Thank You and Goodbye For Now

If I could leave just one thought behind, it would be that there are no short cuts. We share frustration and a sense of urgency about urban public schools, across the nation. Rochester is no different. The problems did not develop overnight. Neither will solutions. We know what works, and it is not fads, political power grabs, scapegoating, or personalizing issues. And the solutions are as much a matter of will as wallet, as much a matter of common sense as of drama. There are few votes, and few headlines in this. But mature, sustained, purposeful action does improve things. That was my focus. I came to city school board service with plenty of prior board service, and political credentials. I did not need the line on my resume. I did not feel I had anything to prove. I tried to put first things first.

Schools exist for children, not adults. So I voted against budgets that put bureaucracy ahead of in-the-classroom resources. Kids need to finish school, so I chaired the policy committee that raised the age at which kids could drop out, and I wrote a new athletic eligibility policy that encouraged kids to stay in school, and improve their performance, and enlisted adults in that effort. Input from parents is vital. So I insisted that parental involvement institutions be comprised of people who actually are parents, and who actually live in the city, no matter who that displeased. Kids can't learn if they come to school sick, hungry, or terrorized -- and so I have supported wrap-around services for disadvantaged youth, and consider the failure to better establish such services here, due to adult turf battles, to be a scandal. Audits, and the horror stories of countless parents dealing with district bureaucracy, have underscored long standing failures of proper board policy and fiscal oversight. So I fought for repeal of a ridiculous David Gantt sponsored law (written just for Rochester to protect a crony superintendent in 1997) which cut the bureaucracy loose from such oversight. Notice I say proper board oversight. School boards do great harm when they micromanage, grind personal axes, or jump through hoops for special interests. That is why I supported abolishing "liaison" assignments, and a Rube Goldberg contraption of a board committee system, both of which I think encourage the wrong board focus.

I addressed many of these issues in more detail, in prior newsletters, which are excerpted online at www.tom-brennan.com

One thing I know I got right was making Dr. William Cala school superintendent. No Rochester public official is as highly regarded, or widely trusted on education issues. I was the fourth and deciding vote to bring him here. Had I not been there, he may never have come here. My only regret is that he did not apply for the permanent appointment. I have no doubt he would have received it. Dr. Cala was up front about his temporary availability, of course, and the political/media circus about this, where folks who opposed his appointment acted as if it was now their idea, is a tribute to the quality of his work.

I point this out now, because people should pay close attention to Bill Cala's outspoken opposition to so called "Mayoral Control" of city schools (which is code for substituting public voting rights with a political patronage appointment model of school board selection or governance).