DeKalb voters: Pick with care as you can’t predict the bonkers factor
I wanted to talk a bit more about the DeKalb school board candidates panel that I moderated Tuesday night. (I will post a link as the event was recorded and will be online.)
Eleven of the 12 candidates participated; one via Skype from out of the country. The event at Westwood College was packed and the audience was attentive.
Overall, I found the candidates informed and engaged, but here’s the problem. I spent 12 years as an editorial writer, which included interviewing hundreds of candidates running for public office, from U.S. president to local school board.
I realized early on that you cannot predict the bonkers factor. My colleagues and I would leave an interview impressed as heck with candidates. The candidates would have long and honorable histories in their communities. They would be bright, personable and, by any measure, seemingly fit for public office.
And they would get elected and lose all perspective.
They would fight with their colleagues, call me with whispered conversations about conspiracies against them, yell at constituents who brought them complaints. I have seen this occur with women and men, with young candidates just starting out in their careers and with older, successful people who have run their own businesses for decades.
You often cannot predict in advance how candidates will gel with their colleagues, how they will use their newly won powers and influence, or how they will react to the public pressure, which is unlike anything most of them have ever experienced. They are not accustomed to the media attention, the angry citizens lining up at the microphone at meetings to denounce them, the email accusations that they have no more backbone than a chocolate éclair. (As Theodore Roosevelt once said about William McKinley.)
I suggest that DeKalb citizens attend the remaining candidate forums, one of which is July 19 at Arabia Mountain High School. I also recommend that citizens read the candidates’ self-submitted bios. Most of them are posted on the eduKALB site. (A basic plea to all candidates: Hire a proofreader. I was surprised at the errors in some of the DeKalb school board candidate bios.)
But even after all of that, cast your vote with your fingers crossed that your choice for the school board will not derail once elected. DeKalb can’t afford too many more misses on its board, given the system’s precarious state and the need for real and sustained reform.
–from Maureen Downey for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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65 comments Add your comment
bu2
July 13th, 2012
10:43 am
@Dunwoody Mom
What Orson’s letters show is that he supports excellence and doesn’t want to drag everything down to the lowest common denominator. He supports doing things effeciently. He wanted to take the tough step in 2010 of closing schools. The current board (excluding newbies Jester/Elder) refused to do that and deferred the decision for another year. That’s the group that failed to realize the financial problems and the ones who were in charge of doing something about it.
Just because you don’t agree with some of his proposals doesn’t mean he is for special interests. It simply means you don’t have an open enough mind to realize there can be differences of opinons on how to do things. You’d fit real well on the current school board.
bu2
July 13th, 2012
10:56 am
@the deal
I think we need someone who can influence people. Jester generates more hate than anyone I have seen who hasn’t done anything particularly controversial. I get the impression she doesn’t play well with others. She’s a useful gadfly and I am glad she is on the board, but we don’t need another one like her. Someone who talks about bulldozing everything isn’t going to be effective in generating much needed change.
McChesney and Speaks have done nothing. They were on the board when Lewis/Pope were stealing. They have presided over the continued decline. They have been responsible for the budget fiasco (were either of them talking about it until the last few weeks-and they approve the budgets). They were unsuccessfully trying to gerrymander districts to get reelected. They are totally ineffective, have failed to monitor properly as board members and need to be held accountable and defeated. Decisively.
@bu2 regarding Mr. Orson
July 13th, 2012
11:06 am
Dunwoody Mom did not write that comment so I’m not sure why you are addressing your comment to her.
Commenters and readers can read Mr. Orson’s letter to see if it was a wise move to keep all those special programs intact and decide if they tink raising taxes would have gotten us out of this mess. Financial analysis of the DeKalb budgets for 2011, 2012 and 2013 would say no.
The BOE paralleled Mr. Orson’s suggestions almost to the letter (except they closed 8 schools instead of 4) and look where that got us – NO money in reserve and having to borrow money on the open market to meet the July payroll. We now have the lowest teacher pay and the highest taxes in the metro area.
If Mr. Orson predicted the future financial needs of DeKalb Schools so poorly then, what makes anyone think he would do a better job of that now?
Readers and commenters need to read this letter written in 2010 for themselves and form their own opinions as to his financial acumen and ability to predict the future needs of DeKalb students.
http://dekalbschoolwatch.blogspot.com/2010/03/letter-from-fernbank-elementary-school.html
Bill & Ed's Excellent Adventure
July 13th, 2012
12:13 pm
“Readers and commenters need to read this letter written in 2010 for themselves and form their own opinions as to his financial acumen and ability to predict the future needs of DeKalb students.”
Ummm, Don McChesney??? You there Don?
bu2
July 13th, 2012
1:13 pm
I noticed this poster doesn’t use the same name. We can pretty much tell all the @…. are the same people, but its not clear if @…. is also someone else.
I haven’t seen anyone give anything positive about McChesney. I think the record is clear. There is nothing positive to say.
Weekly Reader (7/13) | Leonard Presberg
July 13th, 2012
2:51 pm
[...] with conservative ideals. As we continue into this election season, and you go to vote. Heed this warning about the “bonkers” factor: I realized early on that you cannot predict the bonkers factor. My colleagues and I would leave [...]
