April 5, 2016

Heather Brinkworth

Board of Education

600 SE 3^rd Avenue

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: I thought that it’s for the children because they are our future.

Ms. Brinkworth,

Never, never vote to OK any public bond issue, particularly one that involves school construction.

The first reason to vote against is simple. In my adult life, and I am comfortably on the back nine of same, I have never seen a bond issue that complies with the Federal “Truth in Lending” law. 

If a suede-shoed used car salesman on Route 7 were to use selling tactics such as those used by education bond advocates he would face criminal charges. At the very least the buyer would get the car for free. 

By itself that would be bad enough but a tsunami of dollars flowing from a perpetually lactating public mammary upon which no constraints are placed is terrible husbandry that allows, indeed encourages designs from committees whose members consist of unemployed East German kindergarten architects.

In hindsight, we didn’t have to water board all those burnoosed murderers.  We should have made them listen to the modern American Liberal mantra of why Johnny can’t read. The answer is obvious. We don’t spend enough money. If we were to spend just a bit more, an amount approaching the mythical “fair share”, an amount that is like the horizon in that it can never be reached, we would be graduating Rhodes Scholars from grammar school and Nobel prize winners form high school.

Pop quiz.

Jimmy Carter owed his election in 1976 to various Teachers’ unions [Doesn’t the term “Teachers’ unions” sound a bit too much like tinkling brass?] He covered that marker by “creating” the Department of Education. Using 1977 as the base year how well was Johnny reading then and how well is he reading now. Take the amount of money spent on all public education and divide it by the number of students. Do the same for the school year ending in June of 2015. As my cousin, Governor Al Smith, used to say, “Let’s look at the record”.

Who is accountable? Why are there not bands of pissed-off parents with pitchforks impaling teachers and administrators who propagate such dreck and suffer no consequences for so doing?

I assure you that any high school football coach with a record approaching that would have been put into the Witness Protection program for his own safety, his family’s safety, and for the safety of Bowser, Tabby, the unnamed fish and the plants in front of his house.

“If the commitment is from the staff that this is going to 

bring us a better product for a better price then I will accept

this slight delay,” she said. “But that better be the case.”

The Sun Sentinel

Today

You

[Memo to Heather: First, there will be a 5^th Gospel followed quickly by the earth cooling and the seas calming.]

I drive to Northeast High School to see if anyone has read about Howard Roarke. It is as ugly a public building as I have ever seen. By the time a freshman is a senior his soul has gone walkabout. It is such a dreary place that truckloads of daffodils worthy of Wordsworth could not bring life to this educational Gehenna.

I don’t know what your work experience is but this morning’s news about Disney may explain why some dogs hunt and some dogs don’t. As Orwell said “The obvious and the true have got to be defended….Stones are hard, water is wet….”

Because Disney punishes failure it can reward excellence. 

Having GMed several multi-million dollar construction projects I know what works and I know what doesn’t. Before a battle Napoleon used to pick 3 soldiers at random and court-martial them for cowardice. He then executed them. He said it was “to encourage the others”. It worked for him until Waterloo, Even then the Iron Duke said, “It was a damn close run thing”.

It is simply intolerable that some 20 months after having the money in hand the only tangible result is 10 pounds of cancelled checks. A whole bunch of people should have been fired. A lot of them should have been arrested. Some of them should been flogged. Those not fired or flogged must be encouraged to have their resumes up to date. A better future awaits them in Cuba or Venezuela.

It appears that Disney is about to smash the glass ceiling and put a chick in charge of everything. Going under the bus is the dude who 2 years ago was labeled the crown prince. So much for gender sensitivity in an empire that came about because people liked a mouse not quite 90 years ago. 

Here’s a plan that will be, in typical, lock step, brain dead modern American Liberal style, declared DOA, Dead on Arrival.

In 1888 Proctor & Gamble introduced profit sharing for its employees. Rule #1 should be self-evident. If there is not profit there is no sharing. 128 years later it is still going.

I suggest that you put your people into the bidding, planning, and building process. Whatever they can save becomes the “profit” that you can share with them. If some of them are corrupted arrest them, There is no tenure here.

I remember seeing some figures 12 years ago stating that 3 times as much that had been spent building Dillard High School had been spent on capital costs reconstructing it. That is unacceptable. People should still be in jail for that. 

What’s the worst that can happen?

You’re back where you starte. Johnny still can’t read in a building that is falling down

Try it.

Kevin Smith

PS – Why does the President get a pass on his daughters’ education? No place on earth spends more per pupil than Washington, DC. Even though they live in public housing he spends about $130,000 a year on tuition for them. They still live rent free at the White House. What’s wrong with that picture?