I've been working like a white mouth gubmint mule lately, hence the lack of entertainment for you rubes. Along with the heavier work load, no Seacrest, I've also been on video game crack. Weed will rob you of your ambition, add PS3 to the mix and it's a wonder I ever get out of my chair. There's something disheartening about a 6 year old kid talking smack in what sounds like French in a squeaky cartoonish voice, while stomping the shit out of you in Red Dead Redemption. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Red Dead is an old west cowboy type version of Grand Theft Auto. I'm always a little late to the technology trough, I only recently stopped making mix tapes on cassette. I stopped short of getting one of those headsets to talk shit back to the little pukes who keep shooting my horse out from under me, not because I can't talk shit, I can, but I'm afraid I'll get arrested for threatening the life of some random kid in Belgium, video controller in one hand, while he eats Gummi Bears in his Underoos. So I'm stepping away from the PS3 long enough to grind out a few posts to get you people to stop emailing me asking if my Parole has been violated. It hasn't, yet, but it might be if I ever get my hands on the little prick who keeps shooting Ol Blue the Wonder Horse out from under me.
Speaking of young Pricks, can someone explain to me why no Arson charges have been filed in the near daily fires being set inside Southwest High School? They don't call it a high school nowadays, it's a college readiness, Afrikaan centered, preparatory academy or some such bullshit. Here in the soup sandwich of a school district that is the KCSD, fancy school names and drum circles seem to have taken the place of readin, rightin, and rithmetikin. For those of you fortunate enough to live outside the Kansas City area, let me bring you up to snuff, so this shit doesn't sound like the disjointed ramblings of a middle age pot head. Kansas City has had a Guinness book of records number of Superintendents in the last couple of decades. If I recall correctly, more than 20 in 20 years, or some crazy stats to that effect. White folks have fled the area like someone set their collective ass on fire. The black folks who could leave, have probably left as well. Who can blame them? After years of backroom deals, palm greasing, special interests, and apathy, the current school system in Kansas City seems to excel only in dropout rates, ill educated students, and general madness and mayhem reign supreme in the once hallowed halls of most of the schools. In recent weeks some little shit heel or heels have been setting fires inside Southwest. The situation has gotten so out of hand that the Teachers Union has filed a grievance demanding that the district do something to make the school more like a school and less like Thunderdome.
I know what some of you might be thinking, " M M is being a little flippant about such a serious issue". Look, in the last few years there have been riots in the hallways of Kansas City schools, videos posted on You tube proved as much. Last year a kid was hit by glass after a stray bullet came through a classroom window. I know of one young lady who received serious back and neck injuries after some punk hit her with a chair in a classroom. I could go on forever, but I won't. The point is , the district has by and large done little to make Kansas City schools safe and productive. Sure they fancy up the names, call the students scholars, make empty promises to change things for the better. In the end it's the same ol same. The district and now the Teachers union have been content to blame the kids, a few bad apples. Bullshit. Kansas City schools are in the dire straits they are in due to complacency. If this craziness took place in a JoCo school, the parents would march on the school like one of those mob scenes from an early Frankenstein flick. There would be facebook/twitter protests. There would be people getting fired. The bullshit would end. At the end of the day, the Parents of KCSD students share in as much blame as the district officials who have turned a blind eye to the years long madness and mayhem within the halls of it's schools.
So forgive me for failing to muster up the proper amount of hand wringing and moral outrage. This shit is nothing new, and the complacency of the parents of students in the district has played a large part in the current situation. Parents should be enraged, and maybe they are. Sadly, they haven't bothered to get that point across to the officials responsible for the care, education, and safety of their children. So you get what you got. Somebody wake me up when the protests start, until then, I'm going back to the plains to find the kid who keeps popping a cap in my trusty steads ass. ( no Seacrest)
Previously, these problems were more-or-less contained at Westport high. That high school was consistently ranked as either worst or second-worst school in the state of Missouri. Fact.
