What about the schools?

One of the most critical considerations for anyone moving with a family from one community to another is the quality of the schools. Dunwoody is blessed with great schools that thrive in spite of lackluster central office leadership, strangled budgets, self-protective personnel policies, and education pedagogy that change with the whims of state and county administrations. 

All those woes are well documented in DeKalb County School Watch, a blog that serves as watchdog and gadfly for our local system.  If you're a parent, you should read it. Knowledge is power.

For awhile, there was a grassroots effort underway to consider turning Dunwoody High School and all its feeder schools into a single Charter Cluster. I don't know if the steam has run out of that effort, if the folks engaged in the foundational work have turned to other issues, or where things stand today, but I hope the concept finds new energy in the near future.  Fulton County Schools are considering charter status, one of many school systems and clusters willing to tackle the massive documentation, research, and development work required to satisfy the state's evolving requirements.

DeKalb Schools has a new superintendent. Maybe she's a rainmaker and something good will finally come out of that dysfunctional nexus. We have an outstanding School Board representative in Nancy Jester, who is often the lone voice of pragmatism in a group of people who seem to add to our problems rather than solve them. Georgia is requesting a waiver from the illogical No Child Left Behind paradigm and trying on yet another measurement tool that ignores the realities of student capabilities and inconsistent parent support. Our state level elected representatives would have to change state regulations and budget limitations that prevent Dunwoody from having greater control over our schools. There are lots of obstacles (costs are #1) to having our own school system. But there are many, many positives to having our cluster go charter.

By the time the education juggernaut changes direction, my kids will likely no longer be in Dunwoody's public schools. But I'll still be a taxpayer, homeowner, and passionate booster of this community.

Schools are relevant now and for the future.

Right turns.

I love Jim Wooten's right-eous column in the AJC. It's a breath of pragmatic conservatism, without all the shouting and cynicism of so many mouthy media pundits.

I am conservative by nature and philosophy, and have been since my college days. (How's that for a not-so-typical experience? While most of my professors and college peers were avowedly liberal in those post-Vietnam years, I came to NCSU from a patriotic, military dependent childhood.) I actually feel more in the independent camp, but that particular label means very little participation in the voting process. Maybe one day there will be more options for moderates than the polar opposites of present-day politics.

This week, I've had many, many thoughts about government thanks to personal experience with the many ways local, county, state, and national entities impact our lives. I rarely embark on political rants here, but . . .

My neighborhood is embroiled in a lawsuit against our own City of Dunwoody about some pretty amazing procedural errors that are costing us dearly. A very early "oops, we did that wrong" would have saved both sides all this angst. Meanwhile, we're still being painted as whining backyardagains who just don't understand complicated stuff like ordinances and legal proceedings and mediation. Guess our backgrounds as accountants, attorneys, financial consultants, educators, development specialists, engineers, airline pilots, nurses, computer programmers, and civic volunteers don't count.

 President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren certainly blew a few gaskets. I am most definitely not in favor of most of his social policies, but I felt that hearing a speech by the President of the United States is always a great thing for students. The reality is that our kids couldn't hear the speech because of crappy technology and sheer busy-ness of a rigorous academic day. Even if the President had tossed in a few political bones, I'm quite confident that we could have had a very healthy discussion at home. I watched the speech. It was fine.

Two of my favorite blogs are John Heneghan's timely updates about the City of Dunwoody and DeKalb School Watch, a watchdog extraordinare for our local public schools. John is one of the fairest people I know . . . you get both sides and even a mea culpa now and then. As for the DeKalb School Watch, the comments provide fascinating insights into school government-gone-fat in an era of cost cutting and expected sacrifice by teachers and students.  A recent blog noted that DeKalb's curriculum administration pays nearly $31 million for 551 administrators. Really?  And that's just a small subset of the overall administrative costs of our school system.

America is a republic.  (Which should not be confused with Republicans. That's a political party and philosophy.) Since we're a republic, we vote for City Councilpeople, Representatives and Senators, County Commissioners and Boards of Education to represent us. We're not a democracy. Can you imagine what life would be like if we had to vote on every single decision? Gridlock.

I adamantly do not want the national government handling healthcare.  One of my favorite Britcoms, Waiting for God, has an episode where Tom entered the hospital for prostate surgery. When Diana visited him, she was directed to a room she couldn't find. "Where is Room 00?" she asked a nurse. "Oh, we had patient overflow. This hall is a room now because we have patients in it." There was Tom, sleeping on a cot rolled into a hallway - along with four other male patients. No privacy, just a cheerful nurse insisting this was normal." Diana's ensuing rant about England's National Health Care Service was priceless - and illuminating. 

That's enough for one day. It's time to hit the road for North Carolina. I'm visiting my parents while the rest of the family stays here for homework and meetings and sundry events at church. 

This week's vents . . .

One of my favorite spots in the AJC is the daily vent. There are some very imaginative, frustrated, angry, snide, and silly people out there, and they don't mind sharing every thought that crosses their minds. One recent gem: "You're in a movie. Shut Up! It is that simple." Been there. Felt that.

The appeal of venting is its anonymity. A fed-up-to-here rant about a long line, out of stock item, tailgater, healthcare mal-form, messy kid, bad date, encounter with a government office, etc. is simply sharing. A heated bark directed at the person who has just annoyed you, or about that person in the hearing of his/her friends/coworkers, can bite you back.

"Facts always get in the way of a good vent."

People relish repeating someone's toxic vent to everyone around them. The vent begins to take on a life of its own, until the original setting and the facts are obscured by the vent itself. That's a convoluted way of saying that we all love a well-turned phrase, and the facts get in the way of that enjoyment.

Vents are born in "it's not fair" land, a reality populated by polar opposites, irreconcilable differences, and misunderstandings. It's a place to rant anonymously, to cast aspersions without taking the consequences. It's the modern-day suggestion box for the passive aggressive.

I love venting, for all its fervid ardor and inherent off-the-wall craziness. You know you work with, live next door to, shop alongside with the people who roar their angst, anger, and amusement in rampant anonymity. But it's nice not to know WHO exactly is putting hand to keyboard or calling in on the telephone line.

Keep the Vent, AJC. Let the residents post on your Discussion Board, City of Dunwoody. Keep recording those anonymous parents, DeKalb School Watch. It's informative. It's provocative. It's FUN.