Expedite Defending the Superintendent Search Process and Timeline
Outside of anything else I feel about this issue, a comment such as "they have no skin in this game" shows a lack of respect for people who gave many years volunteering their time, and for those of us whose children are now graduates of the Oyster River system. If you deny people's investment in the system simply on the basis of whether or not they currently have children in school, you exemplify an elitist mentality that defeats the goals of public education. It's been too long since this community has played nicely together on these issues.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of good points in Tom's letter. Elise also has a point about the sentence she quotes. Ultimately though, the people who currently live and invest in this community (tax payers) are those with the greatest vested interest in the functionality and mechanisms: financial, political, academic, cultural; that make it work. Those who are tax payers and who are parents of children within the local community, have a double interest in these components as it directly affects their daily lives.
ReplyDeleteSuing a school district is bad form. Not providing public records to someone when requested, and then that person having to sue the school district to get the records is also bad form. I have read about this debate going back and forth now for months, and it feels as though we have a bunch of people who do not agree, yet they will not discuss their disagreements, nor do they seem to want to compromise. There are a lot of social and cultural taboos being broken here simply because two groups of people do not agree.
While to Tom's point, if you are not re-elected into a position of political influence, and you do not like the decisions made, there are political alternatives to the routes already taken. We suffer from a similar problem that many others do throughout the United States with our local educational climate. This problem is not just here, it is a systemic issue that goes to the very roots of how we culturally perceive education, to how that perception affects the way we spend money on it.
You don't agree? The numbers are there to support my statement: http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_20080402/
We do not see teachers in the same social status as lawyers and medical doctors, so we pay them less, yet we pay more per student than just about any country on Earth. We think that amazing school facilities will attract loits of new teachers. It does, but does it attract the teachers into place that we should have there? This is a self-perpetuating issue, where we perceive teachers at a lower social status, yet we do not take the time to provide them with raises because they do not meet our expectations. And we cannot get new teachers into place that meet our expectations, so long as we do not pay them to do so.
While it is true that locally, we pay some of our teachers well, we do not pay them well across the board. There is no easy solution for this problem, so we have people on each side of this divide: a group who wants to continue trying to attract newer, better teachers and spend money in a way that encourages their philosophy, and the other side that wants to abstain from such spending, as they don't see it is doing anything helpful, yet simultaneously preventing continued improvement in educational support.
I am a graduate of ORSD, and a parent with children here. Do I blame the people or the system for our educational impotence? No. I blame myself. I see it as my personal responsibility to see my children succeed academically, socially, and otherwise, as my perspective on the effectiveness of education here has long been cynical. What are we doing to make changes now? Is this argument really going to get us anywhere? We certainly need to look at solving this problem: Only through less blame, less politics, and more regard for more ideas, by creating a brain trust that actually considers every possibility. Right now... nothing seems to be working everywhere and what we are doing is not fixing it.
Tom Bebbington replies:
ReplyDeleteI think that Elise Daniel, arcggarden and I would all agree on at least one point: at least in the abstract, more respect all around is desirable.
But in practice, respect is a funny thing: you have to give it to get it. And in all of the moves and counter-moves of FORE's aggressive campaign of intimidation and harassment against the current School Board, I can think of no more profoundly disrespectful tactic than this lawsuit. It represents an unprecedented escalation, as the fight is no longer between adults, but now threatens to undermine our children's education.
Therefore, I stand by my original point: while everyone in our community will be affected to some degree, of course, the facts speak for themselves: since Taylor's lawsuit has as its sole intention the halting of a new Superintendent, it is those children currently enrolled in our schools (and their parents) who would be most immediately affected, should Taylor prevail.
Now, as to "respect": the notion that the proper response to this direct attack on our children's education should be to "respect" those behind it because of the good deeds they may have done in the past is absurd. If I may be blunt--Taylor's lawsuit threatens my children, the people I love most on this earth, and you want to lecture me about respect? Go take a hike!
And by the way, lest you think that the bellicose rhetoric comes from only one side, consider this quote: "But, shrapnel is not selective. Everyone in its path is hurt. The Oyster River community — students, teachers, administrators, parents, homeowners, everyone — is being hit." That from a letter to the editor that David Taylor had published in Fosters on June 25 of last year.
ReplyDeleteI guess "shrapnel" looks different when you are the one throwing the grenades.