FWCS can't be fixed

If events over the last year or two haven't convinced you that FWCS is going down the same path as every other urban school district, you can read it into today's Karen Frisco's JG editorial. Karen laments all the failed reforms that have been attempted like vouchers, charter schools, accountability testing, ending social promotion, NCLB, etc. She even faults Bill and Melinda Gates for spending their billions trying to fix urban schools. Somehow that's undemocratic because it takes away the power of democratically elected school boards. As if these idiots (Mark Twain's observation) know better than Bill and Melinda. Stop wasting your money guys and just let taxpayers keep wasting their money.

Notice that nobody, including Karen and especially our school district, ever comes straight out and admits that urban public education doesn't work, can't be fixed and inevitably ends up in suburban flight. So there's no point in criticising or trying to push the schools into doing anything different. And we could accept that if they weren't spending half our state tax money and patting themselves on the back with one hand at board meetings while they're picking our pockets with the other. If we could be sure that FWCS wouldn't go out with a $2 billion dollar building flame out like Kansas City, we could just ignore them and let nature take its course. Better just to leave them alone, if they would leave our pocketbooks alone.