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Ucnthndlthtruth
| | Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2001 - 10:15 am: |     |
From :
Incumbent maintains school board is dysfunctional, unprepared
03/16/01
BY ED JOHNSON
FOR THE STAR-LEDGER
The Maplewood-South Orange Board of Education is a "dysfunctional" and "unprepared" group whose members should be recalled (yes ,BOLD deal with it!), board member William Gold said last night at a candidates forum in the DeHart Community Center.
"The votes are usually 8-1 and I'm the one," he said. "Our board of education is as dysfunctional as it has been in the 13 years I've been watching it. Members continually come to meetings unprepared. There is a lot of work to be done and this board is not carrying the load."
Gold further criticized the board for "having the same goals three years in a row. That means we haven't accomplished anything."
Pleased to see some Star Ledger interest in this continuing fiasco. Question is, will the voters get involved ? Will new residents make it their business to become informed?
How many people showed up for the candidates forum in the DeHart Community Center ? How many people understand the nature of the recently proposed BOE budget including the special question issue ?
Complete article
http://www.nj.com/njcommunities/ledger/essex/index.ssf?/njcommunities/ledger/essex/12a77e3.html |
Ucnthndlthtruth
| | Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2001 - 10:23 am: | |
Dave,
Trying to edit this post to get rid of the weird stuff in the heading but can't get in. Any advice ?
Thanks
U |
Jem
| | Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2001 - 11:16 am: | |
Bill Gold accuses the board of not carrying the load? Interesting, considering that he resigned from all committee work in a huff months ago - as reported in the News-Record whenever it was that he made that noble move. Not only is Mr. Gold not carrying the load, but he's considerably increased the load on other board members. |
Alidah
| | Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2001 - 9:06 pm: | |
What is the nature of the BOE budget? Gold was the only one who voted against it. Didn't he support dismantling the alternative high school as well as question something about maintence or energy costs?
What is the special question issue?
(Please don't scold me for not going to the meeting--will it be televised?) |
Teach66
| | Posted on Sunday, March 18, 2001 - 9:43 pm: | |
Right or wrong, Bill Gold is the ONLY one that has ANYTHING to say!! |
Plonk
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 10:11 am: | |
"The votes are usually 8-1 and I'm the one," he said.
Who's dysfunctional? |
Nilmiester
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 10:24 am: | |
Bill Gold is the only one that will tell the emperor he has no clothes. |
Octofoil
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 10:26 am: | |
There is no better way to ensure that a group of people (a committee) charged with overseeing something (anything) will not become passive and subservient than to have at least one person who questions and asks "why". IMHO, Bill Gold provides a valuable counter-balance to a group of people that too frequently exhibit a tendency to say nothing but "yes" to the administration. |
Tip
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 1:29 pm: | |
octofoil,
I give Bill Gold alot of credit. He is definitely not a "yes man" and speaks his mind. You have to admire that whether you agree with him or not. |
Greenetree
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 1:30 pm: | |
Can anyone tell me what Bill Gold actually supports ? I'm not being sarcastic here- I'm not able to attend BOE open meetings, so I have to rely on newspaper articles & election-time flyers. All I can figure out is that he thinks everyone else on the Board is an idiot, but I'm not sure what HE actually wants to do. |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 3:21 pm: | |
The clearest thing I got from Thursday's meeting is that he thinks the alternative school is a huge waste of money.
Also he supports litigation against the state around what I'm not sure off the top of my head. Someone else can help me out here, please.
He would like to continue the Achieve program under Ms. Povitz (sp?)
Unfortunately he wasted a lot of time repeatedly lambasting his colleagues on the Board rather than promoting his own views/ideas.
Bacata |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 4:42 pm: | |
I was also at the Thursday meeting and I agree that his main positive suggestion was to sue the state. Other candidates agreed and nobody explicitly disagreed, but there weren't any other incumbents. |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 4:42 pm: | |
<sorry, duplicate edited out> |
Nohero
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 5:38 pm: | |
Re: Suing the state. I have never heard any explanation as to the basis for such a suit. The poor, urban districts in the Abbott v. Burke litigation established that the level of poverty in their districts, the corresponding educational needs of the students in those districts, and the dearth of local resources which could be looked to for funding via the property tax, combined to make the state's system for funding education unconstitutional as to those special needs districts. That's my long-winded way of saying that more than a simple "They sued the state, why don't we" rationale is needed. I'm concerned that efforts to effect real change, politically, could be sidetracked or delayed if some people believe that a litigation strategy should be pursued.
