Long local rant

[southsider2k5]

For anyone who is interested, I did this long post today on my blog regarding my hometown and its current state, It is a culmination of many things happening at the same time, and I am curious what other people think of it. Please feel free to be honest and upfront.

 

Linkester

 

And the text for the clicking impared...

 

As most know, I have been basically born, raised, and lived almost of my life in Michigan City Indiana. There have been somethings bugging me about politics in my hometown, so today is a long, long rant day.

 

As I see it, there are 3 basic criteria that one uses when deciding to move to an area or a town. In no particular order, families look at community safety, the local school system, and the local employment situation. Now there are exceptions and odd situations sure, but in general most people look at some combination of those 3.

 

Now with that in mind, we look at Michigan City's situation. Right now frankly the schools are in chaos. As I posted before the Administration decided that their suspension and explusion rates were too high (City ranked way high in IN's overall totals) so they directed the schools leaders to do everything possible to not suspend or expell students. The situation at the schools has deteriorated to the point where the sign out front might as well read Indiana State Prison instead of Michigan City HS. Kids did whatever they wanted to the point of endangering teachers and fellow students on a daily basis. Big fights are a regular occurance, students don't go to class, instead roaming the halls at will, teachers have been hit, students have been brutally beaten, and yet none of this info is ever really made public. Parents have no idea what is going on in the schools and don't understand the teachers action at all. Their kids are in danger, and they have no idea. As a matter of a fact the school board attended to school one day to attempt to show how safe the school was, and instead the Assistant Superintendant got to return to her roots as a former Assistant Principal, and break up a fight.

 

The school board ignored the protests from the teachers union to the point where they had to declare a "work to rules" action in which teachers would only work the specifics which were in their employment contract. The resulting action basically grinded the school to a mushy halt. Teacher couldn't volunteer for activities that they usually do in their freetime. They also couldn't do things like grade papers, write tests, and prepare for classes outside of their workday, which has led to more problems. Sick students also lost the chance to make up tests outside of class, because teachers weren't allowed to spend any extra time to give the test.

 

Finally the school board has realized the mess they have made, and relented into most of the teachers demands. The teachers have called off their action temporarily for two weeks to see how these new rules run. The key demand has been met, with disipline being decided at the school level instead of at the administrative level. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

 

But the symptoms of the problems are not going to be addressed. The purpose of high school is to prepare kids for the next level of their life. It isn't meant to be a finishing school. It is meant to prepare kids for college, trade school, or a job depending on the needs of the student. City has become so obsessed with test scores and expulsion rates that they have lost track of this. Instead the kids are hitting the workplace with no ability to learn, only the ability to regurgitiate facts in a short term time frame. They have no idea of work ethic or personal responsibility becaue they haven't been installed in these kids when they should have been. This is the problem that needs to be addressed.

 

The Superintendant of City schools Michael Harding's big soundbite is that all students "deserve an education" and I couldn't disagree with him more. Everyone deserves the OPPORTUNITY for an education. Once you waste that opportunity, you don't have it anymore. And once a student is taking away from the educational opportunities of another student, they have lost that chance in my opinion. The biggest problem with Harding's theory is it just furthers the point of view that many in our area have, that the system owes them something personally. No one is owed anything they do not attempt to earn for themselves, and an education is one of those things. It is out there if you want it. If you don't want it hard enough to work for it, you don't deserve it, an education included. When you are imersed in the entitlement mentality for your formative years, you hit the real world and realize that you aren't entitled to a nice job, fancy car, big house etc, and you have no idea how to get it, because you were never taught that you have to work for it. Michael Harding definately needs to rethink his philosophy in my opinion.

 

Next on my rant list is City and its politics. Currently their are plans around to bulldoze three more locally owned and operated restaraunts and build more condos and a luxury hotel. I know what the community leaders are thinking is that these condos will help the property tax rolls continue to grow, but they are once again looking at short term solutions to long term problems.

 

The problem is that people don't want to live in Michigan City year round. And mostly because of the three reasons that I listed at the beginning of my rant. There aren't many non-retail jobs, the school system is in shambles, and dispite declining crime rates, much of City isn't that safe. There has been an intelectual and skill flight out of City for at least two generations right now, that shows no signs of ebbing. Instead of giving abatements for companies to build casinos and malls, Michigan City needs to get out there and fight for skilled employment companies to down roots in City. Even with Condos being built, I truely believe the economic impact of someone paying property taxes on a $500,000 place while actually living there two weeks a year, is not as much as a two parent family each earning $30,000 but living here and spending their money here fifty two weeks a year. I would love to see a study on that done, but it makes sense to me. Also if City works to attact skilled labor, these are the types of people who are going to demand better schools for their kids, as they want their kids be educated and prepared for the workplace, knowing full well what that entitles. And these families being gainfully employed are way less like to be contributing to any kind of a crime rate. They are also much more likely to contribute to a community where they live, versus one they visit for weekends and vacations.