Marney
July 14th, 2012
12:15 am
McChesney was consistently attentive at listening to the wishes of the Medlock community. He got the cell tower proposal pulled from that neighborhood. Later he also was fair and diligent at dogging after the administration toward the International Community School getting a lease of Medlock elementary. Not that he did anything to force a specific position on whether ICS or Fernbank should get it on Tyson, but the proposal that it be left empty so that they might locate there temporarily if needed, if SPOST passed, and then the subsequent proposal that the science center use it for storage were both insulting to the neighborhood and the real children that attend ICS. So he asked good questions and the self-serving nature of those middle management proposals didn’t win the day. He can be blunt, but his constant requests for trustworthy information from which to make informed decisions are fruitless if you are always the minority voting block.
Jo
July 14th, 2012
3:47 am
With regard to the errors in the candidate bios … those candidates will fit right in with a board who knowingly chose a superintendent who, among her many flaws, lied on her job application to DeKalb County School System and had many errors in her bio. Those candidates also will fit right in with the literacy-challenged who work for DCSS and have posted notices on the entrance door to Building B at the old Central Office: http://www.flickr.com/photos/74756146@N04/6757580909/in/set-72157628949072027
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74756146@N04/6757581115/in/set-72157628949072027/
DeKalb is Doomed.
Private School Guy
July 14th, 2012
3:35 pm
The main role of the BOE is approving the system’s budget of nearly a billion dollars. With this in mind all candidates should be asked to detail about their experience in making financial decisions of over 100 million dollars. A good analogy is you don’t hire a developer to build a skyscraper who only has experience in adding a garage to a house. No matter who many good intentions they have they will be over their head serving on the BOE if they do not have this level of experience.
Married with (School) Children
July 14th, 2012
9:32 pm
Today’s update: With only three weeks to go before teachers return, at least one DCS High School has not even begun working on its class schedule. The problem is that this particular high school does not have anyone left who knows how to use the DCS’s scheduling software. Normally, you would just get someone else to do it, but there are not any MIS people left to help the high school out…
Today’s rumor: Early the 2011/2012 School year, Superintendent Atkinson got rid of the DCS’s Executive Director for Title-I. Consequently, during the 2011/2012 year, there was no one guarding the Title-I funds. Being DeKalb, a *lot* of Title-I funds were misspent. Uncle Sam is now requiring that those Title-I funds be paid back now (during the 2012/2013 school year). Apparently, DCS’s budget gap is actually several million dollars more than has been reported so far.
Dekalbite
July 14th, 2012
10:54 pm
“Normally, you would just get someone else to do it, but there are not any MIS people left to help the high school out…”
That doesn’t ring true. The only personnel let go from MIS were CTSSs who do not handle software at all. They only work on equipment and the network. CTSSs have nothing to do with scheduling software.
Dekalbite
July 14th, 2012
11:02 pm
” Early the 2011/2012 School year, Superintendent Atkinson got rid of the DCS’s Executive Director for Title-I. Consequently, during the 2011/2012 year, there was no one guarding the Title-I funds”
The employee Dr. Atkinson let go was the Executive Director for School Improvemnt over Title I. Here is the announcement in Crossroads about her demotion:
“It also names Audria Berry as the female employee with whom Lewis allegedly had an affair. It said Lewis used his position to “initiate and facilitate” an affair with Berry, who was then executive director of school improvement under teaching and learning department. Berry is now a second-grade teacher at Flat Rock Elementary in Lithonia.”
http://www.crossroadsnews.com/view/full_sRtory/18453117/article-New-indictment-against-Lewis?instance=secondary_stories_left_column
Married with (School) Children
July 15th, 2012
6:43 pm
@Dekalbite – I could not get your link to work, but I did find the story on the Crossroad News website. I think this is the correct link, in case anyone else is reading:
http://www.crossroadsnews.com/view/full_story/18453117/article-New-indictment-against-Lewis?instance=lead_story
Anyway, thank you for pointing me to this story. I am not (and never have been) a DCS employee, so I did not know that history. All I know is that there is a *rumor* floating around DCS that says federal money was misspent last school year. The *rumor* also says that the DOE is now demanding that all that money be repaid back during the coming school year, which would make DCS’s budget gap worse that has been reported so far.
I hope (and am praying) that this rumor turns out to be false. On the other hand, if it turns out to be true, then there are these time-stamped posts on the AJC’s website indicating that people in DCS knew this was an issue… and that DCS employees knew of this problem prior to the Monday, June 16, 2012 board meeting.
As for the scheduling problem, one of the high schools is unable to schedule its classes because they no longer have any employees who know how to use the DCS scheduling software. The employees at the school who knew how to use the software have been terminated or moved to other jobs…. and there is nobody at DCS available to train the remaining school employees.
Which DCS employees would provide training on the scheduling software and are those employees still employed by the DCS?
@Married
July 15th, 2012
8:18 pm
Yes. The employees who would train on the software are still employed. The principal should contact the head of MIS. No MIS employees were affected except the schoolhouse based CTSSs. They were always told software and training is not their responsibility – consequently they know little to nothing about software. That is one of the reasons there are so many technology problems in DeKalb.
Teacher Reader
July 15th, 2012
11:13 pm
Hope that the Fed does investigate DeKalb. Parents and tax payers need answers to where the money is going and how it’s being spent. There is no transparency. Not even those making decisions know where the money is going or how much we have. Can you run your home that way?