Margery Eagan hears from the Elephant.

This weblog was created in response to problems that are being allowed to fester in the New Bedford School System.  But the problems that exist there and in the greater community of New Bedford are anything but unique.  Lots of communities have poor quality leadership in their mayor's office and school committees.  Lots of communities have some equivalent of Pia Durkin sending her flying green monkeys to terrify and abuse the Dorothy's and the Maura's struggling to manage classrooms full of students who are apathetic or violent.  And lots of communities have a dying media outlet like the Standard Times that exhibits the behavior of a drowning man, violently pulling anything and anyone nearby under water in an effort to stay afloat.  For some reason Bob Unger has chosen to drown school teachers.  Only he knows why but the image of a troglodyte gleefully torturing a puppy does come to mind.

New Bedford's problems mirror America's problems, and that's why some of my material appears to have no direct connection to New Bedford...

One of my readers left a comment in my "Campaign Slogans" post in defense of Jerry Remy, probably because he or she listens to his radio program and finds him to be likeable.  I've never heard Remy's show, never heard him interviewed, and never met him.  I might like him too if I met him.  Too bad his personal likeability is irrelevant.

This is Jerry and Phoebe Remy's 35 year old son, Jared Remy.

Jerry and Phoebe Remy, like the parents of convicted murderer George Huguely, used their wealth and influence to make sure their chronically violent, criminal son never feared significant punishment from law enforcement authorities and never felt any legal or moral obligation to place any priority on the lives and safety of others.  Jared was arrested 19 times and each time his parents actively and knowingly undermined an already barely effective justice system by bailing him out and providing an attorney to play the system.  Jared Remy is a large, physically powerful steroid user with a long history of violence.  Jerry and Phoebe Remy knew they were placing Jared's previous victims and the general public in danger by repeatedly securing his release from jail.  Apparently the safety of others doesn't concern them.  Jerry and Phoebe Remy may be nice people on a personal level, but their performance as parents was undeniably criminal and I consider them to be accessories to murder.

Your wondering about Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan...

"April 26, 2014

Margery Eagan
The Boston Herald
70 Fargo St.
Boston, MA. 02210

Dear Ms. Eagan,

The subject matter of Jared Remy's recent literary masterpiece raises an important question about parenting.  Is there a job description for parents written into our nation's laws?  It's increasingly obvious that there should be one, but the subject matter of parental incompetence is something of a third rail for politicians.  They won't touch it until it becomes routine to read and hear of it in the media.  Submitted for your consideration is my opinion of what every parent's job description should be:

A parent's duty to every other citizen in our society is to transform an infant member of an aggressive predatory species into a civilized young adult, preferably by consistent role modeling.

As much as I enjoy horrifying our nation's more conservative elements, this letter really isn't about personal entertainment.  Criminally incompetent parents and the violent sociopaths they produce are a danger to us all and there comes a time when someone must be willing to acknowledge the elephant in the room.  It's time for the public and their elected representatives to become accustomed to routinely reading about this problem and hearing it discussed in the media.

Are you willing to get involved in solving this problem?"

I also courtesy copied the Boston Globe, Boston Public Radio, and both my state and federal representatives and senators.

In all honesty, I expect little to change but it was worth a try.

Every campaign needs campaign slogans.

Whether you are preparing your nation's population for war, marketing a product, or running for public office, every campaign needs a list of campaign slogans.  Slogans need not be remotely factual or logical.  The two basic requirements are that they precipitate a strong emotional reaction and they are easy to remember.  And everyone old enough to be reading this knows how they work, whether they realize it or not.

If you are seen driving this model of automobile, drinking this brand of high end liquor, or wearing this brand of clothing you will be admired by all and given the respect you've always deserved but never received.  You'll be more masculine, sexier, more sophisticated, healthier, or richer.  You will finally be accepted by a higher class of people.  You will be happy.

Yeah...sure I will.

Product marketing slogans attempt to convince you that you'll receive something you badly want.  And they work because no one wants to feel and look like a fool for buying a product and then having to admit that they actually bought it in an effort to become more masculine, sexier, etc., only to end up just as dull and ordinary as ever.  No one dares to complain when those lofty and ludicrous promises fail to be fulfilled.  Everlasting hope combined with fear of embarrassment is a confidence man's greatest ally.

