Lou Salvio said...
This is totally ridiculous. The reputations of our schools should be built on the work that they do with students. At this point in time what do we have? By whatever standards that exist, New Britain Schools have not performed well at all. It appears that the only statistics in which they seem to excel are not academic. Our schools excel in lack of respect for others in many categories, discipline problems and substandard test scores. Doris Kurtz and her leading administrators excel only in asking for exorbitant budgets which, for ten years since she arrived in NB, are opaque. New Britain school budgets are a "black hole" of waste and incompetence. Bloated budgets and payrolls and among the lowest standardized test scores in the state. Sad, sad, sad!
The taxpayers should revolt against this incompetence. Dr. Kurtz has no answers nor solutions to offer, just, give us more money! For what?
I will not vote for one additional penny for the schools. The person manning the rudder of the New Britain Schools has failed, pure and simple! No slick videos produced by someone or some, "FOR PROFIT" firm is going to change that. Our BOE too has no answers - a one-sided, purely political, totally partisan and self serving Board is as useful as mammary glands on a bull. VIDEOS! What a sorry misuse of taxpayer money!
May 31, 2010 8:05 AM
The Thorn said...
ReplyDeleteLou,
Glenn Beck did an entire one hour show recently dedicated to explaining how there is absolutely no correlation between the amount of money spent on a school system and school performance. The evidence actually proved the opposite. Some of the poorest schools in the nation have some of the highest test scores.
The conclusion was that the "throw more money at it" approach was just hype generated by support for more union positions and higher wages, but in reality some of the best schools turned out to be non-union and some of the lowest paid teachers in the country.
After seeing what Glenn Beck had to offer (I'm sure this information can be found in his archives on GlennBeck.com) I believe the better approach for New Britain would be to start finding ways to hold teachers accountable for their performance.
As a retired school teacher himself, Alderman Salvio is most qualified of the 15 Aldermen to speak on this subject. It is obvious that he cares deeply about the future of our schools. Maybe people should pay attention to what he has to say.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Lou. You have the courage of your convictions. Everything you said was correct.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this is the way the members of the BOE should feel. They were voted into office to closely monitor the superintendent. Instead, Kurtz, cleverly, makes them her buddies and no one is minding the store.
Kochel, a former Chairman of the Board had two sons in magnet schools at our expense while continuosly praising Doris Kurtz.
Unless there is a stong Search Committee for the new superintendent, we may end up with another Doris Kurtz who knows how to control everyone.
I would bet the new Superintendent will be handpicked zealot who gets the support of Sherwood, Trueworthy and the like.
ReplyDeleteWe need a Governor like New Jersey's to fix the broken system in our state:
ReplyDeleteGovernor Chris Christie gives remarks regarding teachers and the teachers Union, the NJEA during a Town Hall Meeting in Robbinsville, NJ.
Christie explained that his fight is not against teachers. It is against the NJEA. Christie cited this stat: a teacher who is in the union, pays $730 a year to join. If a teacher doesn’t want to join the union, they pay 85% of the $730 per year, to not join. Christie said:
“It’s like the Hotel California. You can check in anytime, but you can never leave.”
That money raises $130 million a year to pay for lobbyists, to stare down the legislature. They also spend the money, as well as tax payer money from NJ residents from property taxes and other taxes to buy ads attacking the governor.
Christie compares the NJEA to the school bully. Said other governors run scared of the bully. While the parents and tax payers are the ones bleeding on the ground from all the money they pay to the NJEA. But Christie said he’s not running scared instead he said:
“You punch them, I punch you.”