Emerod's Weblog

Kelley Coures, amateur journalist, points up the deficiencies of the professional journalists at the Evansville-Courier Press.

The bottom line is that local school boards have trouble solving their own problems, so it is difficult to justify asking them to watch for problems that are outside their legal responsibility.

The professional journalists will tell you that unlike teachers, they are not required to have any special qualification to be a journalist, other than being able to write.

Coures is responsible for the way he presented his argument, cherry-picking some nasty examples to make the case that school boards need to do more to interfere with the lives of people whom they are legally not obligated to monitor.

Frankly, I could write a similar article about why public school teachers are not monitored and tested enough, based on a few nasty examples of abuse, neglect, and incompetence. The difference is, that would actually pertain to the work of a school board member.

Coures claims that „the state of Indiana, since it has a mandatory education policy, IS responsible for all children who live in the state,…“

The state is not responsible for the education of 98% of the children residing here, only those who are legally „wards of the state.“ All it takes is for the local school corporation to refuse to enroll a „problem“ child, and who do you think is responsible for that child’s education? Not the governor or the state superintendent of education…only that child’s legal guardians, usually the parents. Unless the parents are legally incapacitated, there is no state official or schoolteacher who can (or will) take over that responsibility.

„…and the state is the entity that needs to address all education issues.“

On this view, it is still not an issue for the local school board.

(1) Public schools cannot handle the „problem kids“ they have now from parents who love and trust the school system, not to mention the ones who don’t care at all and just want to offload their kids on someone else. There are many, many more neglectful, abusive, ignorant parents who send their kids to public school than those who don’t. The dropout rates, the illiteracy rates, and the college remedial course enrollments all testify to the failure of the public schools to make up for their deficit. Why don’t you go on a crusade to get them?

(2) I reserve absolute authority over the content of my child’s education. There’s more than one „expert“ I can consult who will tell me different versions of what needs to be taught in each subject, at each grade, but Mr. Coures wants the school board to pick one standard for me, presumably the same standard that their students fail to meet at rates of 20-40%, depending on the ISTEP grade level and school district. Sorry, but there must be something wrong with their so-called professional judgment, not to mention their teaching abilities. I won’t even go into all the quibbles I have with factual errors in the curriculum itself.

Conclusion: The school board, as well as state and local governments, are not competent to evaluate all children, much less remediate their problems.