Editorial in The Oklahoman About Centennial HS

OCHS
Today's editorial in The Oklahoman is about Centennial HS where I teach. The article upon which it is based is fair and balanced. Megan Rolland did a good job of presenting the complexity of what we face at OCHS.

Unfortunately, the editorial is not fair at all. The writer simply hounds the school for "failing" its students, and suggests that the district should jump in and make major changes right away. Of course, the writer has the luxury of not coming up with any substantive ideas.

Our students need help at Centennial, but we won't fix a broken system by smashing it. We have students who cannot function in a normal school environment. They make learning impossible for their fellow students. They need a different environment where they will thrive. Failing students need to be in required tutoring classes with trained teachers who can meet their individual needs. These needs cannot be met in a class of 25-30 with a teacher who has a workload of around 140 students.

These things take money, and money is the last thing Oklahoma seems to have for its students.

My President and Me

At the Martin Luther King Day Parade in OKC
A photographer for The Oklahoman newspaper took a picture of me riding in the back of a pickup with a cut-out of Pres. Barack Obama at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade in downtown Oklahoma City.

OKC V. Seattle

Oklahoma City V.
Seattle

The way our city and the city of Seattle look at the Sonic situation interests me. The latest twist in this "Sports Opera" is that Howard Shultz, the former owner of the Sonics and founder of Starbuck Coffee (sic), has followed through on his promised lawsuit to void the sale of the team to the Professional Basketball Corporation headed by Clay Bennett. The headline in The Oklahoman, the newspaper in OKC, reads "Ex-Sonics owners follow through on lawsuit threat".

In The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the headline is "Bennett knew he could "flip" team. The story discusses how e-mails discovered through Shultz lawsuit allegedly indicate that Bennett was not interested in owning a team in Seattle, and that had the move to OKC not worked out, his group would have sold the team to another group of owners and used the proceeds to buy a team he could have moved.

Both articles carry the same facts, but from the outset, our paper emphasizes the "ex-owner" who is making a threat while the Seattle paper focus on Bennett personally and his motives for owning the Sonics.

It's a well known ploy in politics that if you can make your opponent the issue, you have gained a major upper hand in your fight. Looks as though both papers are doing their part in the battle.

The Necessity of Newspapers

It's always flattering to have readers. The Oklahoma County Democratic Party was noted in a part of our city's daily newspaper, The Oklahoman, in part of their Saturday editorial. Their concern was our recent Medallion Dinner and the live auction we had at the end of it. They note as follows:

What a hoot
Those Oklahoma County Democrats, they've got quite a sense of humor. At the group's recent Medallion Awards Dinner, Labor Commissioner Lloyd Fields served as auctioneer. In a message to members posted on the group's Web site, Chairman Lynn Green saluted Fields for "being such a good sport when a guitar was presented as an auction item.” Recall that Fields was taken to the Oklahoma City police detox unit last month after allegedly having a few too many at a party and then trying to walk off with someone's guitar. We assume he handed this one over without incident.

Of course, the above is a good example of a "left-handed compliment", but it is flattering that someone on the Oklahoman's editorial board is playing attention to what goes on with the OCDP. (There, I have paid back the compliment in kind with a pun in the bargain.)

Of course, I fully subscribe to what the founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson, had to say about the press:

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

A Sign of the Apocalypse?

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albrecht Durer

An editorial in The Oklahoman newspaper today mirrored much that I have said so far about the fact that we should look internally for our next superintendent. Quoting part of the article:

It isn't unusual for urban districts to seek superintendents with experience leading urban schools — with good reason, because urban districts have some unusual challenges. But Oklahoma City's recent superintendent history shows the pitfalls of going beyond state borders to find a schools chief.

They make a particular recomendation to the school district to consider suburban school superintendents. I disagree with them there. If the candidate has not had considerable experience with the particular problems of urban schools, then s/he will lack the ethos needed to persuade the administrators, teachers, staff and patrons to follow his/her vision for the district.

I don't know if I should be concerned about the fact that the Oklahoman and I see this issue similarly. Perhaps this is more a case of common sense rising to the surface.