Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Focus of school board efforts

From the PG:

"Carey Harris, executive director of the Pittsburgh educational advocacy group A+ Schools, wants lawmakers to help, too. She asked them to revise portions of the school code that require boards of education to approve routine transactions that distract them from important policy decisions.

Pittsburgh officials should be addressing dropout rates, the achievement gap and providing guidance counselors, she said. Instead, she said, they are spending their meetings voting on whether to buy hand sanitizer, approve field trips and accept donations."


Read more: http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/11045/1125395-100.stm#ixzz1E0DvYNIH

3 comments:

Mark Rauterkus said...

Wrong way Carry.

As a matter of principle, I want my elected officials to do as much as possible. Watching the purse strings is an important job. Spending money -- or not -- matters. Actions speak to values. Accountability rests with those who are elected.

I don't want to have authorities and the appointed doing tasks that can't be pulled back into the range of the vision. That's passing the buck.

I have no problem with a sub-committee approving the checks in a working group and then that report going before the larger board for a vote. Sub-committees need to have open meetings, on TV I hope, recorded, and with debate if the expense item is with merit for whatever reason.

Anonymous said...

yes we need to foucus on the high afro amer males drop out rates i thought that schools was about education,now everything seems to be about grant money,contracts highest bidder lowest bidderlet's change the channel high drop out rate low retention rates among other things can we get real for just one time no wonder we cant compete with schools outside of U.S. they dont worry about contracts they educate their kids first

Anonymous said...

Surprising that the topic of the post is not getting more discussion. The nine have all the power. We really need some ex-educators on school boards or those so close to education that there is no acclimation period.