BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, NOV. 12, 2015) — One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again but expecting the outcome to change. Pittsfield voters just returned the same school committee to office. If they’re expecting different results, that’s insane.

The same six bureaucrats who negotiated record pay raises for teachers and administrators, continued to ignore the alarming signs of academic deterioration, grabbed $24,000 for themselves, and looked the other way on accountability have been returned to do it for two more years.

During the campaign, PSC candidates said the most irksome things. They skated because no one pays attention to this race. Why should they? The school committee is responsible for wasting 71 cents of every tax dollar the city pick-pockets from Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski. It’s strictly Three C: Chumps for Chump Change.

PSC Chair Wants to Hire Dealers and Hookers  

PSC chairwoman Kathy (“These Boots Are Made For Walking”) Yon, for instance, pledge “meaningful, engaging opportunities for our students who are at risk of not graduating.” See? It’s not the young scholar’s fault he or she has skipped school, failed to pay attention, and refused to do homework. It’s your fault, taxpayers, for not providing “meaningful, engaging opportunities.” Yon, of course, never defined what those “opportunities” look like.

Oh yeah, and “These Boots” talked about “recruiting a staff that is more representative of the diversity of our population.” You know, and THE PLANET knows, she’s speaking in code. Good lord. A “more representative” staff would include drug dealers, addicts, gang members, pimp, hookers, and other assorted children of the night.

Off the Chartered Course

“These Boots,” a sworn enemy of charter schools, was joined in the campaign by another board member whose Slinky also is a tad kinked. Cindy Taylor, referring to Gov. Baker’s measure asking legislators to lift the cap on charter schools, said “for Pittsfield, the timing couldn’t be worse.” Charter schools, you see, consistently outperform the standard public school model and for less money. Charter schools free staff of bureaucratic red tape and the iron-fisted teachers’ union rule. No wonder the PSC doesn’t like them.

And what did the other PSC Profiles in Courage have to say? Here’s more sampling.

Pam Farron talked of her “commitment to collaborative leadership,” whatever that means. Farron did inform us that Pittsfield has “a fully functioning, highly productive school committee that knows how to build consensus on issues so that forward progress can be made.” As opposed to “reverse progress,” we suppose. And you thought dirt was dumb.

Josh Cutler, whose ambitions have proven taller than his aptness, spoke of “the great things we are accomplishing in the Pittsfield public schools. Over the past two years, we have passed critical policies, advanced important projects, and passed [GET THIS!!] responsible, balanced budgets.” Cutler failed to provide examples of the “great things.” He must have been speaking of loaded guns in middle school and the like. Young Josh: Two years later and still trying too hard for a place at the adult’s table.

Tony Riello, who collects a handsome pension courtesy for his many years feeding in the public trough, told us his wife is a retired elementary school teacher and his daughter teaches in the Pittsfield school system. Man, that’s what we call “focus.”

Only Dan Elias had the stones to admit to serious “areas of concern” that the PSC failed to address. Unlike the dreaded others, Elias gave examples. He mentioned bullying, loss of students to school choice, absentee parents, and other problems.

Despite a grade of “F,” the Same Sibilant Six got back in.

That, dear friends, is insanity.

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“Not a word between us was spoken. No the silence never was broken.” — Frankie Laine, “The 3:10 to Yuma,” from the album Hell Bent for Leather, (1962).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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