Platform
Platform
1. Fiscal Accountability
According to the Rochester City Council, it
now costs $19,000 per year to educate a student in
Rochester. Tuition at Monroe Community College is
$5,600 a year for out-of-staters (not tax
subsidized). Contrasted with the Rochester School
district, Monroe Community College has much smaller class sizes,
better maintained facilities, higher-paid teachers, and all
kinds of high-tech equipment.
How could it possibly cost more than three times
as much to educate a student in Rochester as it does to go to
college? We pay more money per student every year and
performance remains the same.
One possible explanation is that the Democratic
Party has controlled every single position on the School
Board for the last 30 years. Not only that, the Democrats
have also controlled every single position on the City
Council, which approves the School Board's budget, for the last 30
years also. Clearly, there is no incentive for change, no
incentive to do a better job.
That's why it is time for new
leadership. I am not going to rubber-stamp every pet project,
or tolerate waste rather than rock the boat. I do not have
to fear upsetting the establishment, because if I am elected to the
School Board, it will have nothing to do with the establishment's
support. It will be entirely due to the people of Rochester,
and I will be beholden to the people alone.
I will make sure that every dollar spent is going
to help our children get a better education, and nothing
else. I will talk to the teachers and hear what they have to
say, and I will take seriously those who feel that things are not
being done right. I will demand good reasons for all our
expenses, and I will back up those willing to make a
change. After the first year, I promise that I will give a
report to the people -- not to the City Council, not to the Mayor,
but to the people.
I know, and the people will know, that I cannot
skate by and count on having the Democratic label under my
name. I will sink or swim on my ability to satisfy our City's
parents that their children are getting a good education. And
I will sink or swim on my ability to explain to the people what I
have done with their hard earned money. I promise that I will
fullfil this duty to the best of my ability.
2. Alternative Education
There are many good ideas out there about how to
educate our children, but few ideas are being tried. It would
be one thing if our children were getting an excellent education in
the City. But they're not, and it is morally indefensible to
ignore or halfheartedly support new ideas when the old ones aren't
working. Our children pay the price for our inability to move
forward.
I would like to see a school district where our
children have many different avenues open to them. I want our
children to have the learning environment most suited for their
talents and abilities, most suited to the way each individual child
is best able to learn. Education is too important to our future
for us to shove every child into a one-size-fits-all
mold.
That is why I have created a Council of Advisors
composed of those who have given years of their lives to the study
and practice of alternative education. Those who follow the
traditional assembly line method of education are also welcome to
be represented if they are knowledgeable. I don't want to
throw out what we have, I want to keep it and add more alternatives,
more choices, more avenues that our children can travel on their
journey to knowledge, and adulthood.
3. Protect Teachers' Freedom of Speech
As I began to investigate running for the City
School Board, I went out into the community and sought out those
who are already working and advocating to improve our childrens'
education.
While I was doing this, I was surprised to be
approached by a number of teachers in the Rochester City School
District. They told me that they had been waiting for
someone to bring a new political party to the educational
process, a new voice.
Apparently, many of our City's teachers are
frustrated with the school district's policies. However,
they feel that if they speak out, if they criticize the way
things are done, they will be subject to reprisal. They
told me that they are silenced by this fear.
This is unacceptable. We must put in
place protections for those who are only trying to provide
input and help the school district to be the best environment
for education that it can be. Teachers have a right to
express their opinions without fear of reprisal.
I think it is vitally important for us to
learn from out teachers what is being done right and what is
being done wrong. If I am elected to the School Board,
I promise to do everything within my authority to support
our teachers' right to freedom of speech.
4. Hold school administrators accountable
Right now we have administrators taking home
six-figure incomes while their students graduate to minimum
wage jobs -- or no job at all. The success or failure of
their students has no impact on their lavish salaries and
perks. This is also something which I find unacceptable.
It is something widely talked about to link
teacher salaries to student performance. But many teachers
I have spoken with tell me that they do not have the resources
or decision making power necessary to do better. Often,
the efforts of our teachers are blocked, or left to wither for
lack of support. It is the administrators who are
responsible for this failure, but it is the teachers who take
the blame, while administrators take home fat paychecks.
The very first move our School Board made,
after the last election, was to vote themselves a pay
raise! Obviously, the problem goes right to the
very top. I will do everything in my power to change
this situation, and hold those accountable who actually have
the power to make a change, those who are actually responsible
for the problems our schools are facing.
It's been said that we need to have high
salaries to attract the best and the brightest. But,
we've been doing that for decades now and it hasn't produced
any substantial improvements. Let's try something
else. We will give newly hired administrators a one year
grace period so that struggling schools will still attract
talented people.
5. Protect Student Privacy
Recently passed federal laws such as the
Patriot Act give the federal government the power to access
student records which would otherwise remain private.
These include mental health and other medical records,
discplinary records, and even student essays which might be
considered "un-American". Some of this data could be
used to deny our children access to federal student loans
for college.
The federal government has no business
investigating our children. We would not even know
that an investigation had taken place because these things
are frequently accompanied by gag orders. What I will
propose as a member of the School Board is to establish a
process whereby any employee of the school district who is
approached with one of these requests is required to report
it to the School Board directly. Then, we will
consult with our legal resources and make our own
determination as to whether the request is
Constitutional. If it is not, then we will require
the federal government to prove their case in court.
6. Improve use of Information Technology
I have spent the last three and a half
years working in the field of Information Technology, and
I have seen how a small investment in technology, if done
wisely, can result in huge gains in productivity and cost
savings. If elected to the School Board, I will use
my expertise to guide and implement a plan to modernize
the school district's record keeping and data processing
capabilites.
I would also like to ensure that our children have access
to high-tech resources which they can use to advance their
education. In a city like Rochester, where many
children do not have access to the internet at home, it is
especially important to make sure our students have the
ability to use all the tools which can be made
available.
I have the expertise to make sure that our money is spent
wisely in this area. For example, countrary to what
many believe, we don't have to give hundreds of thousands
of dollars to Microsoft to have good, useful computers for
our children. There is plenty of high-quality,
completely free software out there such as Linux and
OpenOffice, which is as good if not better.
7. Eliminate ROTC recruitment of our children
When a child reaches his or her teenage
years, he or she is just beginning to develop an
understanding of the world. Teenagers rely on adults
to help them make life decisions wisely.
The Reserve Officer Training Corps
specializes in going into high schools, separating our
children from their parents and teachers, and once getting
them alone, attempting to convince them to go to war,
where if Iraq is any indication, the soldiers will be kept
beyond their tour of duty, subject to horrible stresses,
or killed, and may even become involved in acts any just
society considers criminal, such as torture. However,
the ROTC recruiters will only mention how a student can
get money for college or "strength for later" as the
latest advertisments put it. Many of these
recruiters use "pressure tactics" such as suggesting
that a teenage boy is homosexual if he will not join the
army.
I believe school is for learning, not
for making soldiers. I don't want our childern
being subject to this kind of pressure, and certainly
not without their parents being present to hear what is
being said, and to give their children the benefit of
their parents' advice and wisdom. I will do
everything in my power to reduce or eliminate the
ability of the ROTC to come into our schools and lure
our children off to war.