Several years ago, a narrative took root about the Rochester school district: low graduation rates and inept management are largely due to adults who are putting their interests above what’s good for students; jobs for adults are more important than the needs of students became a well-worn refrain.
The position, a not-so-thinly-veiled reference to the Rochester Teachers Union and school board members, was used to try to sell mayoral control and the expansion of charter schools.
This week, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and City Council President Loretta Scott used the full weight of their political positions to threaten funding for the second phase of the $1.2 billion schools modernization project. Citing alleged criminal wrongdoing and mishandling of the $325 million for the first phase of the project, they lobbied lawmakers for 11th-hour changes to the legislation that they say will improve oversight and protect taxpayers.Â
Warren and Scott got their way, though we still don’t know if lawmakers in Albany will approve the funding for the second phase of the project. The vote should happen on Thursday.Â
That’s not to say that Warren’s and Scott’s concerns are’t legitimate or that they aren’t concerned about the welfare of city students. But let’s be clear, a large component of this dispute was about protecting construction jobs for adults in this community. Some people have described the entire project as the biggest jobs bill to ever hit the city. And there’s some truth to that.Â
Warren and Scott should be concerned about bringing more jobs to the city; that’s partly what they were elected to do. The Rochester school district employs thousands of adults annually. And money that passes through the district employs thousands more. No, they aren’t all for people who live in the city, but many are.
Let’s stop pretending that education isn’t big business, especially in the Rochester economy.Â
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2014.
When one visits a site of City School District Bldg. improvement one can observe first hand the facts that there are little if any women, young black men, mature white men over the age of 55 or more or minority owned sub contractors performing the prevailing wage work. It has been this way for years ( the good old boys club ) and will continue to be this way unless Lovely and Loretta step up to the plate and hit the “home run” like they did yesterday. Now….with that said am I saying jobs should be given to the aforementioned without the qualifications necessary to perform the tasks ? No I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that we need jobs and the balance has been tipped in favor of steering contracts to those companies that do not hire and train minorities. Yet choose to “fudge” the paperwork to get the money and to hell with the minority.
Craig R. Moffitt
Charlotte high was “modernized” they didn’t put air conditioning in, they have just 1 and a half restrooms for adult female staff( the 3rd floor bathroom is out of order often). They gave been trying to fix the back door so that the work badges could work. I’ve seen people coming in ALL year to try to fix it. When accountability is lacking, the results are shoddy, ill planed and wasteful.
No, the government school monopoly is not a business. It is a political entity that confiscates resources from the real economy, where people and businesses would put them to more productive use, in order to line the pockets of political interests. A business will soon disappear if it doesn’t meet people’s needs efficiently, but the government school monopoly responds only to politics. Once upon a time, one at least could argue that government schools did produce a productive local workforce and citizenry. After decades of declining performance, those days are long gone.
Another big business is the prison system. Many dropouts from city schools end up there. Another big business is the gun industry. It’s shameful that money and jobs are so often put ahead of the common good.