"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves." (Tolstoy)
In the RAS Campaign Funding post:
- Jon thinks "the incumbents who had served well during a very difficult time for Robbinsdale schools, and that wasn't their fault."
- Wants2Know thinks "We can simply blame the voters who didn't turnout or we can examine the election process orchestrated an entrenched bureaucracy that seriously disenfranchised voters. "
My questions are:
- Whose fault are the current RAS challenges?
- Were some of them aggravated by action or inaction of the current board?
- How is the "entrenched bureaucracy" keeping people from voting?
- What is the "State" thinking by not funding education?
Thank you for humoring me so far. My final questions are:
- How do we stop looking at "them" as the problem and start taking responsibility for our own beliefs, actions and community?
- How do we then start turning our community around?
Or will we fight over the fire hose as the home burns to the ground...
You can probably come up with a better analogy. The point is taking responsibility, not looking for the "problem". (Collusion)(Resolution)(Heart)
Thoughts?
13 comments:
"Among other things, the eight other candidates didn't have the depth of knowledge and the experience of the incumbents who had served well during a very difficult time for Robbinsdale schools, and that wasn't their fault."
The awkward syntax is certainly my fault. What I meant to say is that the non-incumbents hadn't served on the board so they didn't have the incumbents' knowledge of school affairs. That wasn't the fault of the non-incumbents, but fault or not, that did put them at a disadvantage.
"Whose fault are the current RAS challenges?"
As for the current challenges, I am not all that interested in blaming anyone. For lots of reasons, we are asking more from schools now than we ever have in the past, and what we are asking for adds to cost.
Jon,
I understand my misinterpretation, however I hope you don't mind if I leave it. I could go digging for another example, however I do not have the time right now. And you did an excellent job of restating your point.
Others,
Please forgive my misinterpretation and misuse of Jon's comment, I am certain you have other examples of a similar nature that you can substitute. The point is though that we are in "the same lifeboat and rowing in opposite directions..." Is that a better analogy... (ie have some fun with this)
Whose fault are the current RAS challenges?
I think not looking at where the fault is lets people who made decisions off the hook. I'm not saying its time for pitchforks but ignoring decisions is a bad idea. We have problems, some of them were exacerbated by decisions made by those just re-elected. I have no problem making that statement at all. But there are plenty of other problems that exist in the district that fault lies at the feet of administration, parents, state officials and the current board.
Were some of them aggravated by action or inaction of the current board?
Yes
How is the "entrenched bureaucracy" keeping people from voting?
Good question - want to think about that one a little more.
What is the "State" thinking by not funding education?
They are thiking they are not getting results whereas they really are. One measurement says they are not, but if you look at pragmatic results you can see we are getting results. Are those results 100% - no, but they are not reflective in the 41 to 50% stats we have.
I could continue but I'm busy planning for 2011.
DJ
Let me try to articulate my point about the process more clearly. The election process set up by the District is designed to minimize voter turnout. Starting with continuing to hold their elections in the off-year when voter turnout historically will be low and most often will only turn out folks who have a specific interest in maintaining the status quo. This is not just my opinion, there are statistics to support this fact. The reality is that roughly 20% of the people will seek to take an active role in the political process, which, interestingly enough, corrolates pretty closely to the turnout in off-year elections. The rest of the population is only concerned when they get excited or angry. That sets up an adversarial compettion that makes differing opinions and policies bad or wrong, sets up winners and losers and the real losers are the children and their parents. The question then becomes what changes can be made to accomodate human nature.
I consider school board elections to be vastly more important than presidential elections. School Board members affect the daily life of my children and help shape the worldview of future voters.
I don't disagree that the challengers in this election over all could have been better prepared to articulate their platforms. However, I find it very interesting that 9 of the 11 candidates have ties to the District, employed by the District,have a spouse employed by the District, have a child in special programs they want preserved, have worked in education throughout their careers. These are not in and of themselves bad things but they do shape a worldview that favors the status quo and their own self interest. Again, this is basic human nature. It's why Conflict of Interest laws were developed.
I agree that we need to find ways to stop blaming "them" and taking personal responsibility. In my opinion, one of the first steps is to rebuild our sense of community by looking for and encouraging areas of agreement between the individuals and groups that make up our community. The biggest issue as I see it, is that my opinion is no better or worse than yours. It is just different. We need to get beyond the idea that "I am right, therefore you are wrong" as this serves only to divide us not build cooperation.
So how do we atart turning our community around? By engaging in civil discourse and looking for areas of agreement rather than staking out positions that we then will fight to keep against all alternatives.
DJ,
You actually took a shot at answering my rhetorial soap box ranting. Thank you !!
Wants2Know,
Excellent post !!!
Everyone,
What broad goals do we have in common that we can all support? Here is a start:
- Stable or increasing property values ?
- A community that is safe with a low or non-existent crime rate ?
Others?
-
Concerning off year school elections and turnout, I think there are arguments on both sides, and for myself at least it's really hard to come to any firm conclusions. This is an area where we assume a lot more than we know.
The voter turnout on Tuesday was low. But would the real turnout on school issues be any higher during a general election? After all, the voters who turn out in general elections are there because of other races, not because of school board races. And how much attention would voters give to school board races in a year like next year when every constitutional office is on the ballot except U.S. Senator?
In our recent election the turnout was in relative terms, not very high compared to a presidential election. But within our district itself, there was a lot of interest. Eleven candidates ran. There was a good turnout for the League of Women Voters forum. TV ratings were more than negligible.
Instead of holding school board elections during general election years where they just got lost on the ballot, maybe the better policy would be to find ways to take advantage of their off year status, where for many of us, they are the only game in town, providing an opportunity to as many of us who care to focus on education issues.