Political and war mongering slogans work a bit differently.  Both offer the audience someone to follow and someone to blame for their problems.  Vote for me because America could be a paradise if it weren't for the liberals, the conservatives, the PAC's, the gun lobby, OPEC, bloggers, the gay liberal agenda, the Muslims, big evil corporations, tax evaders in the underground economy, and of course...the teacher's union.

Who among us can deny the corrosive effect of professionally trained educators?!

There's a scapegoat for all seasons and always a charming sociopath willing to hammer away at it.  Who can resist being charmed and disarmed when Pia Durkin flashes her Wicked Witch of the West smile and takes your hand into both of hers?  So pleased to meet you.  Would you like to humiliate a few teachers before dinner or freshen up first?  Because I live by the maxim that charming people tend to be sociopaths, I'm put on alert rather than charmed.

By now readers know that I place the blame for many of our nation's problems on the institution most responsible for teaching people right from wrong, America's precious and unimpeachable Institution of Family.  Parents choose to produce children and choose how to role model.  Parents are the first place our nation's media and law enforcement community should look when a Jared Remy or its high school aged equivalent appears.  We need a campaign to destroy the social taboos against doing this.  And like all those marketing firms and politicians, I have a few slogans designed to precipitate a completely irrational and highly emotional reaction.

Raising a bully is like defecating in the village well and then attacking anyone who dares to mention the taste of your parenting skills.

Bullies are like human feces.  They emerge from the orifice of family character and find a strong sense of belonging in the cesspool of community character.

Those of you who've been abused and then blamed for the abuser's criminal behavior thought of specific individuals when reading them...didn't you?

Write a few of your own.  Be creative.  You know you want to.

Governor Deval Patrick hears from The Elephant.

My apologies for not blogging more often.  It's one of the downsides of not being rich enough to retire.

I just sent an e-mail to Governor Deval Patrick.

"Superintendent Pia Durkin's method of discouraging violent behavior in the New Bedford School System is disturbingly reminiscent of both Columbine Principal Frank DeAngelis and the historically ludicrous but loveable Sergeant Schultz.

"I see nothing!"

Do you believe as I do that preventing tragedy is better than making excuses afterwards?"

I strongly suspect that the third assistant undersecretary to the governor's second assistant will scan it quickly and forward it to Deer Island...but you never know.

Sith Lord Durkin and her hounds have a new teacher to torment.

Joanne Maura, the 60 year old woman bravely challenged to a duel (chairs at 20 paces) by Dragon Slayer and Honorable Knight, Sir Kemar Omar Roselus has been exonerated, but as fate would have it another teacher has found herself in the crosshairs.

An unnamed female teacher at the DeValles School in New Bedford is under investigation for assaulting a nine year old student.  Fortunately for the Sith, this incident was not recorded on video so railroading this teacher should be a much less arduous affair.

I can easily imagine Darth Durkin's threatening rictus as she bares her teeth in hungry anticipation of the slaughter.

Stay tuned folks.

By the way...how's Eduardo Irizarry doing and have adults in authority bothered doing anything about his attacker's violent behavior?  Young, violent sociopaths are always looking for new victims.  Is their safety even a concern to the adults in authority?

Naaaaahhh!!!!!  Why bother?  Kids will be kids.

From the mail sack...

Before I became internet aware I made use of snail mail to do what I'm doing now.  I have an extensive collection of letters that bear some significance to the problems that exist in the New Bedford School System and I'll reprint a few of them here from time to time.

Once again...I'm typing slowly for the benefit of people with Ph.D.'s.

September 24, 2000

Letters to the Editor
Boston Herald
P.O. Box 2096
Boston, MA.  02106-2096

Dear Editor,

The teacher shortage described in the September 24th article, "Teachers wanted" can be solved fairly quickly.  Stop blaming teachers for the effects of parental incompetence.

Regards,

The Elephant

No...I didn't sign it with "The Elephant."

This one's even older:

May 23, 1998

Letters to Editor
Sentinel & Enterprise
808 Main St.
Fitchburg, MA.  01420

Dear Editor,

I am writing about "Tension and fear at schools-but no easy answers", a poorly titled article which appeared in the Saturday, May 23rd edition.

