"I am sick to death of blaming the tornado," she said.
While her statement was specifically in response to a question about teacher turnover and she offered other, more logical causes for the mass exit of teachers from the district, Debbie Fort said the words that many people have been thinking for a long time- it is time to stop using the tornado as a crutch for everything.
It has been used as an excuse not only for high teacher turnover, but also for incredible overspending of taxpayer money and for sweeping changes that seem to be designed more for show than for actual educational value.
With that one sentence, Debbie Fort sounded a "stop the nonsense" rallying cry that was easily the top moment in the one hour forum.
Naturally, the quote did not make today's Joplin Globe coverage.
To be fair, reporter Emily Younker did hit some of the other high points of the forum, including Board President Jeff Flowers' comment "I think we're open and honest in everything we do," and David Guilford's retort that the board's policy on public comment is "closing the door completely on the taxpayer. I think it's wrong and it's very detrimental to our district and our students."
So why didn't Debbie Fort's comment make the pages of the area's newspaper of record?
Sadly, no entity has been move invested in prolonging the story of Joplin's continued suffering from the tornado than the Joplin Globe.
My guess is Emily Younker had no idea how Debbie Fort's line would resonate with the public.
5 comments:
Under former President Speck, Missouri Southern spent a couple of years blaming the tornado for declining enrollments. It's a convenient excuse, to be sure, but at some point you just have to let it go.
Every time I hear of the tornado being used as a excuse for every thing from poor enrollment to the heartbreak of psoriasis it make me sick. Enough is enough. To some people the tornado is like a ex president that the current president blames everything that's wrong on. The only time the tornado should be mentioned is once a year at the memorial who lost their lives to it.
WOOHOO go Mrs fort!! She speaks the truth and she should be on the board.
I was for Debbie Fort until I saw that she had been endorsed by the NEA and the MNEA - the most liberal and non-commonsensical of teachers' unions. Why is it that the GLOBE NEVER covered the issues, only the biographies of the candidates? That is truly poor journalism.
I have spent over 3 hours online and nowhere can I find any resource dealing with the candidates' opinions on the issues. I cannot find who is a C. J. Huff 'CommonCoreBot' and who is against this destructive 'educational' program.
Post a Comment