Yet Another Great Letter to the Editor

From the Sun Post;

Ask more questions

Someone was wrong and blew it big time.

I could believe the June 30 issue of the Sun Post which quotes District 281’s School Board when they credited Superintendent Aldo Sicoli with “outstanding performance,” or I could believe the July 7 issue of the Sun Post where we’re told the “Four in five Dist. 281 9th-graders pass Minnesota writing test,” as compared to 85 percent or above during the past four years.”

I believe both. What I cannot believe are the circumstances that led to these stories. When the school board conferred its glowing review, they did it on the basis of “strategic plan and results, employee relations, community and external relations, operational management, financial management and board relations.”

None of these items, except maybe strategic plan and results, appear to be related to academic performance and intellectual development. And this is the pitfall of trusting the system to educate children: you have insular, bloated, bureaucratic spendthrifts who heap accolades on one of their cronies for reasons only casually related to the educational mission. Meanwhile, we get 20 percent of our kids who cannot write and probably cannot read either.

Thanks to the Sun Post for running these stories. The paper should follow up by asking the school board some very uncomfortable questions. As for the school board, they all should be fired immediately for managerial malfeasance. Parents should stop sending their children to these schools and citizens should stop paying their property taxes that prop up these miserable failures.

Matt Rothchild

Robbinsdale