The claim that there are no easy answers is inaccurate.  It's a relatively uncomplicated legal problem.  There are two groups of people who's basic civil rights are in conflict.  On paper, children have the right to an education, free from violence.  In reality, criminally incompetent parents have the right to use the public school system as a warehouse for their violent, sadistic offspring.  Anyone who's been assaulted or threatened while attending school quickly learns that the criminal's right to warehouse is far superior to the student's right to an education.  They also learn that adults will typically place the blame on the weakness of the victim, an incredibly stupid message of approval that guarantees an escalation of violence.  Reverse the importance currently placed on the rights of these two groups of people and the problem is solved.

Hey Pia!!  If a former student shows up one day and stages a media event do you have a ludicrous scapegoat ready?  Will Marilyn Manson be mentioned?  How about video games?

No!  Wait!!...I know...

Blame something vague and amorphous like the declining morality of society and the insidious influence of an unregulated internet.

Yeah.  That's the ticket.

The Elephant declares that all of the really important butts have been covered.

The Elephant reaches out to Pia Durkin again.

If at first you don't succeed...

I sent this e-mail today.  Perhaps it will even be read.  I also courtesy copied the school committee, the mayor, all of the city counselors, Misters Brown, Unger, and Urbon at the Standard Times, and a few others.


"Dear Dr. Durkin,

 

There exists an opportunity to avoid convincing a potential killer that all people are evil and deserve to be punished.

 

The case of Eduardo Irizarry caught my attention recently and I immediately thought of all of the missed opportunities involving other young victims of community sanctioned cruelty.  Will the criminal who attacked him and broke his jaw suffer the same laughably ineffective punishment as chair throwing Kemar Omar Roselus?  Will the victim receive the same message received by countless victims of bullying before him?  Will he be blamed for what a violent sociopath chose to do to him and intimidated into staying quiet?

 

Will Eduardo Irizarry one day be added to the list that includes Timothy McVeigh, Eric Harris, and Adam Lanza because 15 years after Columbine, adults in authority still refuse to pull their heads out of that warm, comforting well of denial and take a good look at what's going on around them?

 

Sincerely yours,

 

The Elephant

http://theelephantsnewclothes.blogspot.com/

 

The Care and Feeding of the American Domestic Terrorist.

Transforming an otherwise healthy adolescent into a serial killer, mass murderer, or domestic terrorist is a three step process.

The first step involves establishing a relationship between the individual and the public founded upon a sense of betrayal.  This involves failing to protect the individual from abusive behavior, then shamelessly avoiding the imposition of any significant punishment upon the abuser.  If the abuser is a relatively high status individual it's especially effective to praise and reward him for his athletic ability, his fighting skill, his anatomical correctness and so forth.  If the abuser receives a lot of female attention, that's also helpful in generating a general sense of hatred toward the public.  Routinely insulting and/or blaming the terrorist trainee and referring to him with labels like wimp, faggot, pussy, etc. cannot help but reinforce the hatred he'll feel toward everyone around him.  Now that the internet exists, the terrorist trainee will almost certainly learn that this sort of barbaric behavior is normal all over America.  This will help to widen the scope of his hatred toward just about everyone.  The terrorist trainee is now able to place no value on human life without losing sleep over it.

The second step is less controllable.  The trainee must develop a general sense of failure strong enough for him to lose hope in a better future.  He must feel as though he has nothing to lose.  The length of time required to complete this step varies widely.  Eric Harris was 18 when he orchestrated his attack on Columbine High School while George Sodini was 48 when he started spraying bullets inside a Pittsburg health club.  The inability to make and keep friends or maintain healthy relationships with the opposite sex, the inability to find a job that actually pays enough to live on, and the inability to pay for higher education can all be important factors in convincing the trainee that the world hates him and wants him to feel like a loser.

The third step involves the trainee embracing a philosophy where he will acquire a sense of purpose and reward for killing people.  He may embrace a radical religion or he may simply make something up on his own.  In his personal fantasy he's fighting evil and will be lavishly rewarded in Heaven or when the virtual reality game ends.  In a world where videogame and virtual reality escapism is a multibillion dollar industry, this is pretty easy to do.

But without fulfilling the first step by establishing a sense of betrayal in the trainee, the second and third steps become irrelevant.

