Tuesday, March 20, 2007

An Outstanding Public Servant

......................Solon..........................
Sometimes our little city gets lucky. For 16 years Raymond C. Walton has guided the town of Knox. He was buried today. For these many years Mr. Walton has been the Clerk - Treasurer of Knox, Indiana. He executed the duties of his office with extraordinary skill. He demonstrated extraordinary competence. I know of no other public official that can rise to his standard of skill and competency. I wish all public officials would attempt to emulate the career of this great public official.

There is no reason that the average citizen of Knox has the foggiest notion as to what I am talking about. After all, Clerk - Treasurer of Knox, Indiana, isn’t very impressive sounding. Hell, being Mayor of Knox, Indiana certainly doesn’t cast a great shadow. So let me tell you a little about Ray Walton, Clerk – Treasurer. Ray knew where the money came from and where it went. That alone is a fairly big deal. I can assure you than many other cities have Clerk – Treasurers that don’t know that much. Beyond that Ray knew exactly what the rules were. He knew what needed to be spent. He knew what shouldn’t be spent. He knew what bonds were and how to use them correctly. He knew how a budget needed to be written. He knew how to wring every last cent out of the State that the City had coming.

But having the knowledge doesn’t mean that you have the skill to communicate that knowledge or the persuasive skill to convince the public officials in charge to behave wisely. Well Ray Walton had that skill. It was obvious that Ray had no ambition to be Mayor. It was also obvious that he had knowledge, not bullshit. This allowed Mayors to simply follow his advice without worrying about screw-ups or political competition. Ray made the Mayors look good. The department heads (police, streets, water) knew they could trust what he had to say. If he said cut back, they trusted that is what they had to do. They also knew that if they badly needed something, Ray would find a way.

Sadly the Starke County government has not had anyone of Ray’s stature. Stupid decisions have been made and there are short term and long-term bad consequences. We will see County government struggle for years to come.

There is a lot more that could be said about Raymond C. Walton as a fine example of a human being and a man. But I don’t do obituaries.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Under the Arches

Homo floresiensis, ancient hobbit-sized human species, lived 18,000 years ago on the remote Indonesian island of Flores.
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Today's trivia question to prepare you for the “Clash of Civilizations”.
How do you translate the latin "Homo sapiens".
Click here and Scoll down to "Interests" for the answer.

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In the little land of Shet (called Sheet in the South and Shitt by their neighbors) lived the delightfully mannish race called Halfsapiens (or in the common mouth-tongue, Bobbots) that devoted their days to drinking coffee through a large sugar cube held between their front teeth. As they sipped their favorite beverage (they called Koffee) (at 7:00, 10:00, Noon, 2:00, and 4:00) the Halfsapiens (or Bobbots)(That is what they called themselves!) would think very deep thoughts (of a philosophical sort) and after every sip of their Koffee would expound upon whatever philosophical topic happened to be up for discussion that particular Koffhour (7:00, 10:00, Noon, 2:00, and 4:00).

Koffhour at the home of Dildo Mortfin was a particular delight! At the end of Mortsfinis lane the household was famous for the quality of the philosophical discussions. Let’s listen! It’s 4:30 and the Koffee and the Koffhour is getting a little bitter! The famous philosopher SheetWhipe (from the River Whipe in the south of Shet) was visiting that afternoon, “As I have fabulously discovered, 2 negatives create a positive. However 2 positives do not create a negative!” “Yeah, Yeah.” muttered a tired and hungry Dildo. The Bobbots (knowing how to take a hint) began to make their departures (and not a moment too soon!).

The above delightful excerpt is from an unpublished anonymous manuscript that I inherited from my maiden Aunt Juniper. (It has been rumored that she was the first love of the British fantasy writer Tolkein. He typically cryptically called his adolescent infatuation Evergreen.) (In the family we called her Ginny) In any case, I have decided to publish this excerpt because it so reminds me of the coffee klutch at McDonalds. Those old and odd fellows drinking their senior coffees and philosophizing could easily be mistaken for Bobbots; don’t you think? Ah! What wondrous ponderous ratiocinations!
Next time you’re in Knox stop in on south Heaton Street for some cheap coffee and conversation! BTW: It's the best coffee in town.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Teacher Pay and Performance

There is an Anonymous comment on Problems with Merit from a North Judson reader that mentions that she (or he) was a finalist for last year’s Lily [sic] scholarship. She points out that the winners were hard working and deserving. That certainly needed to be said. So, thanks, Anonymous. Her school pride in North Judson’s performance is quite indicative of the attitude at North Judson that gives them such an advantage over Knox. Anonymous says, “I am from North Judson and we made up 5 of the 10 finalists from the county, not to mention our other winner from Judson in Pulaski County! Go Jays!” WOW. North Judson had 2 winners. I must say that they are getting nice results for their brightest students.

This begs the two questions, what is wrong with Knox and what is right with North Judson? I think that North Judson has made a concerted effort to nurture its brightest students. Their Academic Bowl program is high intensity with dedicated teacher and student efforts. I think North Judson makes an effort where Knox doesn’t. There are many opportunities at Knox to put together high impact programs in the sciences, arts and letters. However, these opportunities are not pursued.

I would like to tell “what if” story. What if a veteran teacher from North Judson applied for a job at Knox. This teacher is interested in pursuing a new classroom opportunity that is available in Knox. It so happens that this same teacher is a driving force on the North Judson Academic Bowl team. Even if this was the most qualified candidate, and even though it would be well understood that this would be a great opportunity to improve our top-end academic performance, this teacher would not be hired. Why not? Because this teacher would be a veteran instructor and would have to be paid at the top of the scale. We don’t hire veteran instructors if we can avoid it. So that is one problem with Knox. If Knox really cared about this sort of thing we would be recruiting and hiring teachers with proven skills.

This brings up another comment from
Lemuel's Mother made in response to Treating Teachers like Crap. The comment was about teacher pay. It is a widely held, rather common conservative viewpoint that paying teachers more money is either pointless or wasteful. I think it is evident that our school board holds closely to this viewpoint and the community, in large, agrees. The argument goes something like this: “Teachers have been getting pay increases and the student results haven’t been getting any better. Ergo, increased pay for teachers is a waste.” Underlying this argument is another widely held view that teachers really don’t do anything especially difficult. Hence, the claim, teachers could be replaced by housewives and nobody would notice a difference. If there is any truth to the above argument it is only because the administration makes it true. If the administration and school board does their job correctly, we do not have weak teachers. They are either not hired or are fired.

Adequate pay means that we are paying enough to attract and retain good teachers. When the school board lies and cheats in pay negotiations Knox ends up paying teachers less. (
Treating Teachers like Crap). I suppose some in our community will cheer. That sort of overly cute behavior means that the best teachers will find employment elsewhere. We will be left with those teachers that can’t find employment elsewhere. The result will be a continuing decline in our school’s quality. Sad.