ICCSDLeaks

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Winning is the Only Thing

by Barry Arganjight *

"Winning isn't everything... it's the only thing". My hero, Vince Lombardi, swiped this quote from UCLA coach Red Sanders in the 50's. And who is remembered for it today? Vince Lombardi of the green and gold. Why? Because strong people take what they want and weak people admire them for it. That is the deal. If you don't like it, go to your room and cry into your pink and white hanky.

More than three decades ago, I was hired to deliver the highest quality high school education possible to the children of a bunch of affluent white people from out of state (AWPOOS). And, by God I have done it. Today, there is no question in anyone's mind that West High is THE high quality 4A high school in Iowa City. I have won. It is over.

It wasn't easy, I'll tell you. When I took the reins at West, all of the momentum was with a bunch of white Iowans with misguided principles (WIMPs) who lived on the east side of town. The WIMPs believed (and believe to this day) that you can give a high quality education to every kid in the district. I have no idea why any sane person would think this. State educational resources are falling every year and the number of poor kids moving into the district is going up every year. Delivering quality education in this environment requires getting more than average resources for your building in some way or another. It's a "win lose" situation like everything else in life. And why shouldn't it be? Shouldn't a bunch of hard-working, highly-motivated AWPOOS who pay way more than their fair share of taxes expect to get way more than their fair share of educational resources for their kids? It's the way the world works and all true winners know this. The rich get richer, even in a public school system. Losers mill around mumbling about "fairness" and "equality" while life passes them by. They circulate petitions. They campaign for weak school board members who promise to do what is best for the children blah, blah, blah. Winners get down to business and do whatever is necessary to get what they want for themselves and for their team.

In my opinion, all of this bleeding heart talk about "fairness" and "equality" has got to stop. It is a pointless waste of time and resources. The sooner we accept that we live in an economically segregated world and start making decisions based on this reality, the better it will be for everyone. Look, it takes all kinds of people to run the world. Some people will be doctors, lawyers, scientists, accountants, military officers and captains of industry. Some will be teachers, nurses, family farmers and small business owners. Some will be construction workers, waitresses, hairstylists, mechanics, custodians, office clerks and enlisted (wo)men. Some will be unemployed people, drug addicts, criminals and prisoners. Do all these people need the same kind of education? Why does a future criminal or unemployed person need access to advanced math classes or high quality athletic facilities? They don't. But kids who are on their way to the highest levels of our society do need these things to get them prepared for college and graduate school. The competition for the best graduate and professional schools is getting greater and greater every year, and as a result we must focus our very best resources on our very best students if we expect them to succeed.

Some people would say that these ideas are somewhat racist. Nonsense. Race alone has very little to do with education. Everyone knows that. It is poverty that you want to keep out of your school if you want it to succeed. Poverty will kill a school. Fortunately, it is not illegal to discriminate against people because they are poor, and as a result, there is nothing standing in the way of additional socioeconomic segregation in our community even if a lot of the poor people just happen to be African American or Hispanic. All great cities have wealthy parts of town and poor parts of town and it is time that we have the same. As we progressively concentrate the poorest people of our community in one or two areas and the richest people in a few others, it will minimize the district-funded travel costs associated with the five high school scenario I have outlined below.

Five high schools! How can we possibly afford that? Easy. The Catholics will pay for one of them (and contribute their tax dollars to support the other four), three of them won't be very elaborate or costly, and the fifth one will be an absolutely outstanding 4A school with the best of everything: West High.

The keys to this plan are the following:

The Catholics' willingness to pay twice for their kids' education (property taxes and private school tuition) and their surprising commitment to the east side of Iowa City.
The predictable political weakness of poor people and their dependence on public transportation.
The predictable political weakness of WIMPs and their charming but completely naive reliance on elected officials to "do the right thing" (even after years of evidence to the contrary).
The predicable political strength of AWPOOS, their relentless drive to get what they perceive to be best for themselves and their kids, and their sense of entitlement to things that are "more than average" and "better than average" even in the realm of public services.