The manner in which you treat another individual or group of individuals and the value you place on their lives and safety is a function of your relationship.  Timothy McVeigh, Eric Harris, and Adam Lanza obviously had a strong negative relationship with the public.  They had no moral difficulty killing and maiming large groups of people and the reason for this is anything but mysterious.

Here's Dr. Pia Durkin's homework question for today:

What kind of relationship will be established between the community of New Bedford and the recent victim of violent crime, Eduardo Irizarry?  Will the criminal who attacked him and broke his jaw suffer the same laughably ineffective punishment as chair throwing Kemar Omar Roselus?  Will he simply be moved to another school building and put on "double secret probation?"  Will young Mr. Irizarry be taught by example that adults in authority place no value on his safety?  Will he learn the same lessons learned by the three mass murderers listed above?  Or will the criminal actually be treated as what it is?

I know what you're thinking.  Lots of people are bullied without turning into killers.  I encounter this argument routinely and my standard response is always the same.  Lots of people drink and drive without ever crashing into anything.  In fact, between 1978 when I graduated high school and 1984 when I enlisted in the military I operated a motor vehicle after drinking more than the legal limit well over a thousand times.

How would you feel if I addressed the senior class of New Bedford High School and argued that drinking and driving is statistically safe?

The Elephant will be following this story closely.  Try not to get anyone killed.

Love and peanuts,

The Elephant

The Elephant reaches out to Pia Durkin.

Shortly after noon yesterday I sent the following e-mail to Pia Durkin and courtesy copied the mayor, each of the school committee members except one (His e-mail wasn't published.), and a few folks at the MTA.  I even typed slowly because I know she has a Ph.D.

Dear Dr. Durkin,

 

On September 22, 1997 I sent a short letter to then President Bill Clinton that included the following warning:

 

"Your pro-child stance is commendable, but it is meaningless to a child who cannot ride the school bus or visit the bathroom without receiving a legal, adult sanctioned beating.  Such a child, upon reaching early adulthood, has little reason to place any faith in social institutions or any value on human life.  Is this a problem worth solving?"

 

I've been doing this a long time and I'm truly impressed by the tenacity with which people cling to dangerously outdated forms of behavior.  Specifically, people tend to place violent, aggressive males on a pedestal while treating their victims like unwanted party crashers.  Then they feign bewilderment when one of those victims stages a media worthy act of revenge.  This sort of behavior may have helped our distant ancestors survive in the wild.  It has no place in a modern industrial society.  Failing to deter violent behavior and then treating victims as if they were the source of the problem is not harmless.  As you can read in my latest weblog post this behavior produces killers who are willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to take revenge.

 

In your opinion, what kind of tragedy, or series of tragedies would be required to convince Americans that this is "a problem worth solving?"  How many Oklahoma City's, Columbines, and Newtowns will have to be precipitated by the widespread tendency to punish victims in order to inspire real change?

 

Sincerely yours,

 

The Elephant

http://theelephantsnewclothes.blogspot.com/

She probably finished her vegetables and prepared to pretend this never happened.  Or she may be conjuring up a bizarre reason to blame Joanne Maura for what happened yesterday in Pennsylvania.  In any case I'm putting together a very long list of newspapers, magazines, and other media outlets to send this along to.

And always remember the Golden Rule of Denial.

Ssssshhhh...  The Elephant isn't really here.

Blaming victims is not an obscene abberation; it is the norm for our species.

"Sherman, set the Wayback machine."

The above command was commonly heard by anyone who watched Sherman and Mr. Peabody's adventures in time travel as a child.  In this episode we'll be traveling back in time to observe a group of human hunter-gatherers.

Gavin de Becker, author and Cubicle Overlord of his own security firm, Gavin de Becker & Associates wrote, "We may live in the Space Age but we have Stone Age brains."  In the next few paragraphs, I'll be taking his general observation of human behavior and attempting to systematize it a bit.

Everything that living things do, including modern human animals is either a function of ensuring individual survival or that of the species as a whole.  Forming packs and enforcing the Rules of the Pack ensures the survival of the pack, often at the expense of individual safety and survival. 

