Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Open thread: From where do the attacks come?

So, you're a newly thin-skinned Mitch Daniels, blade duller than before, and you're so upset at being personally attacked over education funding and school closings that you go to the media in retaliation.

Where exactly did these vicious attacks originate?

It wasn't the New Albany City Council, or the Floyd County Council, although City Hall made a principled statement urging restraint and rethinking. It wasn't the Tribune. It certainly wasn't One Southern Indiana, which abruptly creamed its exurban jeans jumping in to defend the anti-education axe cuts.

It wasn't the local Democratic Party, because to do so would require having a platform, and of course, most Republicans in these parts want Madrasahs, anyway.

Who dunnit?

Other than a handful of bloggers and a few writers of letters to the newspaper, that is?

Was it a pre-emptive strike against Shane Gibson?

26 comments:

bayernfan said...

I think he felt attacked by the superintendent who stated something along the lines of "This is what Governor Daniels wanted us to do". I'm surprised that The Blade has involved himself in this, unless he is actually harboring presidential issues and is trying to show that he cares about "the little people".

bayernfan said...

issues should actually be aspirations...I'm only halfway through my first Americano this morning, may need a double espresso before I try to say anything else.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

In the 2008 state representative race, Republican funders outspent the Cochran campaign by more than two-and-a-half times, with the top four donors accounting for more than 90% of that, to gain control of the seat.

They're probably not going to let go of it easily.

John Manzo said...

I found his comments interesting, to say the least. It looked, to me, pretty obvious that he was throwing the members of the school board who voted "Yes" and our current Superintendent under the bus. He, of course, inferred mismanagement within the school district.

I have more questions than answers:

First, Tony Bennett was one of the architects of much of how NAFCS do business. Did Daniels throw Bennett under the bus?

Secondly, Dennis Brooks was the previous Superintendent, did Daniels throw Brooks under the bus?

Third, did Daniels throw the people who voted "Yes" under the bus while sparing those who voted "No," to not harm further political ambitions of said "No" votes?

Fourth, does he really believe denying teachers a small raise, that does not even cover cost of living increases, solves every problem?

Lastly, why is he being so thin skinned about this? He wants people and districts to cut spending. HE has cut spending. Does he not expect to get some political heat in return?

Jeff Gillenwater said...

John, it goes back to one of the ultimate ironies in all this: Daniels and a lot of people who share his mindset continually campaign on the idea of smaller government.

The reality, however, is that once in office they push legislation that expropriates local power, handing it over to a central authority where citizens invariably have less of a voice. Actually curtailing state authority in favor of more inclusive processes would not favor the narrow interests they serve in many cases and so doesn't happen.

A central question here is why the state sets our school budgets in the first place (including setting our property tax rates). But rather than so much as acknowledge that question and its implications, they simply took even more control of those budgets. Now that a significant enough number of people to have political consequence aren't happy with the results, they follow the usual path of scapegoating local officials.

That's not to suggest that some local officials aren't without their shortcomings. What it does suggest, however, is a continuation of the same old shopworn political pandering that precludes real community conversations and development from happening.

Bennett and Brooks are the same people they were a short while ago. As many have pointed out, when they identify with the state, they're deemed worthy leaders. When they were identified as local, they were demonized as part of the problem. That sort of absurd posturing is just an avoidance of genuine policy issues for which ideologues like Daniels have no answer.

dan chandler said...

I do not see this as a preemptive strike against Shane. If it were, it was poorly calculated by the Governor. Excuse me while I have a cynical-about-politics moment to explain.

The Governor has not yet won the war of public opinion on school funding. Ninety plus percent of voters don't care at all about where the funding comes from. They don't see the connection between property taxes, budgets, and school closings. They're going to arbitrarily choose to agree with one side or the other based on reasons far removed from truth and municipal finance.

The governor personally has stepped into this debate. The governor has his message out. Shane Gibson has not responded in kind. If Shane wanted to play this hand, he could forcefully, succinctly and....very conspicuously take the governor to task, on TV at least. No one will understand the arguments. No one will care. They'll only see Shane and the Governor going toe-to-toe. The only message people would glean from the news coverage is that the Shane is relevant to the discussion (as verified by exchanges with the Governor) and Shane "stood up" (however one chooses to define that) for Floyd Co. children.

I think the governor is looking at the state as a whole, at all the school districts making tough choices. Most are going to find it easier to broadly blame the Governor than articulate specifics. Mitch Daniels is telling those other school boards and superintendents that their management will be called into question if they do.

Archie said...

I will provide my honest opinion at the risk of being bashed, but so be it.