 

Instead our priorties are attracting $6 an hour retail jobs, because they are MUCH easier to attract, and selling out our precious lakefront to the highest bidder, even if that isn't the smartest thing to do for Michigan City as a whole, in the long term. This is also the kind of mentality that gives us half a million dollars worth of worthless brick structures on the sidewalks of Franklin Street at the same time we are laying off teachers. I know it is nice to present a pretty side to the tourists who visit us, but couldn't you spend that money a little better. The way I see it that money could have hired 10 teachers, cops, firefighters etc for one year, or one of those for about 10 years. Which one does that community more good? Are tourists going to remember those pretty brick things, and come back to spend again, or is that kid who is stuck in an overcrowded classroom more likely to drop out because no one has time to hear his cries for help.

 

I realize that things are a lot more complex than that, but putting Michigan City back into its former glory days is going to take a lot of work. I firmly believe that if they started to concentrate on those three main things, this town would explode again. It is in a beautiful location on Lake Michigan, complete with a port, interstate access, national parks, beachside housing, etc. During the 50's and 60's City's growth rate would have projected it to a population of 100,000 people today. Instead we are stuck at the same 30,000 people that we had 40 years ago. There is so much potential here, it just pains me to see it wasted, with such a basic solution right there at our fingertips.

[kapkomet]

Marion is much the same way. The people running the city have their collective heads so far up their ass they will never see daylight again. It's all about making the fat cats in a town fatter.

 

And people wonder why I was so quick to move away.

 

Edit: As I thought about this more, save Indianapolis, the whole damn state of Indiana has this problem.

[mreye]

Very good post, Mike.

 

I have a little local rant as well. The Times changed their format and have on the inside of page 1 a section called "Back Talk". People can call or e-mail any of their rants and only have to leave their town. No names are published. Well, I have read such things as: "Only Democrats pay taxes." "The Bush family gave money to the Nazis." "Bush is a war criminal." "Why don't the plows angle their blades the other way so they don't push the snow in my driveway?" Are you serious!? The lack of editing was incredible!

 

Well, it was every day like this! And the political cartoon was ALWAYS bashing Bush and or Republicans. I can take the occasional jab. That's how it used to be. But, since they made the change it was 20 to 1 against Bush and Republicans. I didn't renew my subscription and they called to find out why and I let 'em have it. The lady said she's been getting a lot of the same complaints and they're going back to the old format. I told her, "Maybe I'll look you up in a couple years. In the meantime you've lost a 15 year customer. Good job."

 

I felt a lot better after that. Yeah, I won't get my local news as easily, but I'm content.

Edited March 2, 2005 by mreye

[southsider2k5]

I thought about sending in this letter to my local news paper, but I think it has too many big words, and they would miss all of my misspellings and typos.

[TheBigHurt35]

Agreed about how the "entitlement mentality" is eroding the minds of high school kids everywhere (read my thread on the SICA redistricting debate in south suburban Chicago). My mother teaches at a public school in south suburban Chicago and I hear about this constantly. And the problems go beyond the "entitlement" students and their iodit parents: It's gotten to the point where NOBODY wants to teach at these schools and many of the people that they end up hiring are incompetent (so much so that my mother is considering quitting). Public schools in many places are a complete mess right now. It's a damn shame.

[Chisoxfn]

Geeze, I bashed my school a lot, but in reality I can't complain. It set me up to exceed in life and while it, like all schools, has its problems, its nowhere like what your describing Mike.

 

Really sucks to see the place you've grown up in fall apart because people are looking at numbers and quotas in regards to graduation numbers and not making sure high school does what its supposed.

 

My long argument if I ever took over the educational system would not be to piss more money into the system but to restructure it more in the way of Europe or even parts of Asia where its simply a building block to the next step whether that be trade schools or college.

 

I'm sick of the crap being fed down every kids throat that they all need to go to an ivy league school to be sucessful or whatever.

 

I went to a state school and as of now there are jobs all over the place for me to get. Hell school needs to get back on teaching people and making sure that students at the end of the semester have learned things that they will need later on.

 

Obviously you got to teach some of that retarded boring stuff that interests some and not others, but still, people have to be gaining something out of it and of course the parents have to be involved in there kids lives as well.

 

Luckily where I live most of the parents actually give a damn and I think that helps. When parents are volunteering and putting in effort then the teacher isn't stuck alone in a sense.