ReplyDeleteWhile the district was closing schools, they closed Westport HS, and moved the students into the southwest building -- which wasn't particularly wise. The kids already at Southwest were attending that school because it offers courses for college credit. Mixing (and crowding) the worst students in the metro area with ones trying to better themselves and build their future just isn't going to work. The Wesport HS kids should have been sent to boot camp, or some such.
If this had occurred in a JoCo school, there absolutely would have been a march - but it wouldn't have been on the school. They would have picked up and marched to the next suburb out, leaving problems behind instead of trying to fix them. As the great philosopher of our time, Peter Pan said: "All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again."
You apparently missed the protests and news coverage when a single teacher was fired against the wishes of students and parents in JoCo. It got more coverage than the SW fires. The problems werent just in Westport, this shit has been widespread and on going for years now. My point, in my endearing style was this; The parents of students in the KCSD need to make the board and super think a ton of brick hath fallen upon them. That has not happened as of yet.
ReplyDeleteEven if the parents of KCSD students gave a crap, they are too busy working multiple jobs to protest, attend a parent-teacher conference or know anything about their childs education.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, taxes for the rich need to be lowered, pensions for public servants need to be cut, and social security benefits reduced while raising the retirement age.
This is what a permanent decline in the standard of living for millions looks like.
It's a friggin disgrace. If they don't give a shit about their own kids, there is no hope and I don't buy this multiple jobs bit either. The hardest job most of the whiners have is getting up off the couch to walk to the mailbox and pick up their assistance checks. No need to worry about the retirement age if you've never worked a decent day in your life. If their kid screws up it has to be somebody else's fault. They've never looked in a mirror and never will until somebody takes their candy away.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate for the students who are trying hard to prepare for a better future. I feel for them.
ReplyDeleteI also feel for the teachers.
But take this sad story back to, and then through about three generations of of a welfare society with little or no effective oversight and here we are.
Many of the school board members are products of this system.
In my opinion the lawyers for the "plaintive school children" have become rich while selling out a whole group of people, deserving people, the children !
I say find a way to get the good students and teachers out of there and rename the school from Early College Prep to Early Prison Prep.
It took exactly one teacher to maintain discipline in the high school I attended ( 700 students). I was astonished to see the lengths and expense they are going to with security.
I don't have an answer and I wonder if any one else has a workable solution.
I wish the good kids and their parent luck.
I think it's time to abandon the whole city, personally. Build a wall around it and throw the slimeballs over it ala "Escape From New York". The whole place is going to end up going up in flames anyway.
ReplyDeleteThamk God you are alive. I thought you had died.I have been looking for you on the obit page.
ReplyDeleteYou're being too PC, Mark (wow - never thought I'd say THAT!) The KC School District for generations now has become not a way to teach rugrats but a patronage mill; it's about jobs, not results. Every school board election is all about race, every superintendent is all about race. Look at the stinkstorm when the new Super tried to rein in some of the fatback contracts - the hood was up in arms.
ReplyDeleteIncompetence is incompetence, no matter whether you're white, brown, black or yellow. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is...
To add to what d28bob said, parents are also dealing with a little bitty oligarchy and those who have come to "power" are not going to give it up, regardless of parents or students. I live up north and dealt with it in NKC schools for 19 years. My gifted son fell through the cracks for 12 years. As long as our school system is run by the government, it will never succeed. There is no motivation to make it better, only to keep the individuals' "power"; which amounts to a tempest in a teacup. So rediculous. I am so glad all my kids are out out out. Now I can just be bitter about paying taxes to them. BTW...it's not alot better up north, the kids just go to Northeast to kill people.
ReplyDeleteAs much as the teachers and administrators need to be more creative in their approaches and be trained better to deal with behavior, their hands have been tied by parents who throw fits and sue if they discipline their children. Personally my dad would have come to the school and whooped my ass if I showed out like these kids. That being said it isn't simply a school issue so blaming the school is shortsighted. We have a community problem (recent flash mobs for example and multiple teen shooting deaths). We need to come together to address the problems and not just point fingers. No one wants to take responsibility; not the kids, parents, teachers or city officials. For the sake of the kids and the future of the city, it is time we step up.
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