Jennifer Johnson's Stunning Exposé

Bravo!

Our local Pioneer Press scribe, Jennifer Johnson, has just published a stunning exposé regarding the public servant incompetence she discovered at Maine High School District 207. 

Well no, NOT REALLY. 

Instead, her readers are treated to a PR piece most likely coauthored by D207's recently hired $150,000 per year PR maven, Brett Clark.  Don't worry, Jennifer's professional reputation is still in tact, since many of her local readers are already aware of her propensity.

I don't intend to spend a lot of time on this subject but I do want to make a point.

Ken Wallace is hell bent on pushing this Referendum through.  He's pulling out all the stops.  For a "cash strapped" local High School District, Ken Wallace's PR effort is staggering. 

Would you have ever imagined D207 Administration & Board spending $500,000 in previously stashed ($45 million) taxpayer money on public relations, over a $195,000,000 referendum?  A Referendum designed as Dr. Wallace says to: 'close the gap between the district's schools and competing high schools...'; while adding new taxes to an already significant tax bill, by $90 per $100,000 per year, for the next 20 years.  And let's not forget the Board awarding our highly paid Superintendent an additional $50k bonus to see that this Referendum passes?

Dr. Wallace, what gap? 

Which school systems are we competing with?  And why?  Why should we give a hoot what they do? 

D207's Create the problem - Upset the Public - Sell the Solution paradigm on display again!

For most Taxpayers in this District, there is no gap to close and no other school districts to compete with.  Only D207 problems to solve, only D207's year-to-year performance gap to resolve, and solving that problem, according to the people I talk to, is the #1 job of D207's Superintendent and Board.  Also, if D207 is not high on the list of Regional academic performers, it's because, in part, academic problem solving has been displaced by talk and financial envy. 

As Dr. Wallace made it clear to me, we are not New Trier and we are NOT NEW TRIER for a variety of reasons. 

Last August, in a series of emails, I challenged Dr. Wallace with the notion that New Trier was a better performing school system.  At the time I called New Trier "The Gold Standard." 

Part of Dr. Wallace's response read:

"Maine East is one of the nation's top diverse high schools, and, respectfully, many much more affluent schools should be studying us.  In terms of what we can take from New Trier: that District spends $5,835.09 more annually per student than District 207 does (37 million annual budget increase to be on par)".

The Maine East (ME) issue being addressed at the beginning of his statement is academic/linguistic in nature.  Many of ME's students are Spanish speakers, and many if not most of them, come from East Maine School District 63 (EMSD63). 

To their credit, EMSD63 has improved their Spanish-Farsi-Urdu-Etc.-to-English-Speaking performance quite a bit since Dr. Clay took over. 

Yet, adequate fluency in English is still an ongoing impediment to improved academic performance at ME and D207; at least according to the parents and teachers I've talked to.

The $195,000,000 Referendum fixes, additions and changes, WILL NOT solve Maine East's underlying academic issues!

By the way, the private challenge I made to Dr. Wallace was:

"If you could do whatever you wanted to do, unencumbered, to being D207 up to New Trier levels, what would you do?"