Human animals share a few characteristics with dogs and chimpanzees.  All three species are violent and predatory, and they all employ the same basic social structure: The Pack.   The basic structure of The Pack is both simple and familiar.  The Alpha Male is at the top, a layer of toadying, sycophantic alpha male wannabes and seemingly empty headed fertile females sits just below Him, often going to extraordinary lengths and presenting laughably implausible arguments (like blaming His victims) to defend His position.  Below them are the numerical majority of pack members, often just hoping to survive by avoiding any appearance of not supporting His position.  These individuals also engage in an awful lot of victim blaming behavior.  Recall from memory the victim blaming behavior blithely displayed in communities like Steubenville and Maryville.  At the very bottom of the pack are individuals who are least powerful, least popular, least wealthy, least well connected and so forth.  These individuals are almost always badly mistreated by those above them.  They learn two important skills from their experiences.  They learn to place little or no value on human life, and they learn to mask even the most vitriolic rage behind the bland smile of a thoroughly cowed and cooperative child.  This is the layer of the pack from which we get men like Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City), Eric Harris (Columbine), Adam Lanza (Newtown), and most of America's serial killers.  Public school teachers bear witness to this behavior on a regular basis.  They're just not allowed to report it to anyone with the power to correct it.

We're not going to talk about that.  Finish your vegetables children.  In the morning we'll pretend this never happened.

This post is about why blaming victims is the norm rather than some perverse aberration of human behavior.  One of my elementary school teachers told me that repetition is a good learning tool.  With that in mind...

Everything that living things do, including modern human animals is either a function of ensuring individual survival or that of the species as a whole.  Forming packs and enforcing the Rules of the Pack ensures the survival of the pack, often at the expense of individual safety and survival.

The principle repeated above applied extremely well when everyone was a hunter-gatherer.  The survival of The Pack was ensured by an arrangement that allowed the alpha male and a few of His toadies to do most of the breeding and by preventing those who were weakest from doing much at all.  This makes perfect sense in a jungle.  And back then, the smallest, weakest humans, no matter how angry they became had limited resources when it came to taking revenge upon The Pack.

That was then.

This is now.

Technology has improved a bit over the years.  Timothy McVeigh built a bomb.  Eric Harris and Adam Lanza used firearms.  And individuals who are smart enough to stay out of the media spotlight have been paying us back with an increasingly sophisticated array of computer viruses for years.

Here's Pia Durkin's homework question for today...

Given your recent decision to blame the victim, Mrs. Maura for His violent behavior, how long will it be before technology allows individuals who were forced to spend their formative years at the bottom of the pack to graduate from computer viruses to real ones.  There won't be any zombie apocalypse, but you can safely bet that your grandchildren, and their children are going to suffer terribly because placing violent males on a pedestal and placing blame for their behavior on the victims is still widely practiced.

Please use complete sentences and correct punctuation, show all work, and reference any source material in your bibliography.

Begin.

There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics.

By now anyone reading this has probably watched the video where Joanne Maura, a female school teacher in her 60's was challenged to single combat by chair throwing 18 year old Kemar Omar Roselus.

There was nothing about the attack or the gross disrespect displayed by Roselus and his cackling peanut gallery that shocked or surprised me.  Now that every American over the age of two has a video camera and an internet link this sort of behavior and a whole lot worse is just a click away.  Violent sociopaths proudly displaying their criminal behavior on the internet with no fear of punishment has become quite normal.  In fact, something like this happened in Franklin High School a couple of years ago and it was considered so routine the media didn't even follow up on it.

What surprised me about this crime was the fact that New Bedford School Superintendent Pia Durkin claimed in an April 3rd radio interview that the gladiatorial games occurred on Monday, March 24th yet she didn't know about it until one week later on Monday, March 31st.  I find it very unlikely that a teacher can be the victim of a violent crime and report the crime to the police without all knowing, all seeing Darth Durkin finding out about it.

Unless...

No...

It couldn't be true!!

The victim chose not to call the police for some reason.  Perhaps she and her colleagues have been threatened with dismissal for committing the unpardonable sin of reporting violent crimes to the police.  Did the administration choose to place the lives and safety of teachers below their desire to avoid airing the school's dirty laundry?!!  Could that be true?!!  Did she report it to "the office" only to learn that nothing was done?  Did she return to her classroom the next day to find the man who attacked her sitting there as though nothing ever happened?!!

