MORNINGSIDE CLOSURE PRODUCES A RARE UTTERANCE OF TRUTH
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION APRIL 17-9, 2026) — For more than a score of years, THE PLANET as well as all other objective observers have plotted a reciprocal but opposite correlation between performance in the Bitchfield public school system and the amount of taxpayer dollars fed into the belly of the beast with a ravenous, nay, insatiable appetite for those precious dollars. The more money fed into the bottomless pit, the worse the performance gets.
One line goes up the chart, and the other line plummets. They intersected about 25 years ago, maybe longer.
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Superintendents, school committees, administrators, teachers, support personnel, and politicians come and go, but the inverse relationship between spending and performance remains. City schools lose millions each year because of school choice, student population declines, administrative staff grows, but nothing and no one has been able to stop the bleed-out.
The most recent action causing angst occurred when the school committee voted to close Morningside School. What caught THE PLANET‘s eye wasn’t so much the decision, which seemed inevitable, but the reasoning behind the decision, as expressed by Supt. Latifah Phillips.
Queen Latifah, an outsider ill-equipped to handle insider politics of corrupt city except to be steamrolled by them — and gratefully, we might add — uttered a rare truth. A high-ranking city official actually leveling with taxpayers? We had to mark the calendar.
She said up front that “the goal [in closing Morningside] is not to save money.” In other words, let’s give said taxpayers a big, neon middle finger. THE PLANET’s guess is that she was mouthing words fed to her by school committee chairman, Mayor Lumpy. Who gave Lumpy the message remains a mystery within an enigma wrapped by a conundrum.
If it’s not to save money, then what?
“The goal is to reinvest that money to make change,” Phillips said.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
———- ooo ———-
Change to what? Except for platitudinous generalities, the Queen wouldn’t or couldn’t say. She said the 374 kids in pre-K through 5th grade will be dispersed in the fall to Allendale, Capeless, Egremont, and Williams elementary schools. She didn’t not share with worried parents the plans for the upcoming crazy quilt of transporting the lids. For all anyone knows, the city plans to sardine the kids into cattle cars under the slogan “Work Makes You Free.” Somehow it would seem fitting.
During the meeting, committeewoman Sara Muil made a tearful motion to shut down Morningside. She cried a river, and our spies tell us she’s up for an Oscar for Best Supporting Performance by a Misguided Do-Gooder.
The school population at Morningside won’t ever be mistaken for the kids in Grant Avenue School in Mayfield. That’s where The Beaver, Whitey Whitney, Larry Mondello, and Judy Hensler went back in the day when everything made sense.
Here are the beyond-sad numbers:
- Just under 90% of the Morningside pupils are “high needs” kids.
- More than 80% are of “low income.”
- A full quarter of the schoolers come in as “English learners.”
You tell us. How is learning supposed to take place?
In short, the school system must pretend it’s about education when academics are actually “play pretend.” There’s no way basic academic skills can be taught to such a sub-population. For all the money fed into the system, city schools are in the business of cleaning up the human detritus of a total social, cultural, and communal collapse. They are for warehousing a deprived population dreadfully resistant to learning.
That’s a truth no city official will ever utter.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
————————————————————–
“[Public] education is a system of imposed ignorance” — Noam Chomsky.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
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Pittsfield politics is NOT about saving money!
If “Jon Melle the have-NOT” lived and paid taxes in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, I would speak at open mic at the Pittsfield City Council meetings to ask for that slogan to be Pittsfield’s official tagline.
I would say: “Isn’t it great that Pittsfield’s Commercial Tax Rate is the 2nd highest in Massachusetts; Holyoke is #1?”
I would say: “Isn’t it great that Pittsfield spends tens of millions of dollars more per fiscal year than its similarly-sized small peer cities?”
I would say: “Isn’t it great that Pittsfield’s municipal debts plus unfunded liabilities are estimated to be close to $1 billion?”
It is unanimous then that Pittsfield politics is NOT about saving money, just like the Pittsfield School Committee’s vote to close Morningside Elementary School….
https://www.wamc.org/news/2026-04-16/pittsfield-high-needs-school-closure
Jon Melle
P.S. What would happen first? Would it be a Hell freezing over? OR Would it be Pittsfield politics saving money? I would give Frosty the Snowman and his snowball-shaped friends better odds surviving in Hell than the PITT$ not burning through “Kapanski Ka$h”.
The goal is to reinvest that money to make small change.