I believe that the Governor Daniels stepped into this mess by providing his 2 cents partly based his true feelings on the situation (he knows much about the area and what goes on).

Yes, there are all the political reasons he may have spoken up. But, I believe that if he was only concerned about politics, he would have let this dog lay. To engage the local administration as he did, was not the best political move; however, as I previously stated, I believe that he honestly takes offense at how the NAFC administration addressed the budget cuts (specifically closing schools).

Just my 2 cents...the world is grey afterall.

Iamhoosier said...

"...the world is grey afterall."

Be still my heart. (for a change, I'm serious).

lawguy said...

I am sorry that Gov. Mitch Daniels was offended by the suggestion that his $300 million budget cut to Indiana education shared in the blame for the closure of four Floyd County Schools. It must be difficult to witness the consequences of his leadership.

I am also sorry that my fifth grader daughter will now be going to middle school a year early. Or that my elementary aged son will no longer have extracurricular activities due to the budget woes. Who really needs sports or field trips anyhow?

I'm also sorry that Rep. Ed Clere's response is to suggest that we "stop pointing fingers" at his Republican Governor. Thanks for helping lowering my property taxes, Ed. If only you could have more for my kids.

B.W. Smith said...

Surely, part of the calculation was to provide cover for Republican candidates like Clere. We're not the only Indiana community closing or contemplating closing schools.

Randy said...

Those "field trips" are amazingly INEXPENSIVE, for true.

$400 buys two days of bus transport to any viable site for 320-pupil-days.

$1.20 a kid for local field trips. I'll pay that out of my petty cash. Bring 'em to my store, and I'll write it off as a business expense.

What could be better than exposing our kids to books as part of a broad exposure to our local culture...no, not that culture. CULTURE, history, preservation, public art, insight, and expansion of the possibilities.

Kathy - said...

We aren't the only ones closing or contemplating closing, but this "agenda" has existed long before Daniels' cut. Further, while I'm not a Mitch fan, I can say that were I in a position to force the hand of poor management, I'd not only cut funds, but I'd then send in an audit crew to clean-up the ship; it's been living high on the seas for far too long.

Here's a question - what was Hibbard making before he came here? I know the supt. who took his place was hired at $124,000 - according to Fred McWhorter, Hibbard is currently making $144,000. Is NA-FC that much more expensive to live?

Here's another question: why did we used to only have five board members, but now we have seven and why aren't we cutting their stipends and insurance options? We're currently forking out in the neighborhood of $50,000 for them. Heck, that might cover the field trips they cut!

With that, Randy brings up an exceptional point with his comment about field trips - but to reach a bit further, that's only one of several absurd cuts.

In the end, it's going to very negatively affect the students and the community - and who shoots themselves in a perfectly good toe? Why would you close your "A" schools?

Jeff Gillenwater said...

If one looks at the vaunted Citizens' Checklist, one quickly discovers that union busting is a primary goal. Daniels and company are using the school cuts in the same way the Bush administration used No Child Left Behind, as a tool to advance ideology rather than educational outcomes.

Why else was their SB309 pinned to taking away collective bargaining rights if local flexibility was the supposed goal? Why else would Clere spend column time bashing the teachers' union but wholly fail to mention the lobbying done by his donors? Why are unions a special interest but chambers of commerce institutions to be pandered to?

Kathy - said...

Like so many issues, I see both sides of the union coin. They have their place in protecting workers. At the same time, they can also protect "un"workers. All teachers aren't created equal anymore than all employees in any other company/corporation would be - therefore it's not fair to give the slacker the same raise and the hardest worker. At the same time, I know a LOT of hard-working teachers and they put in tons of hours outside of the classroom grading papers, working on lesson plans, making copies of worksheets, etc. They also spend a lot of their own money for class room supplies. They deserve to be treated with the utmost of respect and rightfully compensated. But I don't think a slacker teacher deserves the same compensation as the superior teachers, and that's what unions allow. Also, there was a blog I linked to from the SSS site that I found interesting about how a convicted child molester was protected by the teacher's union. That's wrong on so many levels.

So - that's the high and low of it from my point-of-view. Now I have to go look-up your word that is new to my vocabulary today.

Kathy - said...

and = as
teacher's = teachers'

I really need to preview before posting.

Kathy - said...

As for the "highly praised" checklist - I wouldn't go so far as all that. The fact is just that our lovely school corporation chose not to abide by something they should have. It goes back to that view that some people have where they think rules don't apply to them.

Thanks for the new word of the day.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

Daniels and Bennett have offered the checklist repeatedly as an antidote to the cuts. It ain't. What it is, though, is a suggestion that schools devalue public employees and replace them where possible with private companies.