The central feature of the five school plan is the elimination of City High as we know it. The City High physical plant will be traded to Regina in an even exchange for their physical plant. The statue of the Madonna currently in front of Regina will be placed on the Statue of Liberty pedestal and the Statue of Liberty will be moved to the little garden where the Madonna now stands. Some stained glass will need to be moved from the current Regina building to the current City High building and various signs will need to be changed, but otherwise it will be a pretty low cost move for both schools. The ICCSD will gain a physical plant that is much less expensive to maintain than the current City High campus and everyone will be able to drop all pretense of City High being "equal" in any way, shape or form to West High. I believe that the "new City High" should be even be renamed in honor of Plain Lugge, the ICCSD superintendent who first recognized the incredible value of intentional socioeconomic stratification in the ICCSD. Lugge High will have an enrollment of 600-800 students. With it's new physical plant, Regina will have the opportunity to grow to an almost Xavier-sized Catholic school (about 500 students at the high school level) and might even be able to compete at the 4A level in sports. This will also give non-Catholic homeowners on the east side of town a viable choice for a quality K-12 school experience if they are willing to pay for it. Hopefully, with this private school option available to them, the folks in Windsor Ridge will stop asking for a new elementary school that we can't afford and don't need. And, maybe everyone will also shut up about the bathrooms at Bates Field and the rice paddy to the west of it. These problems can be remedied by the Catholics after they take over (at no cost to the non-Catholic taxpayers).

The reason that we can't afford a new elementary school on the east side of town is that we need to use the remaining SILO money to build a small Solon-like 3A high school in North Liberty (estimated enrollment of 300-600 students) and to add on to West High (to increase its capacity to about 2200 students). In preparation for the latter addition, Meve Sturley and I recently added some more portable classrooms at West. We wanted to strengthen the "brand loyalty" to West High as much as possible among the more affluent families of the Iowa City/Coralville/North Liberty community until the full impact of the five schools plan can be felt (forever solidifying the West High brand loyalty among the well-to-do).
The net effect of all these changes will be to increase the community's enrollment capacity at the high school level to about 4220 students (an increase of 500 students). This should be more than enough capacity at the high school level for the foreseeable future.

Current	Five School Plan
West – 1800	West – 2200
Regina – 200	"New Regina" – 500
City – 1600	Lugge – 800
Tate – 120	Tate – 120
	North Liberty – 600
Total – 3720	Total – 4220

In addition to solving the capacity problem for our district, this five school plan will have some tremendous socioeconomic and athletic benefits as well. I would envision redistricting the ICCSD along socioeconomic lines to send all children living in mobile home parks and section eight housing units to Lugge High. [I know this sounds hard to do, but it has been done in the ICCSD in the past and worked very well]. This will significantly reduce the free and reduced lunch percentages at West High and North Liberty High. It will also create enough room at West High that we will be able to accept transfers from anywhere in Johnson County. Thus, any family who is affluent enough and/or motivated enough to provide transportation for their child will be able to attend West High if they want a "top of the line" high school experience. For example, everyone in the Lincoln Elementary School district will be able to come back to West High if they want to. However, students from poor families anywhere in the district will be strongly encouraged to attend Lugge High, which will have a special low expectation curriculum specifically tailored to non-college-bound students.

No facilities upgrades will be performed now or in the future at Lugge High. It is a nice facility now and will just be kept as is. Similarly, North Liberty High will be built as a no frills country school. No special music facilities or auditorium will be built, just a basic combination football/baseball/soccer/band field with inexpensive bleachers and a combination gym/auditorium. If a student in North Liberty aspires to more facilities than this, he or she can drive down to West High or Regina. By focusing all of the district's high school facility dollars on West High, we will be able to keep it absolutely top notch despite the dwindling education dollars in our state.