The dumbing down of America, by a Carter jobs for votes program.
Cursive writing, is not taught, so American students, will be unable to read , never mind understand, our founding documents.
Being left to the elitist, litigating class, without a clue , of their rights. They will have none.
The importation of ignorant immigrants, is the new voter base the Uniparty wants.
Providing low a wage controllable workforce, at the expense of taxpayers.
The Amazon model, simple people, doing simple things. Why else would job site enforcement, be restricted?
Carter traded American exceptionalism, for political power, Trump is attempting to Make America Great Again, which the useful idiots, are resisting….
Pray for our children, to understand, what is being done to them.
4/17/26@7:40am
Tom
Good points. The teaching of illiteracy.
Good points? Pussy.
Yes, excellent ones.
If you had a child who attended Morningside School and he/she enjoyed going to school and had the grades to show for it, how long do you think it would take before he/she hated school with these numbers of fellow “students?”
Here are the beyond-sad numbers:
Now, let’s take a look at Dalton and Lenox schools in similarity to Morningside and get the numbers:
Craneville Elementary(Dalton)
Morris Elementary (Lenox)
With those numbers, is it any wonder why people choice out of Bitchfield Pubic Scohols?
Even the “education champion” Tricia Farley-Country Buffet (d-illegal aliens), choose to take her kids out of Bitchfield schools in favor of Lenox schools. I honestly can’t say I blame her.
Speaking of the “education champion,” has anyone gotten TFCB on record about her stance on releasing the “Sheppard’s Pie Report?”
That the whole point. Country sent her kids out of town when she is a primary arbiter of what Bitchfield receives in state aid. Can’t make it up. She should not run for that or any other taxpayer funded office ever. Are we stupid?
How many special needs or below average students choice out? None.
There a more special needs coming from n y to h e c than anyone anywhere else.
Did I see correctly that a Hancock rd property is selling for four million?
All of which you have stated suggests that the hundreds of millions of dollars the Pittsfield public school system has pumped into its system just might not be the answer.
Have you ever watched water eddy its way down a toilet? That is the analogy of the school system as dictated by its continuously recycled and largely chosen and molded, school overseers who seem more interested in spending big money than delivering actual education.
It seems an undeniable fact and be quick to correct me if I am wrong, the more taxpayer money put into the Pittsfield public school system the worse it gets. If one were to take the annual school budget, factoring in ALL related costs, and ever increasing monies, for the last 20 years and parallel them with ratings what would that show?
Latifa should do this and get back to us cuz it might be a shocking revelation huh?
And yes I am aware that most of the actual educators at ground level are dedicated hard working teachers fighting against the tide to do their best.
Over the most recent 10 years, taxpayers have pumped more than $1 billion dollars into (“B”) largely wasted dollars into failing city schools.
Yeah.But B gets you votes.
Not so long ago someone posted where in the ratings Pittsfield schools were. Can we dig out a current one that does not have creative alterations? One not prepared by the city itself.
In the last 20 years, as the school budget has doubled then tripled, how did things get better if at all? What were the average math scores then and what are they now? How about reading? What were the salaries of admin folk such as superintendent, principles, vice principals and vice principals to vice principals and their countless assistants and assistants to the assistants?
What is the current ratio of admin hires to actual teachers? What is the annual salary including health insurance for all who work at the Mercer building?
Would be awesome Dan if you could get discreet interviews with about a dozen teachers and get their inside view of the whole operation. Of course, this would have to be top secret lest they get put on blast by the mayor.
Too bad the raving Marxists didn’t go to bat for Morningside the way they did for the downtown derelicts.
Non-English speaking students and Special Ed students require the bulk of education expenses. Pittsfield isn’t attracting smart students because the district is focused on educating the lowest denominator. Any parent with smart kids is gonna look at school choicing their children into Lenox or Dalton as Marcus has stated.
Now Queen Latifah and her equity crap will make the situation that much worse for white intelligent students, if any remain in the district.
Easy decision to close Morningside. Poorly performing school, parents don’t speak English & less likely to throw a stink. Underperforming students now dispersed among “better” district elementary schools, diluting the performance numbers.
The fossilized Kathy Yon needs to retire. Can’t believe she was voted back onto the School Committee. Sad state of affairs in Pittsfield Schools!
LEN
You are correct about Queen Latifah’s emphasis on “equity.” That code for a type of racist attitude that will hamper the best and brightest. You are also spot on about Yon. She WAY past her expiration date. She doesn’t give strong indications she even knows where she is.
