Submitted by KM Hills.
The other day on Facebook I read the following..
“Smart men don’t tell you how smart they are.
Rich men don’t tell you how rich they are.
Tough men don’t tell you how tough they are.
Honest men don’t tell you how honest they are.
Con men do.”
Since 2016 I have never seen the word narcissists (thinking very highly of oneself, needing admiration) in so many publications.
Is it just me, or is there one School District, in the South Sound, that publishes more “look at how good we are doing” articles than any of the others?
Just something to ponder over the next week.
As a tax payer and product of said school district, I think it is important for them to show us what they are doing, but I would prefer acknowledgement of failures and not since sunshine. You can’t improve doing nothing but staring at your accomplishments.
One of the fast food restaurants adds, “Show us the beef”. Sums up what the public wants to see.
Hah! And here I thought this was going to be about a certain former President. Very apt, nonetheless.
“look at how good we are doing”… in everything other than what matters most: academics. Isn’t that the primary reason we have schools?
But what would you expect from a school district that is near the bottom 28% of all school districts statewide, a high school in the bottom 6.8%, a middle school in the bottom 2.6% and an elementary school in the bottom 2.2%? Nothing to see here…move along. And now they stand here with their hands out for yet more money as though that’s going to solve problems they refuse to address. Ignoring these problems will not make them go away nor will millions in more spending in the current manner.
Gosh, maybe it’s time to question why this particular school district has had difficulty
achieving academic success?
* students may be coming from families that have little interest in encouraging learning
* students may have little support from both parents especially Dad’s who leave the family
with no financial support
* could having a major military population (we support our service members, yeah, yeah in
In Lakewood, 🇺🇸) but forget some that some of the city’s problems are due to their presence
and what they leave behind.
Suggestion
* parenting classes on the bases
* decrease the military presence
.
You’ve given a lot of “may be’s” without any documentation. As such they are merely excuses; a case of the “workman blaming his tools.” The District touts diversity as its strength and then complains about diversity as its weakness. Which is it: you can’t have it both ways.
Despite your undocumented “may be’s” there are hard cold facts regarding the military families contribution to CPSD. Here are some facts:
Military connected students represent 34.5% (4394) of District students (12736) with about 2/3rds (2717) of those students attending the 6 elementary schools on base: Beachwood, Meriwether, Rainier, Carter Lake, Evergreen and Hillside.
If it were not for the superior academic achievement of these 6 military connected elementary schools, the District’s academic ranking would be significantly lower than it already is.
Here are the facts straight from the OSPI Report Card website.
JBLM elementary students meeting state standards in ELA (English Language Arts), 57%, math, 51%, science, 57%.
CPSD elementary students (excluding JBLM) meeting state standards in ELA, 34%, math, 29% science, 36%
.
This superior academic performance includes all races and ethnicities. Indeed the disparities between racial/ethnic groups in ELA, math and science are greatly reduced in JBLM schools compared to the rest of the District.
So in effect we have a high performing district on JBLM inside a failing district outside JBLM. When was the last time past Boards visited JBLM schools to learn their “secrets” of high academic performance? When was the last time they visited failing schools outside JBLM to learn why they were failing? Not in my recent memory.
Military connected schools and students aren’t part of the problem. They are part of the solution if the District would just stop using them as excuses for its academic failure.
If you look beyond the school system at the adults who come from that system, you see a growing number of people who see government as responsible for their well-being. Of course they do.
So many of our elected “leaders” spend their time with narcissistic pandering to our “most-vulnerable” and those who are easily gulled into the mindset of pity. Great saviors.
To be a quiet producer who makes his own way around here, is to be completely under-appreciated and taxed to a point of discouragement.
Ironically, those who boast with great pride of accomplishment, are often parasites to a struggling host.
More ironically, the parasitic narcissist will work tirelessly and without end, to extract from others, touting reclamation of ill-gotten worth, regardless of the sacrifices of the host. They simply don’t care.
When one host dies they will grab on to another.
The recent firings of top university heads has shown how systemic this mindset problem has become.
America got into this position because, with decades of a “debt-driven” economy, we could afford to.
Now with over 33 trillion dollars of interest-bearing debt at the national level, that option is falling off the table.
What remains is very simple.
People must live within their means no matter how small, for as long as they must, and the number of government jobs must shrink to less than half the current number.
That’s how we lived as a producing nation before all this government subsidy was created.
We were happier and more capable.
We were proud but not in a fake narcissistic way.
We had real skills and maintained our own stuff because we had tools and knew how to use them. That’s how we spent our time.
That’s how we earned our keep.
If a school system is not instilling this rugged individualism into the hearts and minds of our youth, what in the hell do we need it for?
Imagine if we had those trillions back and we had invested just half of those dollars over these past decades, in production and infrastructure and trade skills.
The school system would be smaller and more streamlined.
We would still have higher education for our best and brightest without the distraction of that which is now being “forgiven” because it produced nothing but an indoctrinated mind – an expectant mind – a mind whose expectations are being met by pandering narcissists.
School shootings would not even be a thing, as they never were before, but then that wouldn’t play well into the direction we are heading as a captured society, would it?
The issue of public schools doesn’t stop with the kids. It starts with the kids, who grow up quickly and continuously, to become adults, who will either contribute or extract.
You got me John, I have no statistics.
Can we get the parental population that are not involved in the military to move
to Lacey?
LOL! That could be a solution but not very practical or probable!
However let’s take a look at some things that might make JBLM schools so impressive. I speak not only as a parent (3 sons who attended CPSD) and long time observer but also behavioral scientist (BS from Univ. S. Colorado), retired intelligence/operations Major (21 years US Army) and and systems analyst with RAND Corp. The following are potential reasons for success which the District should investigate to develop the data.
They have a sense of community being in military families and on base. Lakewood had several community organizations in the past most of which no longer exist. Why are there no “community representative” organizations or advisory boards in either City or District?
They have discipline that springs from military life. The impact of military justice on parents transfers to children. This is a level of discipline in UCMJ that goes beyond civilian law. Military discipline is no respecter of race or ethnicity: it’s zero tolerance.
They have conservative values that align with those that made our Country great. Their parents swore to defend Constitution and Country from “…enemies foreign and domestic…” with their lives yet is even the Pledge of Allegiance conducted in the District at the beginning of each class day?
They have 3 out of the 5 PTAs that exist in the District according to a FOIA request. What about the other 17 schools? District has no interest in same. There is a need for teacher to student to parent relationships but it has to be greater than that individual level. For parents to develop their political power they must be organized to compete effectively with the educational bureaucracy. A single parent before the Board for 3 minutes means nothing. A group of 50 parents means something.
They often have working 2 parent families or other family/social assets to take care of children. How has that predictor of success been championed by District and City or is it anything goes regarding family structure? How has economic development been prioritized for good paying jobs vs. greatest real estate tax revenue?
The JBLM “bubble” is beyond the reach of non-military students who do not intermix (until later grades) or campaigning for the Board yet they still succeed. This physical separation from the District headquarters may be one of the biggest benefits of being behind a barb wire fence! JBLM may more likely set their own course and do those things necessary for academic success.
Could these be reasons for JBLM school success? Perhaps or perhaps not but it should be interesting enough for the District to investigate, provide those findings to the rest of the schools and incorporate them into the District’s policies and priorities. Similarly the District should analyze failure just as earnestly. The issues you brought up need just as much investigation to determine what doesn’t work.
Or the District could continue to go “same old-same old” for another decade and lose the opportunity to do right by our children educationally.
LakewoodCARES