The benefits for West High athletics will also be tremendous. Currently, West High has only a two-fold advantage in athletic preparation over City High (i.e., two sets of junior high athletes attend West while the remaining junior high feeds City). In the five school plan, the very best athletes from FOUR junior high schools (Northwest, North Central, Southeast and Regina) will all be able to attend West High if they want to. And who wouldn't want to? With this incredible advantage in facilities and recruiting, West High will become invincible even in football. I am sure that a group of West High boosters can be organized to provide transportation to West for poor kids who live in the Lugge High enrollment areas if they are excellent athletes.

So, what do we need to do?

STOP all further spending on east side schools. Affluent people who want to live on the east side of town for whatever reason can send their kids to Regina. The poor people in our community will still be getting a pretty good deal when you consider how little they pay in taxes.
Trade City High to Regina, move the statues and the stained glass, and rename the east side ICCSD high school Plain Lugge High. Within a year or two, people will get over it and accept the new reality, thereby freeing up LOTS of resources for the remaining 4A school: West High.
Redistrict the ICCSD to assign all section 8 housing, all mobile home parks and all neighborhoods east of the Iowa River and south of I-80 to Lugge High.
Build a no-frills high school in North Liberty and assign students from Penn, van Allen and Garner to it.
Add the Arganjight "Winning is the Only Thing" Wing (400 students of state-of-the-art classroom capacity) to West High to immediately reduce overcrowding and to allow any gifted student and/or athlete in the district to attend West High (if they can provide their own transportation).

*This piece is a satire. It was not authored by or approved by the current principal of West High. It is up to the reader to decide which parts of it, if any, are true and which of these truths, if any, are applicable to the current state of affairs in the ICCSD.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Blog Post Removed from Press Citizen

It's difficult to watch new school board members combine forces with previously elected members to circle the wagons of the Iowa City Community School District and conceal damaging evidence.

Apparently, He Who Must Not Be Named continues as before. When Phil Hemingway, who ran, nearly successfully, for the school board brought up specific instances of physical plant director Paul Schultz's wasteful, unnecessary spending, carrying firearms onto school district property, and a sexist email of a large-busted woman at the physical plant, board member Sarah Swisher was quick to rebuke Phil for his "inappropriate . . . personal attack" on Paul Schultz.

Let's take a long look at how much has not changed at the physical plant and what needs to change. No-bid contracts are still in force, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars the district can't afford to waste. Paul Schultz, who carried at least one gun onto school district property where a Home Building Program for high school students was based at the time, has not been fired. Nor has he been fired for creating a hostile work environment for women. He hasn't been fired for harassing any employees, male or female, even when the district settled out of court with at least one physical plant employee who sued Paul Schultz for harassment after the employee fell and hurt his back. When the employee came back to work, Schultz assigned him jobs beyond the scope of his physician-ordered work limitations. Then Schultz tried to fire him because he wasn’t qualified to do his job.

Absolutely nothing has changed. Maybe Paul Schultz has stopped bringing weapons onto school district property, a practice which is particularly troubling when you consider the fact that he supervises a hostile work environment. Maybe he has stopped posting sexist emails or directing other employees to post sexist emails.

However, Schultz is still wasting money. Schultz pays more than he needs to for motor oil. He pays more than he should for a lot of things. For example, he doesn't collect late fines when contractors have late fines guaranteed in their contracts if they fail to do construction work on time at City High. You're six months late finishing a job and you owe the district $9,700? Not a problem. The district will gladly absorb the delay and collect no fines.

Should we continue to sweep He Who Must Not Be Named's offenses under the rug when he's still unwilling to spare the school district unnecessary expense? Should Garner Elementary School’s $100,000 parking lot be done over again at district expense because the ground at Garner Elementary School wasn't properly prepared prior to paving it? Bob Porter, the district's former safety coordinator, personally explained to me how the ground should have been prepared for paving to stabilize the land prior to paving it so it wouldn’t have to be done over again.

Why pay the same dollar twice? Why fire staff who know what they’re doing and could have saved the district unnecessary expense?

