Attack of the Narcisse Clones

A Good Read for Parents of High School Students

Check out this article for parents of high school students:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/09/column-a-school-year-playbook-for-parents-.html

There is Nan's Version and Then There is the Truth

For those of you who are tuning in because of Nan Stillion's diatribe against me, the attached letter explains what really happened,

Beaverdale Homeowners Association Not What it Says it is

The Beaverdale Homeowners Association, one of three entities confusingly organized to take Rice Field private and preserve it as green space purports to be a 501(c)(4) organization for tax purposes.  You can see its articles of incorporation at the Iowa Secretary of State's website.

The problem is it doesn't qualify.  Its articles state that the proceeds from the sale of Rice Field (if it ever owns it, a really, really big IF) will inure to the benefit of its members.  This disqualifies it as a 501(c)(4) entity.  See http://tinyurl.com/l8sx3

And donations to 501(c)(4)'s are not tax deductible.

So...Was the Window Broken Before the Students Fell Out?

If you read this headline in today's Register you would not be faulted for thinking the window was broken before the kids fell through it:  "2 Roosevelt students fall through broken window."

But that is not want happened.  Acording to the story,  "The students...crashed through the glass panel...."  The SRO at the school was quoted as saying "...they may have been goofing around and hit the window...and it broke out."  The article also includes this sentence, "According to witnesses, one of the boys fell against the glass, but both fell through."

Doesn't sound like it was a broken window they fell through, but rather they broke a window and fell through it.

The standards for being a Register headline writer must be pretty low.

WDM Admits DMPS Classes are Better

How else to explain the decision of the WDM School Board to no longer pay for its students to attend a class at Central Campus if the same class is offered at Valley High School?  If the Valley classes are equal to or better than the DM classes, Valley students would have no reason to want to go to Central Campus, right?

Even a Blind Pig Finds an Acorn Now and Then

The Democratic leadership has discovered the solution to the drop out problem.  Forget improvements to the educational model, such as pre-kindergarten education, making sure students actually learn something in K through 8 so they are ready for high school, improving teacher quality, ninth grade only schools, etc., etc.  Heck no.  All we have to do is raise the dropout age to 18.  Wham, bam, problem solved.

If only it were that simple.  But making kids who don't want to be in school go to school and sit next to kids who do is not a solution.  Yeah, sure, the percentage of kids who receive a high school diploma will increase, but I doubt that the percentage of kids who earn a high school diploma will go up.  In fact the percentage who actually learn something in high school may actually go down as the curriculum is dumbed down to get these other kids through the system.

This is a superficial idea that if implemented will lead to more disruptive classrooms, less time for teachers to teach, and ultimately discourage those students who are there to learn.

The Republicans got this one right:  If you improve K-8 (and give a little more attention to 9th grade), then fewer students will want to drop out, high school will become a more meaningful learning experience and we will have a substantive improvement in the drop out rate.

Narcisse and His Agenda for Black America

Before Jon Narcisse put his foot in his mouth he landed a full-page commentary in this past Sunday's Des Moines Register to advocate his agenda for Black America.  What follows is a critique of his agenda, but first let's place the author in context.

A quick review: Narcisse has a history of not paying his debts.  As far as I know he has never had a job that requires him to show up for work each day and answer to a boss. As far as I know he is not educated beyond high school.  As near as I can tell has never owned a home.  His antics, misbehavior and down-right irresponsibility as a Des Moines School Board member is well known.  And he pretends to speak for Black America?  Thankfully Black America has President-Elect Obama rather than such charlatans as Jon Narcisse.  Now to his essay.

His introductory paragraphs establish the superficial nature of the rest of commentary.  He begins by suggesting that racial equality has been reached because African-Americans have a President-Elect, a Secretary of State, and assorted movie stars, high achieving athletes and Miss USA.  And then he spends the rest of the ink the Register gave him for some inexplicable reason to explain what Black America must do to attain equality with white America.  His argument is inherently incoherent. If his premise is true, there is no point to the rest.  And what we get is really a restatement of the obvious or a mimic of what others, notably Bill Cosby and President-Elect Obama, have already said.

Reconstructing the Black Family

The most difficult thing about this first piece of his agenda, besides the fact that it is coming from someone with no visible means of support, are his unsupported allegations.  Single parent Black families is a serious issue, but Narcisse seems to make things up to fit his storyline.  His contention that "marriage in the black community has become the exception" runs contrary to a recent finding by the Brookings Institution of "a recent increase in the number of black children living in two-parent families and a 40 percent decline in the birth rate among black teenagers over the last decade."

And what support or authority does he have for the assertion that "In Iowa, more white women now give  birth to black babies than black women"?  And what exactly is wrong with that?  Does he oppose interracial marriage?

His solutions are obvious (strengthen marriage, demand better parenting, and value the family).  What is missing is how he would do these things.

The Role of the Black Church

Black churches have played an historic and crucial role in Black America.  It's curious to read Narcisse on this subject because he has never mentioned his membership in a Black church.  His solutions are once again obvious platitudes: build sustainable institutional capacity (you first have to accept his assertion that they don't already exist, some Black ministers I know might object to this claim), adopt a new mission of serving (churches don't serve currently?), and "heal the black community spiritually and by engaging sin" (They don't today? I find that hard to believe.)  Of course, let's not forget that Jon used to pretend to be a minister (see an earlier post for proof).  He is pretending again.

Emphasis Academic Success 

Introducing his academic agenda he once again makes a lot of factual representations and throws around a lot of statistics without citing any authority.  Just remember, he is not beyond making this stuff up.

His "solutions" are obvious or indecipherable: (1) establish high standards and expect excellence (Des Moines has one of if not the highest graduation requirements in the state); (2) "develop institutional capacity to nurture academic excellence" (huh?) and this last one is a doozy (3) "emphasize the importance of diverse academic instruction and skill development as a key to component to a broader empowerment and liberation strategy."  I assume he means more African-American teachers, but who is he trying to liberate and from what?  Gibberish.

At least he admits he is part of the problem ("The public schools have failed.")

Get Healthy Campaign

More of the same blah-blah-blah with factoids thrown around and lame calls for action like "create real awareness and focus on the state of our health" but no hint of how it would be accomplished.  Is it the state's responsibility?  Churches? No idea.

Economic Freedom

His loose connection with the facts reaches a crescendo with this final point.  I tried to find support for his claims without success. And the incoherence of his assertions comes full circle when he demands tax credits to stimulate investment in the Black community.  He began the essay by decrying "race-based preferential treatment."  This guy is a walking contradiction.

Urbandale Should Not Shrug Off the Accounting Error

I have a pretty good idea what happened at Urbandale because something similar happened in Des Moines back in 2002.  Fortunately, in Des Moines's case it was an overstatement of income only because of human error.  Our surplus was adjusted back to the level is should have been.

What makes Urbandale's case more serious is that it overspent.  When it comes to school finance, school districts are limited by the state in what they can spend regardless of whether the district has the cash or not.  It is a difficult concept to grasp (I think it has something to do with either the state not trusting school districts with their own money or attempting to equalize expenditures between districts --- you decide).

The point is this:  The error is serious and should never have happened, regardless of the happy talk coming from the school board and the administration, the students will suffer.

Somebody should pay the price for ineptitude.  The Urbandale school district should be lauded for its transparency, but its residents should now hold it accountable.