Here comes that alcoholic family analogy again...

"Finish your vegetables children.  In the morning we'll all pretend this never happened."

There was something else about Darth Durkin's radio interview that caught my highly sensitive ears.  Durkin claimed to have spoken to students who were "embarrassed" by the incident because "this is not the behavior that is New Bedford High School."

Fair enough if violent behavior is a rarity...but...

Durkin immediately followed up with the statement, "We are on our way to a new day at New Bedford High School."

A "new day?"  That sounds like something you tell people when conditions are bad but expected to improve.  This apparent contradiction is easy to explain.

Remember the title of this post?  Every institution you've ever heard of is affected in some way by statistics.  The people who decide how many cans, cases, and two liter bottles of Coke to manufacture and deliver to which stores use statistics based on the past behavior of consumers.  Used correctly, statistics are an important and highly valuable tool of mathematics.  Used incorrectly...lying about the true frequency of violent crimes committed in a high school or college for example, statistics become dangerous.  Colleges covered up their stratospheric incidence of date rape for decades in order to avoid airing their dirty laundry and scaring off parents wealthy enough to send their sons and daughters to college by writing a check.  Is the administration of New Bedford High School doing the same thing in order to avoid being classified as a demilitarized zone by the Commonwealth?

Are they telling lies, damned lies, or are they simply committing the sin of omission with their compilation of statistics?

It gets worse...

This morning I learned that the victim, Joanne "The Crusher" Maura is being called into a disciplinary hearing.  I wonder how they'll rationalize that the whole thing was her fault.

Stay tuned folks.  There is no doubt more lunacy on its way...

The public school system is not a business.

It's not unusual for large bureaucracies to slowly rot from within and become dysfunctional.  This happens to large corporations on a regular basis.  When it gets really bad the board of directors will fire the CEO and appoint someone to clean house, usually someone who has no personal relationship with any of the senior managers.  These are often referred to as "hatchet men."

It's a pretty sure bet that everyone reading this immediately thought of Pia Durkin in response to that rather uncomplimentary term.  But there's a difference...

When a corporation begins to die the customers start bringing their business elsewhere, often accelerating the dying process.  Customers are people who understand the product they're buying and are free to go elsewhere without fear or punishment.  If I decide I don't like Stop & Shop I'm not required to notify or compensate them in any manner when I decide to shop at Market Basket.  Hatchet Men, often referred to as turnaround specialists in the business world are charged with one simple responsibility.  Their job is to return the business to solvency.  If that involves firing half of the management team and employees, selling off nonproductive sectors of the business, and causing massive economic problems for the communities where the business is located then that's what they'll do.  Quite often these individuals are facing a choice between two unpleasant situations: let the business go under in a few years and put everyone out of work, or fire half the employees today and stay in business.  The money is reputed to be quite good but I wouldn't want the job.  Some of these guys precipitate a level of hatred second only to the Westboro Baptist Church.

Segway to the public school system...

As the title of this post claims, the public school system is not a business.  There are no profit seeking stockholders, no board of directors who answer to those stockholders, no stock market where everyone watches your every move, and most important of all, there are no customers who not only understand the service they're receiving, but may decide to bring their business elsewhere.  The public school system is a public service entirely financed by taxes.  Students go there because they're required to and because for most of them, home schooling and private schooling are not realistic options.  The school system is also required by law to accept every student who comes through the door without prejudice.  That entails pretending that everyone from saint to psychopath is equal.

George Orwell referred to this as "doublethink" in his novel, "1984."

Turnaround Specialist a.k.a. Hatchet Person Pia Durkin cannot employ the same turnaround strategies used by business people.  She cannot sell off unproductive divisions, scrap and/or replace aging machinery, develop new and hopefully profitable products, explore new markets, or negotiate with local municipalities for tax deferments or abatements.  She especially cannot reduce the number of employees, otherwise known as downsizing.  She has to employ enough teachers to cover the unalterable number of students expected to show up every September.  All she appears to be able to do is toss a blanket of blame over the entire teaching staff and announce that half of them will be fired, or perhaps consciously uncoupled and replaced with new hires.  That leads to an important question...

Why half?  Why not 32% or 77% or some other number?

Elementary my dear Watson.