Do I think every union is always right about everything? Nope. A union position should be argued on its merits like any other.

But Daniels regularly takes the tact that simply organizing into a union (or for that matter, just being a public employee), regardless of position on particular issue, is a treacherous act to be stamped out. That's where the unabashed ideology comes in.

He's chosen sides rather than outcomes. Unions are bad, privatization is better, etc, and his policies reflect that over and over again regardless of situation. It's a fundamentalist's approach, the very type that education is supposed to overcome.

Kathy - said...

It definitely isn't a magic formula.

But something that really bothers me is that non-union employees (who are very valuable) are getting cut, or losing benefits entirely. Granted, I want a large ratio of teachers per students and if we could afford to, put teachers in small classroom sizes instead of cramming two small classes of different grades together into one large class of two different grades ... TO BENEFIT TE KIDS and their education. But, we don't have that kind of money - we have to spend it on other things.

I'm just so frustrated over all of it!

Jeff Gillenwater said...

It just goes to show, Kathy, how valuable unions can be. Non-union employees have no way to push back or negotiate and they lost. That's nothing new. As unions of all sorts have been decimated in this country, workers' wages have declined and executive compensation has increased.

dan chandler said...

For generations, schools received a subsidy. The best and brightest women became relatively low paid teachers. Today, many of the best and brightest women go into higher paying fields like medicine, engineering or academia. The "cheap, women labor" subsidy is vanishing. If we're going to retain top teachers, whether they be men or women, we need to offer a competitive salary.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

You're right, Dan. People shouldn't be forced to take a major pay cut just to work in publicly beneficial fields. Unfortunately, the Daniels mentality is the exact opposite.

The Obama administration has been trying to provide some incentive with student loan forgiveness for those who go into public service jobs.

Daniels said that's backwards. Loans should be be forgiven only if people "go out and work in productive sectors."

He has no respect for anyone in a public job, presumably himself included.

Even Ed Clere recently repeated the party mantra that "government doesn't create jobs, the private sector creates jobs". Ironic, given that he gets both a government paycheck and regularly collects commissions from selling properties for the government.

Kathy - said...

Stop the world - I want to get off.

Jeff - I wasn't saying I was for or against unions - I said I saw both sides of the coin. I was just sharing my perspective of the flip side.

knighttrain said...

Daniels is just a union buster and tony does waht he is told.
Brooks led us down a path of high administrator salaries and we were administrator heavy. We wasted about 1.5 million on mapping. Hibbard is making less than brooks he also did not take a car as brooks did and he made the necessary cuts in the administrative staff. I find it odd that the gov. hired brooks to be in charge of reform for the entire state with the job he did here.
BTW-- Teachers have, in the past taken 0% and 1% pay raises during the past decade and they will take zero again I am sure.
OUr administration is offering $6,700 bonus as a retirement incentive. Seymour is offering 25k and some are offering more to get older teachers to retire and save money. Contrary to amy in the tribune there have not been any negotiations in private between the union and the administration.

Kathy - said...

McWhorter told me the at Hibbard was making $144,000 and that included his vehicle (straight out of his mouth).

Negotiations begin June 10th ... I'll have to reread what she said, but there were prior negotiations that have them pre-set to get a raise.

Yes - teachers hadn't had a raise in a very long time when negotiations happened last time (June, 2008 I believe). They won raises and more planning time. Library media aides were hired to give them the extra planning time.

knighttrain said...

When Hibbard was hired he said he would not be taking a car, just milage, maybe he changed his mind. Negotiations will start earlier and should be over by june. Teachers know there is no money but may ask for something as a bargaining tool to get a change is some contract language. They have not even set a date to begin negotiations. Remember there are other issues besides money to be talked about. Health insurance is not handled in bargaining, there is a separate committee of teachers and administrators that deal with it.
Elementary teachers have been fighting for plan time for 25 years. They now have 40 minutes on four days and 20 minutes on one day. Teachers at nahs, hazelwood, highland hills and scribner lost plan time during the past year.

Kathy - said...

Interesting about the car. I just found this article:

http://news-tribune.net/floydcounty/x1896302908/New-Albany-Floyd-County-school-board-releases-contract-details

and see where he was supposed to get $575 for choosing not to take the car.

So $152,000 the first year of three ... he's only been here seven months, so again, which is it? $152K or $144K which McWhorter told me?

I was only the library "media aide," but I spent HOURS of my own time coming up with activities and lessons each week for K-5. Granted, I don't have a degree in teaching and maybe there's an easier way to go about it than I did, but it's hard work and they do deserve that time!!