Here's an observation about voter turnout in general. I don't know if high or low turnout is necessarily a good or a bad thing. A decision not to vote is just as much a decision voters are entitled to make as a decision to vote. A decision not to vote, is among other things, a decision by a possible voter that a given electoral decision is best left to others.
Personally, I always cast a ballot on every election day. But I don't always vote for every office or issue on the ballot. If there is a choice on the ballot about which I know nothing, I am perfectly comfortable in leaving it blank, in preference to the alternative which would be voting at random.
If, with respect to school board elections, prospective voters feel that the matter is best left to others, that's their choice, and one that I will respect. If candidates have a problem with that, they should understand it's their job to provide a reason for voters to vote for them. If they haven't done that, the voters aren't the ones to blame.
Jon - Voter Turnout
- Agreed with everything you said. I easily talked with more than 6% of the eligible voters in the district. I know people "who forgot". It is on the those running to get the word out. I certainly don't blame the voters at all. A better message and a better way to get the message out was necessary. I didn't have $1500 dollars to spend on signs and another $2000 to mail post cards to every elibible voter. My plan all along (and this was a stupid plan) was to let the incumbents "remind" people to vote with signs and try to get to the people. My job was to get to those voters and tell them why I should be the fourth person on the ballot. Like I said - stupid plan.
Wants2Know - Conflict of interest
This is true for any election. People never run for office if they don't have a tie to that office in some way. I would argue the two who did not fit your description have a tie by the fact that taxes are shaped by the school board and that is their "shape of worldviews". But agree in general.
Jon - People don't vote because they don't think it's important and there isn't 1000 ads running on TV all the time reminding people that it's election day. Also, I still cannot beleive we haven't figured out a way to let people vote "anywhere". We have computers to validate residency. Electronic voting, validate redencency, ballot appears on screen custom based on your residency. Just saying - a good chunk of the world has figured this out.
Give - What broad goals do we have in common that we can all support?
Let's not forget that many of those broad goals revolve around wanting kids to be educated and have a safe place to learn. (At least I don't think anyone wants kids to have a bad education.)
Give asked at the start this question:
How do we then start turning our community around?
I think it starts in elementary schools. We still have the traditional neighborhood school. We should be doing everything we can to make the school the centerpiece of the community again. There are pressures like TV, 1000 activities, etc., etc. But I think it's time for some old school ideas. Many people who live around a school have never been inside the school. People don't have ownership to it anymore. Those are young don't have kids there yet, those on the other spectrum may have had kids go to other schools are moved into the area after their children where done with school. It's time for the old school community events. This starts with the district and the host city coming together. Back in the day I served on the Crystal Neighborhood Committee where we had representatives from each area, we would try to create fun things and get the community together. People are looking for this relationship - they really are. We would get great turn out at some of these events.
Community starts at home. Believe in the school, the city and the people around you. We don't all have to agree on everything. We can disagree. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Disagreement is good.
DJ
(sorry for the super long post)
Election procedure issues, are perhaps the most politicized of political issues. Without going into a lot of specifics, Democrats are generally and unalterably in favor of measures which make it easier to vote and to have one's vote counted, Republicans generally and unalterably opposed to such measures. Both sides have practical and policy reasons for the positions they take, but the upshot is that while either party is in a position to prevent changes they don't like, no such changes are possible.
I agree with many of the points other posters have made and I really value the opportunity to participate in this level of discourse.
Jon- It saddens me to see you revert back to the us/them mentality of Republican vs. Democratic worldviews. This attempts to reduce an unbelievably complex issue into a simple choice. It does not reflect the reality that an individual's beliefs fall on a continuum with I daresay, most if not all, people holding views on differing issues that register at very different points on the Republican/Democrat continuum.
Naming and labeling inevitably sets up conflict that prevents community building precisely because it causes individuals to feel they must defend their principles and/or ideas against others who disagree. I have reread your last post several times. Unfortunately, the very language you use to make your point sets up a Democrat good, Republican bad paradigm which perpetuates the politicization of the process.
On the subject of voter turnout, the zeal to make it easy, convenient what often gets lost in the discussion of voting is that with the "right to vote" comes the responsibility to be an informed voter. I absolutely agree with you that it is okay not to vote on an issue that you as an individual don't feel informed about. I do the same thing. So how do we shift the paradigm.
I have many other comments on this excellent thread but no time to address them right now. DJ's lengthy post is excellent and contains many suggestions I can support. More later
"This attempts to reduce an unbelievably complex issue into a simple choice."
It is in the nature of elections to reduce unbelievably complex issues into a simple choice. As for ideological continuums, some issues are inherently more partisan than others. Matters of election procedure are intensely partisan. School issues need not be. During the recent election, I was an active and enthusiastic supporter of at least one candidate, who I am pretty sure has at least ties to what's known in my household as the nefarious other party. As far as I am concerned, where education issues are concerned, party affiliation isn't a plus or minus, it's an entirely irrelevant issue.
"Unfortunately, the very language you use to make your point sets up a Democrat good, Republican bad paradigm which perpetuates the politicization of the process."
While I do have my own positions on those issues, it wasn't my intent in that posting to argue them. I tried to set out the positions as briefly and as neutrally as possible, to just identify the conflict rather than discuss it in any detail.
I had two reasons for that. First, because getting involved in any sort of detailed discussion of voting process issues seems to me outside the scope of this thread. Secondly, these issues do become partisan, and I don't think partisanship has much of a place in school board elections.
I will say that I wouldn't characterize the differences between the two parties on these issues in good or bad or in moral terms. They simply reflect different ideological and practical perspectives. While I hold strong opinions on these subjects myself, I firmly believe that these are issues on which good people can reasonably differ.
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