Post by rosa on Dec 18, 2008 6:29:30 GMT -7
Why this man isn't featured more often by the El Paso Times is beyond me. He makes a good deal of sense more often than not, and he tells it like it is.
It seems that our local supers have taken such lessons to heart at the expense of the children they are supposed to educate, as well as the taxpayers. Look at our recent history and note that Ysleta and El Paso district supers figure prominently [/b]
Why school superintendents are happy job-hoppers
Ramnath Subramanian / Special to the Times
Article Launched: 12/18/2008 12:00:00 AM MST
From behind a richly-carved mahogany desk, Superintendent Perry Patetic surveyed the walls of his capacious office.
Over a period of two years, he had earned a cornucopia of plaques and certificates, most of them for lifting failing schools to acceptable levels of mediocrity -- and these, in lavish frames, mottled the walls with a reckless appetite for self-aggrandizement.
While Patetic was fond of this collection, his greater adulation was for the $40,000 raise in salary that had come his way last year. The superintendent was not by nature a religious man, but he thanked God on numerous occasions for granting him a pliable school board and an apathy-riddled citizenry.
Privately, he knew that the awards for educational improvements were worth as little as the test scores on which they were based, but as long as the government took a contrary view of the matter, and the voting public displayed a myopic indifference, he was happy to wear a garb of falsity.
He was also thankful for other matters, but mostly for the prodigious connections he had cultivated in the two neighboring school districts, which had produced an exalted position for his wife in the department of instruction. He was hoping that he could secure a position for his son as well.
His third son had recently completed a degree in multidisciplinary subjects, with a minor in hip-hop culture, and he knew that only leverage and influence could advance such a degree to a high-paying job.
Patetic was also fond of traveling. On one of his office walls hung a map of the United States, and the places he had visited at taxpayer expense to attend conferences and seminars, or to deliver talks, were marked with miniature darts. There were 18 of them, but the one that most proudly announced its conquest pointed to one of the Hawaiian islands.
On the same wall was also a smaller-scale map of the world with a solitary dart stuck at Melbourne. He had taken some associate superintendents and board members with him on that trip in an attempt to obviate any internal criticism or opposition to the junket. Patetic was a firm believer in the Machiavellian-like axiom that tolerance for corruption is directly proportional to the area covered by the corruption.
The trip had coincided with a call by members of the school board, in a time of financial crisis, "to raise taxes or cut scholastic programs." This had engendered some brouhaha in the media.
One editorial in the local newspaper had excoriated him for his profligacy, but its effect, in a culture ruled by click-of-the-mouse attention spans, was as insignificant as a mosquito bite.
Patetic was a contented man, but he knew that in the educational realm, one could fool the people for only a limited stretch of time: three, perhaps, four years. He had tolerated and defended spurious moneymaking schemes spun by his acolytes, and they in turn had lavished sycophantic affection upon him, and turned a collective blind eye to rampant cronyism within the organization.
The wise man knows when to move on, and Patetic was no fool. Even as he admired his "stately pleasure-dome," the seasoned superintendent was searching for a new kingdom and a new crown.
Ramnath Subramanian, a sixth-grade science teacher at Eastwood Knolls School in El Paso, writes often for the El Paso Times on educational topics. E-mail address: ramnath10@aol.com
It seems that our local supers have taken such lessons to heart at the expense of the children they are supposed to educate, as well as the taxpayers. Look at our recent history and note that Ysleta and El Paso district supers figure prominently [/b]
Why school superintendents are happy job-hoppers
Ramnath Subramanian / Special to the Times
Article Launched: 12/18/2008 12:00:00 AM MST
From behind a richly-carved mahogany desk, Superintendent Perry Patetic surveyed the walls of his capacious office.
Over a period of two years, he had earned a cornucopia of plaques and certificates, most of them for lifting failing schools to acceptable levels of mediocrity -- and these, in lavish frames, mottled the walls with a reckless appetite for self-aggrandizement.
While Patetic was fond of this collection, his greater adulation was for the $40,000 raise in salary that had come his way last year. The superintendent was not by nature a religious man, but he thanked God on numerous occasions for granting him a pliable school board and an apathy-riddled citizenry.
Privately, he knew that the awards for educational improvements were worth as little as the test scores on which they were based, but as long as the government took a contrary view of the matter, and the voting public displayed a myopic indifference, he was happy to wear a garb of falsity.
He was also thankful for other matters, but mostly for the prodigious connections he had cultivated in the two neighboring school districts, which had produced an exalted position for his wife in the department of instruction. He was hoping that he could secure a position for his son as well.
His third son had recently completed a degree in multidisciplinary subjects, with a minor in hip-hop culture, and he knew that only leverage and influence could advance such a degree to a high-paying job.
Patetic was also fond of traveling. On one of his office walls hung a map of the United States, and the places he had visited at taxpayer expense to attend conferences and seminars, or to deliver talks, were marked with miniature darts. There were 18 of them, but the one that most proudly announced its conquest pointed to one of the Hawaiian islands.
On the same wall was also a smaller-scale map of the world with a solitary dart stuck at Melbourne. He had taken some associate superintendents and board members with him on that trip in an attempt to obviate any internal criticism or opposition to the junket. Patetic was a firm believer in the Machiavellian-like axiom that tolerance for corruption is directly proportional to the area covered by the corruption.
The trip had coincided with a call by members of the school board, in a time of financial crisis, "to raise taxes or cut scholastic programs." This had engendered some brouhaha in the media.
One editorial in the local newspaper had excoriated him for his profligacy, but its effect, in a culture ruled by click-of-the-mouse attention spans, was as insignificant as a mosquito bite.
Patetic was a contented man, but he knew that in the educational realm, one could fool the people for only a limited stretch of time: three, perhaps, four years. He had tolerated and defended spurious moneymaking schemes spun by his acolytes, and they in turn had lavished sycophantic affection upon him, and turned a collective blind eye to rampant cronyism within the organization.
The wise man knows when to move on, and Patetic was no fool. Even as he admired his "stately pleasure-dome," the seasoned superintendent was searching for a new kingdom and a new crown.
Ramnath Subramanian, a sixth-grade science teacher at Eastwood Knolls School in El Paso, writes often for the El Paso Times on educational topics. E-mail address: ramnath10@aol.com