If there was a clear cause of action which could be defined, that would be one thing. However, so far nobody has defined the basis for any suit against the state. |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 7:26 pm: | |
I don't understand all the details, but they want to sue because, as they say, "we have lots of Abbott students." |
Jem
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 8:07 pm: | |
Getting back to the title of this thread and Gold's allegations about his fellow board members, I would say that the major "dysfunction" on the BOE is that Gold would apparently rather alienate than form alliances, would rather throw tantrums than calmly negotiate. He accuses other board members of being unprepared, whereas the other eight board members work long and diligently to do their own committee work as well as the committee work that Gold has abandoned. He's having a ball for himself, tossing verbal grenades at the folks who carry the load.
In the world according to Gold, he's the injured party, the only board member with a brain or passionate feelings. In the real world, the board is a group of bright, hard-working, dedicated volunteers who were elected by the community and who care deeply, and, yeah, even passionately, about this school district. They work long hours at a really difficult and complex task.
If Gold really only represented a "different viewpoint," that would be ok, but his approach is simply destructive, since he appears to be unable or unwilling to form alliances where it counts: among the other members of the board. If anyone should be "recalled," it's Gold. |
Ucnthndlthtruth
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 9:49 pm: | |
Ah... Jem, "unwilling to form alliances" ?
Is that what it's all about ?
Bill Gold isn't a good politician ? He doesn't know how to play the game ? HE speaks his mind does he ? How dare he ! Quick .... go get some Latz confederates to run who will make nice .
From the archives by Mr. Gold:
"I don't usually respond to pseudonyms, but a friend suggested that I read this discussion and set the record straight.
At the July 17 BOE meeting, I strongly opposed the board's goals, as, amongst other things, redundant of the last two years, inappropriate (the Board has no legal right to be an agent of change in the community) and too vague. There was little if any response.
Later that evening when I strongly opposed another item which the rest of the Board clearly supported, Marianne Sender said that she was going to respond to me notwithstanding the fact that,"I know that we have agreed not to respond to Mr. Gold in public" (or words very close to that, there nonetheless being no question that she used the word "we"). She subsequently but unconvincingly later said she had meant herself only, but the actions of my fellow Board members then and lately strongly militate in favor of the existence of such an agreement.
It has been some time that I have felt frozen out. Brian O'Leary, for instance, rarely returns my phone calls. I write usually several memos a week to the Board on open issues and issues I would like to see discussed in public. I virtually never get a response. I certainly never get a second to place items on the agenda, in particular efforts by which we may be be able to get significantly greater funding from the State (which Mr. O'Leary has commented may be greater than $1 million). Some months back when I raised the issue of whether we needed to continue to teach Black History Month in light of significant revisions to our curricula and textbooks to integrate Black History (and for that matter the history and contributions of all groups to the US and the World), I was pilloried in public and not one member of the Board had the decency to correct the calumny.
In the final months of my term, I will continue to raise the issues I feel are important. In light of the Board's shameful and disgraceful attitude to a fellow elected member, I have little choice but to increasingly let the public know how dangerously out of control this Board is and how the schools and the community will be damaged, I fear, beyond repair by their ineptitude, abrogation of responsibility, ignorance and lackadaisical attitude toward substance.
The simple fact is that the only diversity this Board does not care about is the only diversity that truly matters-- diversity of thought. "
Bill Gold |
Curmudgeon
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 10:59 pm: | |
It has become quite obvious that Mr. Gold is interested only in grandstanding. He proclaims himself the injured party and holds himself up as the voice of reason but his behavior as a board member puts the lie to those claims. By withdrawing from his BOE committee assignments and refusing to work at all with the rest of the board, he makes it clear that he's interested only in making noise, not in affecting policy or convincing others of the correctness of his positions. It's impossible to change school policy, even from a position on the board, if the only way you communicate with the other board members is by pontificating and accusing them of incompetence. With such behavior it's no wonder the other board members have taken to ignoring him.
It may be quixotic and romantic always to be the "one" in those 8-1 votes, but even if every position Mr. Gold has taken is congruent with yours, his inability to work with the rest of the board or to convince ANY of them that his positions are correct (or even rational) should suggest that he's an inappropriate person to represent your views. You'd be much better served by someone who represents you perhaps slightly less well but can reason with other people instead of trying to bludgeon them into submission. |
Alidah
| | Posted on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 11:22 pm: | |
Does anyone on the board have professional experience in facilitating meetings--that is, making sure that a situation like this doesn't happen again? It is outrageous that a board member and the citizens who voted for him have become marginalized. "Dysfunctional" is putting it mildly. |
Jfb
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2001 - 8:23 am: | |
We see how PC people on this board respond to diverse opinions: they attack.
Now, can we expect any difference on the board of ed?
They are freezing out the dissenting voice.
Diversity of thought is the one thing this town does not allow. |
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