[YASNY]

Mike, regarding your criticism of the "brick structures on the sidewalk" you might want to reconsider that viewpoint. I work in and live near a city of about 30 to 40K in population (purely a guess on my part), Paducah KY. Several years ago, the now familiar trend of a mall opening up and downtown dying began here. After a few years of seeing the downtown dry up, the people and the city government did something about it. One of the steps they took was to tear up all the sidewalks on the main drag and put in brick sidewalks, with brick planters and seating areas. Paducah is a river town on the Ohio. Back in the '40's and 50's a concrete floodwall was built to prevent the city from being flooded out, as had happened in 1937. The city fathers hired an artist to paint murals of Paducah's history along this floodwall. This has been going on for years and keeps getting better and more impressive as time goes on. The next move they made, I consider a stroke of genious. After the refurbished downtown area attracted a few entreprenuers and several one of a kind restaurants opened, they started a program called "Paducah After Dinner". What happens with this is that on Friday and Saturday nights from April through October, they close portions of the street to traffic and allow local entertainers to perform on the street. This has brought people back to the downtown area in droves, exposing some of the shops and restaurants to potential customers and giving these shops a financial boost every weekend night during those months. Basically, the downtown area has been such a success that Paducah is a model for other towns looking to revitalize their downtown areas. Every year, several representatives from small towns and cities come to Paducah to see and discuss what Paducah has done, what has worked and what hasn't.

 

It all started with brick structures on the sidewalks.

Edited March 3, 2005 by YASNY

[mreye]

Excellent to see a town embracing it's past. My town has torn down every old building to build new, including the old schoolhous which was the first school in Lake County, Indiana. We're a lake town with about 8 miles of lakshore, but you wouldn't know it because they never protected the shore and allowed too many to build on it. I mean there's a building of storage units right up against the lake. It's absolutely beautiful. :puke

[mreye]

Mike, there's really only one reply to you:

 

 

Run for office. Use this blog, or a variation of it, as your platform. I'm sure there's lots of residents just like you looking for a fresh face and outlook.

[Rex Kickass]

If I'm not mistaken, the city has little to no say over the school board. Doesn't Indiana set up school boards so that they are their own separate entity?

[southsider2k5]

Eye- City has done the samethings. The area they are taking down includes a near-historic all brick Amtrak station, that was turned into a tastefully done local restaraunt after Amtrak deserted it. It is a locally owned, nonchain place that has an incredible view of the port, Trail Creek, and the world famous lighthouse. That is going to be a hotel now. The other side they are taking down two local places and turning it into condos. This kind of stuff has been happening all over town since the 50's. City has a long tradition of screwing up things like this. Back in the 50's they closed down their "old" down town to foot traffic and turned it into a Square. Well without all of the auto traffic people deserted the area and began building down on the south end of town, starting with the first local mall. Finally in the 90's they reopened the area to traffic, but the damage was done a generation ago. Downtown sits with historic old buildings completely deserted and boarded up just rotting. I have been in many towns where they have turned their old downtowns into flea markets or recruited named businesses who usually build store fronts, to occupy these buildings. All city has done is offer abatements, but really made no effort to reach out to the business community. And that type of stuff has continued to this day. They used to host the Ms Indiana competition, the former mayor thought it was sexist, so that is gone, along with its economic impact. The Citys big festival over Labor Day that raised money for college scholarships split town over a dispute that basically involved power over it. City wanted power, and when they didn't get it, they double the price to have the fest. The fest left for LaPorte.

 

And as for running for office, I would like to. But you know what I make and where I work(basically). I don't have the money or time to do it. I really would like to, but logistically its just impossible.

 

And Wino, yes the SB is very independant. They also have no clue so they hire all of these consultants to tell them what to think. Heck they should just hire the consultants for the school board and cut out the middleman. But the people they should be listening to, they don't. As a matter of a fact for the first time in the history of MCAS, the board refused to let the teachers union speak at their meeting. Flat out refused.

[Rex Kickass]

This is all about the GOB ya know. Good Ole Boys.

 

Been running the city for far too long - and Sheila was one of the biggest GOBs of em all. Until someone like you runs who's actually honest about the city problems, and wants to do something about it, it will continue.

 

Hey, SS - you ever listen to WIMS?

[southsider2k5]

This is all about the GOB ya know. Good Ole Boys.

 

Been running the city for far too long - and Sheila was one of the biggest GOBs of em all. Until someone like you runs who's actually honest about the city problems, and wants to do something about it, it will continue.

 

Hey, SS - you ever listen to WIMS?

 

You do know that Sheila used Rich Daley's boys to do all of the Franklin Street improvements right? That is what said it all to me. Plus when she decided out of no where not to run again and left office before her term was even up, that threw up all kinds of red flags for me. But she made sure she got her guy elected before he fled.

 

As for WIMS, I don't think I have listened since HS waiting to see if school was closed

 

Like I said I would love to run for something, but I don't know anyone in that town anymore, mostly on purpose. Almost all of my focus has been on work connections in the city, instead of connections in City. Plus you know how hard it would be to get elected as a relative conservative in that town.

[Rex Kickass]

I think it would be easier than you think dude.

 

I did mornings at WIMS for about 6 months in 2000.