The “newsflash” part is sarcastic, by the way, symbolized by the double stars — a cyber punctuation trend that can also be used to emphasize a word for other reasons. But anyway, the point is that I am posting a link to Randal Edgar’s article in Projo about the money being spent on legal fighting between Cranston’s schools and the city, but it hardly seems like news — it’s the same old story over and over again.

Some would argue that this is a necessary and time-honored battle. I remember arguing with Paul Grimes back in the Laffey days about how the schools needed more money (Laffey by comparison looks like the generous benefactor compared to his successors). Paul was telling me that if we went back to the 1970’s it would all look the same — the schools crying for more money, the city trying to hold the purse strings tight. He had Chief of Police Chalek there to back him up on this assertion, so I let it go.

But what I think is — why replay the same drama? Why not change the systems that are creating the drama? Then the question becomes — how do we give workers the voice they need and deserve, and the salaries they need and deserve — and yet rein in some of the adversarial nature of the education finance politics? It’s not really possible so in some ways perhaps Paul was right — the fighting will go on.

But things could get better. It all could start with increased funding for education on the national level. Add to that a state funding formula that would ensure that our legislature consistently fund education to the cities and towns. Then it probably won’t hurt to mix things up a little with the new Mayoral Academies,  although there is a lot of fear and skepticism about for-profit schools, some of it justified with evidence from the demise of Edison Schools in Philadelphia, plus it opens up the whole question of whether our educational institutions should be trying the make a profit.

This is our new education czar, Arne Duncan, talking about changes that the Obama administration is going to bring:  CNN video of Arne Duncan.  Mr. Duncan favors a longer school year, acknowledging that children in other countries such as China go to school many more days a year than American children.  He also talks about ways to incentivize performance in the education profession.  All in all, it sounds like education will be changing — both in its systems and its methods.  I guess it always is — but now might be a time of even more rapid change.  We would do well to keep up with the changes as we plan for the future of the Cranston schools.