Most of the people reading this have given someone a gift card for $25 or $50.  I'm willing to bet that few, if any of you ever gave someone $32 or $77 for their birthday.  If you did, you'd have to explain why.  No one asks you why they received $50.  They just say thank you.  Receiving an odd amount suggests that it was given for a specific reason and that raises many potentially embarrassing questions.  Pia Durkin did not announce that after reviewing personnel records she was firing 32% of the staff for the following reasons.  Reasons would have to be explained and legally justified and she'll walk through fire to avoid doing that.  Tossing out a nice round psychologically pleasing number like 50% creates a situation where she doesn't have to explain anything.  No one ever said that 32% of all congressmen are crooks and idiots.  They say half of them are crooks and idiots.  It sounds good and requires no explanation or justification.

Back to Herr Doctor's grand strategy...

Pia Durkin has another problem.  She is stuck with trying to sell the idea that the teachers are the root cause of the New Bedford school system's problems.  Teachers are not the problem and everyone knows it.  But communities share a common behavioral trait with textbook alcoholic families.

ANYONE WHO DARES TO MENTION THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM WILL BE TOSSED INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE TO SUFFER IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!!!!!!!

Now finish your vegetables children.  In the morning we'll all pretend this never happened.

Alcoholic families maintain a well documented structure.  There is the chief abuser, often the father.  The chief enabler is usually the mother.  The children usually fill the roles of the hero, the pet, the lost child, and of course, the scapegoat.  There are other roles as well.  In New Bedford, and a lot of other places the teachers are the obvious scapegoats.  Teachers who choose to look around their own classrooms a bit can probably name a few heroes who try to clean up the mess on their own, favored pets who can do no wrong, and lost children, many of whom end up being scapegoated as well.  In my opinion, parents are the chief abusers and everyone knows it.  The behavior that teachers and police officers witness on a daily basis is often role modeled by parents and no one will utter a word.  Remember that lake of fire?

Pia Durkin cannot mention the fact that parenting is an unregulated free-for-all where everyone makes up their own rules.  She's stuck with pretending that every human animal who manages to reproduce, from saints to psychopaths is equally competent.  And like every good alcoholic family, nothing will change until more people are willing to say what everyone knows.

Now finish your vegetables children.  In the morning we'll all pretend this never happened.

Good luck folks.

New Bedford, Massachusetts School Superintendent Dr. Pia Durkin has no clothes.

If the title of this post isn't disturbing enough...read on.

For those of you who don't recognize the metaphor, "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a short story by Hans Christian Andersen.

Two weavers promise a new suit of clothes to an Emperor.  They further claim that the clothing is made from material that is invisible to those who are stupid, incompetent, or unfit for their positions.  As the Emperor parades down a public street stark naked, everyone pretends to see his new clothes.  Obviously none of them believe he's actually wearing invisible clothing but they're all terrified of losing their jobs or being treated as though they were stupid or incompetent.  The ice is broken when a child, too young to truly appreciate the importance and value of mass denial yells, "But he's not wearing any clothes at all."

And that's where I come in.  The massive fraud of public trust that's being perpetrated in New Bedford is badly in need of a shameless child.

For the past several weeks I've been posting comments on the New Bedford Educators Association weblog under the name of "The Elephant."  I began as an anonymous poster but after using the metaphor, "The Elephant In The Room" in one of my comments I've since been using the name, "The Elephant."

Here's the situation...

The New Bedford school system is classified as underperforming by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  A turnaround plan was developed and Dr. Pia Durkin was hired to implement it.  When all of the water and legalese is boiled out of it, the plan basically consists of firing half of the teaching staff and replacing them with no doubt much lower paid neophytes.  Since I have a passion for metaphors, here's another one.

Dr. Pia Durkin is tossing people over the side of the Titanic and inviting recent college graduates onto a sinking ship in the hope that young, violent criminals will miraculously see the error of their ways and students who's parents wouldn't be caught dead reading a book will suddenly develop an insatiable appetite for academic performance.

This behavior is as ludicrous as wearing invisible clothing.  The trouble is...everyone but the teachers (Those are the people who are actually trained to do the job.) appear to be blindly going along with it.

Stay tuned.  Visit often.  Leave comments.

And keep your clothes on.