Blame the general not the soldiers

When Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, was it because his soldiers just weren't that good?

When the Cleveland Browns are 2 and 10, who is more likely to lose their job? The players or the coach?

In polite society we have a specific way of laying blame. No matter who screws up, we send the blame strait to the top.   No matter what the situation is, we have an unspoken agreement that we blame the general and not the soldiers.  After all, chances are the soldiers were probably just doing what the general told them to do in the first place.

This is the norm.
And we all like it.

When this norm is violated, we get grumpy.

Only social parasites would sink so low as to violate this unspoken rule (i.e. politicians looking for a scapegoat or big businesses laying off thousands of workers while the CEO floats away on a golden parachute).


During bargaining this summer there was a lot of blaming going on. Unfortunately our district administrators and school board chose to take the low road by continually placing the blame on teachers.

I think we can all agree those were ugly times.

Fortunately as a community we saw through the smoke and mirrors and recognized the truth. Leadership in PSD has been failing for quite some time, and our children deserve better.  And now that the district has had to admit that they do in fact have major gaps in curriculum, outdated text books, non-compliance with state regulations, and sickening conditions of neglect in several of our schools we can all move forward toward solutions right? Right?


Then a funny thing happened last week. And by funny I mean it would be funny if it weren't real life, with thousands of children and millions of dollars at stake.

It snowed.

Blessed, beautiful white stuff! How I adore thee! You delayed that calculus test!
You prevented me from having to give that presentation at work! You...
...Oh nuts, I'm out of toilet paper and the car is buried. 

Okay that's not the funny part.
It snowed and PSD couldn't decide whether to close school or not because "we can't afford a snow day" because of the teacher strike.

If you missed this gem from KEPR, here it is. Though I have to warn ELA teachers, you may have a small stroke if you read the whole thing and most other aficionados of the Queen's Grammar will feel oddly dirty when you're done.


http://keprtv.com/news/local/pasco-hopes-for-good-weather-they-cant-afford-more-days-into-the-summer

Miriam wants you to group your thoughts into paragraphs and have subjects in all your sentences. Miriam does
not want to have to use the broken pencil again, KEPR. But Miriam will do what she must.

So! Beyond grammatical quirks,  let's point out a couple of teensy weensy fact issues there are in this article right from the start. "The district has already added two weeks onto the school year because of the strike." Um... the strike was 9 days, not two weeks. This is a relatively minor detail I know, but facts are facts and this is a professional news organization for crying out loud.

"...Balancing out on the 19th of June , which would be the last day of school if there are no snow days." Okay and here, the last day of school is cited as being on June 19. I don't have my school calendar in front of me, but I can say with a certain amount of confidence that the 19th was never going to be the last day of school since the 19th is a Sunday. And Father's Day, but I digress. So as a last day of school, June 19th seems unlikely since, per board policy, we like to keep our kids home on weekends.  ;)   Again, a minor mistake but when you make 80K a year as the public relations rep for the district, you ought to be able to read a calendar and give out good information. And if you want to be taken seriously as a news organization, you ought to be better at fact checking.

Enough about that though. Let's get back to the meat of this issue. Blame.

Teacher, this is entirely your icky fault. You
never should have asked for crayons,
copies and curriculum when you knew very well that
sometimes snow falls from the sky.
Shame on you.

The gist of this article is basically that PSD can't afford to have a snow day because of the teacher strike. That's right, that strike the teachers totally are to blame for. The one where they maliciously twisted their mustaches like somebody with a striped red and purple beaver skin hat or a monocle. Kids' safety is at risk because of it.  And now seniors may not be able to graduate on time. We will have to have mandatory Saturday school (so much for that coveted family time) if our seniors are going to get enough school days in before graduation.

We're doomed. Doomed. DOOMED I SAY!!!

Where is the district pointing their finger? Teachers. Teachers are once again the reason for all our problems.



BUT!! There is a very shiny silver lining in this dark and gloomy snow cloud.

Parents. Parents have once again shown their love for the teachers who spend every day caring for their children.

When this news article posted, the comments following it on Facebook were amazing. Parent after parent posted the other obvious reason for the delay-causing-strike. Simply put, PSD had a hard time with giving teachers basic supplies and curriculum, so the teachers decided to hold out for it.  "Because the district forced the teachers to go on strike, our children now have to go to school later into the summer," said one parent. It's a subtle distinction that makes all the difference in the world. It places the blame where it belongs, back on the generals.

Those comments give me hope. Those comments remind me that even though we may not have a lot of common sense coming from our district administrators, we at least still have some common sense in our community.  That is very good news.

Pasco School District has been void of quality leadership for a very very long time. I don't know when a real leader will step up but the good news is we will know them when we see them. How? They will be the only person standing in the Booth saying, "It's my responsibility, and I'm actually going to do something about it."

Until that day, carry on brave soldiers, carry on.