Sunday, April 3, 2011

Brunswick School Board/Department breaks new ground

(Politically, that is, until such time as they can move on to their next construction project.)

In the process of putzing around on the Brunswick School Department web site, driven by the need to atone for our prior transgressions, we ran across some interesting things.

First, the School Board has established a Political Action and Media Committee.  That’s a title fraught with all sorts of possibilities, especially considering the local “media” outlet.  When it comes to School Department reporting, Ostrich demeanor could best be described as fawning and lap-dog like.

The Committee had its first meeting this past week.  It remains to be seen just where their intentions will lead.  It’s probably too late in this budget cycle to propose hiring a political and media consultant, but it shouldn’t be too long before the need arises.

We also discovered that there is now an Affirmative Action Committee.  Traditionally, we’ve come to expect Affirmative Action policy to justify, and even more, demand unequal treatment under the law in admissions to higher education establishments.

Unless something has changed, we don’t think admissions policy is a relevant topic in Brunswick Schools, though we understand parents can become quite testy when it comes to assigning their children to elementary schools.

Generally speaking, ‘Affirmative Action’ isn’t a high profile issue in Maine overall.  It may be, however, what it will take to infuse some token conservative presence and thinking into the government schools context.

Here’s another thought: perhaps affirmative action is called for to deal with making college bound kids college ready when they graduate from the Brunswick system.  Lack of college readiness is a well established problem across the nation.  In many cases, the first year of college is lost in correcting this shortfall.

Friday’s Ostrich contained this thought from the Chancellor of the University of Maine System:

Looking ahead, Pattenaude cites a need to reduce the number of incoming students needing remediation in order to take college courses.

The foregoing developments provide perfect subject matter for the Political Action and Media Committee to publicize. Surely the taxpaying public should know just what it is these bodies are intended to accomplish.

No comments:

Post a Comment