Lehigh Valley Conservative

Now the school board is going to take it on the chin, but is it their fault for the past 6 years of financial debacle and mismanagement of the BASD funds?

 “On the recommendation of outside financial advisers and win the blessing of the school board, the district decided in 2003 to begin betting on interest rates using risky, unregulated financial derivatives to hedge bets on variable-rate bonds.”

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/swaps/all-news-swaps-060609-pt1,0,1306292.story

Certainly a large percentage of fault, would be with the school board but under what circumstances is the board guilty?  I have attend the school board meetings over the last 6 months, and I wrote one of the board members after my first meeting telling them; “You folks are intimidated by Dr. Lewis” the school board member wrote me back and said I was perceptive.  The faction of the School Board that could have represented the taxpayers was weak and intimidated by Dr. Lewis and his allies.  The members of the school board that stood outside of Dr. Lewis’s grace and should have felt the need to oppose the actions because it was wrong did not oppose anything because of intimidation.  They did nothing to rebut the issue nor would they stand-up to the injustices of these different wrongs because they were intimidated therefore and because of intimidation they could not nor would not represent the taxpayers of Bethlehem Area School District. 

Now I’m not offering this as some excuse for the Board BUT only say it is the citizen’s fault for not recognizing this fault as it presents itself.  We have this same type of problem with our Pennsylvania Governor and President Obama both men intimidate the body politic and it’s citizens.  We are about to be shown the same problems on the State and National levels and it will have a devastating consequence.

The “emotionalism displayed by the folks within the “SPARK” supporters and the varies other groups that I witness solicit the School Board was sad indeed.  There was never a concern at the time of presentation for how these programs were to be paid for.  And let me just say cutting fat out of the program is not a concern for paying for the program, but a sign that some folks were concern with legitimate waste which should have been cut in the first place.  You had the people soliciting programs with emotionalism and the board responding with like emotion supporting their efforts and no one speaking up for the taxpayer saying; “How are we going to pay for this mess”.

So you have weakness within the Board, going along with things, and a large dose of emotionalism and finally a misdirected function of the school district into behavioral science, rather then instruction in facts and science which is the act of teaching and having students learn logical thinking through facts taught. 

If per chance you think I’m being too harsh you must pick-up a copy of “Education for Destruction” Dr. Bessie R. Burchett 1941

This quote is printed on the Title page of her book.

“Whatever we wish to see introduced into a life or a nation must first be introduced into its school.”

What have the schools been teaching the kids these past 40-50 years?

The debacle is financial no doubt but it hinges on philosophy and knowing right and wrong and having the courage to speak up.  God and His Christ called Jesus has been taken out of the school so what can you expect.  Power and greed along with emotionalism will prevail, so this type of problem will explode across the American school landscape as the article has already stated is happening.  May God help the School Boards across this country and the citizens the problem will affect?