Close Pittsfield City Hall 1st.
You write, “White intelligent students”
Where does that come from? What about the intelligent students who don’t consider themselves white?
What about the “furries”? That identify as cats and dogs!
Will they get litter boxes installed in BOTH boys and girls restrooms, like they did in Southern Berkshire School District?
No, Southern Berkshire School District did not install litter boxes for students who “identify as cats and dogs.” Not in Massachusetts. Not anywhere. This story has been chased down, investigated, and publicly shut down more times than a bad conspiracy blog with a comment section full of people who think Google is a personality trait.
It would, however, be less disturbing than the truth.
The high needs children are likely the victims of drug addicted parents and ruined families. Black families are possibly more motivated to choice out as they want to separate their children from that demographic; certainly they do so in proportionate numbers.
Sad our best days are behind us for sure. Yet they can somehow find the $30 million to build a new ball park, I only came across 2 people that were in favor of that and they played on the minor league team that plays at Wahconah Park.
RK
Agreed. If these were flush times, it’s one thing. The way the city is run and given everything else, citizens and TAXPAYERS, overwhelmingly, thin the $30 million is a waste. There’s not even a team. I do not consider a short-season rag-tag bunch of college players in a second-class summer league a true team.
Pay 2 Play 2-Pete’s Pittsfield politics pounds people’s purses.
Most of the “stadiums” built by this group are multi-venue arenas. Baseball will actually be an afterthought as the real money they, THEY, will make will come from all sorts of other entertainment activities and vendor related add-ons of which the city itself will see very little of. And if the city and its parks dept. do the maintenance and upkeep on it the city (aka taxpayers) will actually lose a ton of money.
The whole venue may even be rented out or sub-let for concerts or mass gatherings if it is anything like what is being done in other areas.
Any two-year-old with an abacus could tell you that a tossed together baseball team of college players still learning the game and playing an eight-week schedule, is not going to generate any positive income. So let us put that fallacy aside once and for all. “Baseball is the up-front lure to get this thing up and running.
Maybe Iran will buy it. Orange buffoon could make a deal.
Great response, Dan. Pittsfield summer teams have had nothing but mediocre players and teams. Now we are going to spend, and waste, millions on a new stadium that will attempt to bring in a group of mediocre players and hope a handful of Pittsfield citizens turn out for the games. Pittsfield players from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s were far superior to the so-called pro teams they bring in now. Worse yet, these guys get paid.
The untold story is that this 30 mil expenditure has very little to do with baseball. You wait and see what it really turns out to be and who really benefits from it. And it is not the Pittsfield taxpayers.
It is kinda like the ballroom that is really NOT a ballroom at all. The ballroom concept is a smoke screen.
No-one I know is even remotely interested in , minors,college or high school at the ol ball-yard. Baseball has become to long a game to sit in a mosquito pit with the sun glaring at you It’s nothing but a flooded out dried out facility.
I nominate Jon to tro out the first pitch. And bring your waders.
Ninety three point (.) four percent of the attendees at any given game are kids who got free tickets bought up by local business s and donated with a charitable deduction to be taken. Then they are used to create an attendance figure that looks like people are flocking to the game. One more Pittsfield mirage, sleight of hand, fog shrouded bamboozelment of the populace to justify taxpayer expenditures. Look for attendance figures for the first game to be in the tens of thousands with people coming from as far away as Budapest and Singapore snapping up hard to get tickets which are being resold by scalpers at exorbitant prices.
April 18, 2026
Lumpy’s latest interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXNXerN-Fdc&t=1057s
Lumpy doesn’t like blogs and social media’s criticisms of his failed city administration.
If people have concerns, it would be better if they would send Lumpy an email asking for 5 minutes of his time rather than putting it out on social media. Why not all of the above?
Lumpy thinks that social media is a double-edged sword. I don’t see the value in social media. It is troubling. Lumpy talks about the doom and gloom piece of social media. Lumpy says that it doesn’t mean that social media is a good thing that it reaches people with news and information.
What about Lumpy’s own HOT AIR, record-breaking HIGH TAXES….?
Peter Marchetti is the Mayor of Pittsfield (Mass.), which is in the U.S.A., which is a free country. One would think that he would encourage FREE SPEECH in the small city that he leads, but instead, he is really saying that we should “Shut the Front Door (STFU)” or else we will face his RETRIBUTION.