Do you know that Paul Schultz verbally attacks local vendors when they do something that displeases him? Two vendors, both women, told me personally how Paul Schultz treated them. He swore at them, called them demeaning, sexist names, and generally behaved in a way that one businesswoman said she hadn't heard but two or three times in 30 years of doing business. Both vendors were at first willing to go public, but one later changed her mind, possibly because of her husband’s reaction to Schultz after Schultz verbally abused his wife.

Michele Freeman Crow of Freeman's Locks & Alarms is still willing to go public about how Paul Schultz treated her. She and her business currently do work for the Clear Creek/Amana school district. She reports a pleasant, no-hassle relationship with Clear Creek/Amana without the verbal abuse she experienced while dealing with Schultz.

So does feminist, Johnson County Democratic Party member Sarah Swisher not object to women being treated as objects instead of people? Does she not object to a supervisor creating a hostile work environment for women and men alike? That's an odd stance for her to take, especially if she still works for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a union that purports to protect workers from this kind of abuse.

Maria Houser Conzemius

POSTSCRIPT

Patrick Riepe, the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s online editor, removed the above blog post from the Press-Citizen’s website after it had been posted for several days and had received 23 recommendations. This is Maria’s first blog post to be removed since Jeff Charis-Carlson, the opinion page editor, fired her from the Press-Citizen’s Writers’ Group for refusing to accept his editing of her article, “Safety Violations and Firearms in the ICCSD” on the April 2011 section of this website.

Jeff deleted all references to ICCSD physical plant director Paul Schultz by name, and deleted a reference to Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness’ refusal to prosecute Schultz for carrying one or more firearms onto school district property, which is a Class D felony. Lyness’ specious reasoning rationalizing her decision at the time was that the district’s physical plant was not a “school” although a Home Building Program for students was located at the physical plant at the time. Students had access to home-building materials and bathrooms at the plant. If a student carried firearms into a school, he or she would be expelled.

Charis-Carlson also strongly implied in his edited version of Maria’s piece that Dave Gurwell, retired assistant physical plant director, was responsible for serious safety violations that occurred in Iowa City schools after Bob Porter, the former safety coordinator, had his position eliminated for doing his job too well. Maria refused to accept Jeff’s editing, which compromised the piece enough to say something she didn’t say and knew was not factually true. Gurwell told Schultz that he wasn’t qualified to take the job that was foisted on him to no avail. Schultz added Bob Porter’s safety coordinator position to Gurwell’s already significant responsibilities as assistant director. Gurwell soon took early retirement, as have other physical plant employees.

After arguing with Jeff about the inaccuracy of his excessive editing, Maria was then fired from the Writers’ Group in March 2011, but allowed to keep her blog and invited to write an occasional guest opinion.

We all got additional clues as to what the Press-Citizen wants in the way of news and opinion about the school district in senior day editor Tricia Brown’s 12/3/11 editorial, “Changes in the Press-Citizen’s coverage of school.”

“Our goal is to continue to provide Press-Citizen readers with good news about our schools and our students, while showcasing the talents of the young journalists . . . . We look forward to this new partnership with our high local schools [sic] and to continuing to provide quality coverage of K-12 education, including positive news about your schools and your students.”

Is it a newspaper’s job to publish nothing but good news about a school district with serious flaws? Is it a newspaper’s job to suppress criticism of the school district, including its Occupational and Safety Health Act violations and fines; Department of Natural Resources violations and fines; Internal Revenue Service violation and fine; a district supervisor carrying firearms onto school district property; the physical plant’s hostile, sexist work environment; mismanagement of funds; expensive legal fees to reduce fines and settle lawsuits by harassed and injured employees out of court, and the superintendent’s refusal to fire administrators who waste funds on no-bid contracts with their cronies in private business?

It would seem that that despite the fact that criticism brings serious problems to light so that they can be fixed, the Press-Citizen is unwilling to publish hard news and op-eds that are critical of the school district. Why is our local newspaper serving as a public relations arm of the school district and the current, completely unacceptable status quo? If the Press-Citizen is willing to fill that role, why is the district paying a public relations executive to elevate the district’s image?