A tale of two videos: BHSD tries to plan strategically for the next ten years -- good luck

http://vimeo.com/84598481

The above link is for the "teaser" BHSD (Shira Good, I suppose) posted on Facebook and elsewhere to entice parents and the public to come to the  final strategic planning committee Tuesday (1/21) night at West Hills.

I have to say I was enticed, delighted even.

The video looks to be well produced and, most importantly to me, invites us to consider school planning in a broad and even national context.

That is, the teaser opens with the 2008 housing bubble crash and identifies Detroit as one of the most damaged areas in the country.

So far so good. Thank you BHSD.

Too many school discussions still -- even 15 years in to education "reform" -- try to take place as if there is no context beyond the "local" school board and voters, as if the actions and future of a school are determined by the parents, local voters, a school board and a Superintendent. Too many school discussions still take place as if every thing is structurally intact at the state level, as if the world of public education most of us knew (particularly if, like my Representative, Mike McCready, you grew up in a well funded, pre-Prop A District like Birmingham or Bloomfield) is just the same and will be there forever.

Indeed, education reformers in the state and elsewhere want you to believe that the conditions of public education are just as they always were ...but that the kids are dumber, the parents lazier, the teachers "union-stifled" (and dumber, of course) and the school boards in the "pockets" of the unions.

And so there needs to be "reform" to make things better.

The problem, of course, is that the stated objective of "reform" is simply not true (not to mention the assessment of parents, children, and teachers).

For well over ten years now corporate and political forces have been working to up end public education as we know it -- not reform it.

In our state, for example, the current Governor does not want traditional, comprehensive, geographically defined School Districts like our own to exist and has campaigned on "Anytime, Anywhere, Any place, Any Way" public education.

Here is the Governor this September (2013)where he articulates his vision of public education in Michigan in terms of the EAA, the state's preferred operational entity to "reform" schools. Note the EAA is his model for ALL public schools, not just the "bottom 5%" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edoc-jwgX5Y It is is worth watching in tandem with the BHSD video. Heck, it is just worth watching. Even L. Brooks Patterson -- who made his career in the early 1970s by walling off Oakland County Schools and who never, ever has nice things to say about Detroit -- is quiet as a little church mouse on the party's desire to unbundle Districts.

That might tell you something.

If you think I am hysterical or yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater, then, I challenge you to produce one elected Oakland County official who is willing to say on tape or in writing what most take as common sense: "BHSD, Birmingham, and Troy should continue to exist and thrive as geographically defined school Districts." Never trust quiet whispers on the phone ("everything will be fine, honey")

The best I have heard so far is Mike McCready's half-hearted offering: "I support our Districts."
Take what you can get when political courage is in short supply.

And ask yourself, too, when could such a simple question have become controversial here? A third rail? A litmus test, like whether one is pro-choice or not?

Bring any you can find to tonite's strategic planning committee where they would garner a number of votes.

You won't be very successful. They would be -- out in the open -- challenging their own party and their own Governor and the massive infusion of funds from outside the District (mostly Devos and Broad Foundation in our state) to end the District and public education as it is currently understood. And the local pols certainly don't need parent votes. They can win without them.

This is not to say that they want to invite 500 moms suddenly saying, "What the..." and showing up at the office.

Right now, the strategy of our elected officials is to stall and hope the electorate takes the past two years as business as usual. That way it will all be over without a rumpus. And a rumpus is uncivil. You would need a paid facilitator or something to manage it.

I list below three issues  that simply have been put in suspended animation until we all vote November. There are others, of course, I just list the prominent ones to further illustrate how difficult it is -- if not downright foolhardy -- for even a school District like BHSD to try to plan for ten years ahead in a state whose Governor does not want them to exist.

1) Pontiac School District's fate has been put on hold til 2014. The consultant that was hired for 2 years at 750k -- depending on the election -- can make a recommendation at any point, but probably after the election to move to an EM. If Pontiac is dissolved by the EM, BHSD will be responsible for at least 1/4 of its students (11,000 total in the District, its buildings, and its teachers). The 2500 student limit put in place by Oakland County pols to prevent the dissolution of Pontiac specifically won't hold under those circumstances -- one reason nobody wants to publicly take credit (or blame) for it.

2) The EAA expansion has been codified. The Governor now has legal authority, if not the political backing, to put his vision (see above) in to play and make all public education a 5,000 per pupil per year computer model system. How this will happen has been put back to 2014. But it is now primed to go. No one knows how much the EAA will have access to in terms of property, dollars, and so on.

3) The State Board of Education has tabled its plans to proffer new public school financing options until -- you guessed it -- 2014. These options are most likely to hurt BHSD from the Democratic side of things. As Democrats fight Republicans on school issues, BHSD has become a lighting rod as the District with the highest per pupil spending (the State Board is controlled by Democrats at the moment). That we pay for this with a Hold Harmless Millage -- something supported even by 2020 candidates in the last schoolboard election -- has been largely ignored by public education advocates. The special Pontiac deal to keep that District open did not help for the long term and is widely seen as a gift of special privilege to us that should be, well, rectified. Politically, when the pendulum swings back, and it always swings back, we are target numero uno.

So I look forward -- having been appropriately teased -- to seeing the rest of the BHSD video and hearing about the strategic plan.

I do hope there is at least a clip of Governor Snyder and his intentions to "unbundle" school Districts. I really don't know how you continue to plan without considering that "small" item.