This is why I dislike the career politicians and insiders who run Pittsfield like a fiefdom instead of a real city government that serves the people, who are the city’s most valuable asset because we live, pay taxes, shop, invest in our properties, help each other out, and so on.
Why not resurrect the old Berlin Wall in Pittsfield, Mayor Peter Marchetti? Cage in fearful people inside of Pittsfield to face RETRIBUTION if we post on blogs or write our views on social media. And if one of us escapes to New Hampshire like your relative Jon Melle, then tell me that FREE SPEECH is a double-edged sword, troubling, doom and gloom, is NOT a good thing, and the like.
I am embarrassed that we are relatives. I would never support or vote for someone like you to serve in government. Rather, I advocate for blogs, social media, and all other forms of FREE SPEECH.
The government belongs to the people. The government serves the people. We are NOT afraid of you, Mayor Peter Marchetti, and your RETRIBUTION tactics to lead Pittsfield by fear instead of democracy.
Jon Melle
Hear hear!
When a public official like Peter Marchetti suggests people should take their concerns offline—email him, ask for five minutes, keep it private—what he’s really asking is this:
Don’t say it where everyone can hear you!
And that’s a big problem.
Because public concerns don’t belong in private inboxes. They belong in public spaces where other people can see them, relate to them, challenge them, or support them. That’s how a community functions. That’s how patterns get exposed. That’s how accountability actually works.
No one is saying don’t email. Do it. Call. Show up. Use every avenue available.
But don’t pretend that speaking publicly is somehow less valid—or worse, “troubling.”
You don’t get to lead in a public office and then flinch when the public… uses its voice.
Social media isn’t perfect. It’s loud, messy, sometimes unfair. But it’s also one of the only places regular people have equal footing to say, “This isn’t working,” and be heard by more than just one person behind a desk.
If the leadership is solid, it can withstand public scrutiny.
If the decisions are sound, they can survive public discussion.
And if they can’t?
That’s not a social media problem. That’s a leadership problem.
“Because public concerns don’t belong in private inboxes.” That expresses it precisely, VAL. The mayor’s request for privacy only adds to a troubling pattern. He has increasingly lost contact not only with his values but with who he is (was) as a person. From a personal perspective, it’s sad to watch. From a public perspective, it tragic for the city.
Does lumpy think the two Pete’s social system works? I’d like to know how many illegal meetings or quorums have there been in the city history? Supposedly illegal and none. I’ll guess since the Doyle Administration, I’d say at least a thousand.
So there was a vote where the present ward 2 city councilor and Sarah Bernhardt wanna be Muil shedding her tears, still decided to close Morning-side Sochol down.
Common man. When are these builders of these schools going to be held accountable for the durability of the buildings and upkeep while standing. It’s called maintenance. It’s almost like building a car,don’t make them last.
That Mercer building has been standing decades before Conte Crosby and the old Taconic and now Morningside. And it will probably be there after the new Crosby is built.
Excellent point. Morningside maintenance and regular upkeep would have prevented this, but that doesn’t happen in Bitchfield and hasn’t since GE booked. Love the reference to “Sarah Bernhardt”!
I think her sister is a big time actress in Hollywood.
Regardless. Even if every School was in pristine condition we would still need to close schools. There is a huge deficit of students to classrooms ratio. I encourage anyone to go on the Department of Education site. You can go back to 1996 and will see we’re down thousands of students. I find it disgusting it took this long. Should close Crosby too.
From 12,000 students to 4,800. No big deal. Let’s keep building.
What about Ray Crow?
Ray would come and take care any bees nests that were bothering you.
Perhaps when we see what happens to the building and land a year from now, the true reason for this shape-shift may be revealed. In Pittsfield there is always something going on behind the scenes.
So for a huge school like PHS they are going to almost rebuild it but a small school like Morningside is beyond repair?
Oh, OK.
Former Rice School Mrs. Tone is turning over in her grave about Morningside.
Excellent post VV. I agree with you and JM about Lumpy and his wanting to keep city issues “in private.”
I believe a big reason for this is Lumpy himself.
He needs answers spoon fed to him by the GOBSIG’s. Lumpy’s not smart enough or articulate enough to give a sound bite impromptu. He knows this and is more than happy to attend a ribbon cutting ceremony of a local pinball arcade. You know, real important matters.
Lumpy knows Big Earl awaits in the wind.
Plus, Lumpy’s federal trial is on the horizon. Public scrutiny is no bueno for him.