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 Post subject: For Sale - One School Corporation?
PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 12:24 am 
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http://nwi.com/articles/2008/08/28/news ... 02e9c7.txt

In a nutshell the governor seems willing to intervene in the Gary School City mess but it is still unclear whether the governor's office or the state school authority should get control. But this should be a no brainier for Daniels - just sell it!

Every other thing in the state seems to be for sale under his leadership including operations of Child Protective Services. Why not put it out on the auction block with a nice bonus for early performance improvements?

Well of course the state can't really "sell" something like that. We learned that with the toll road and state government agencies. But we can lease it out! Yet the toll road deal aside has privatizing been a good thing for state agencies? I'm not at liberty to reveal details but my sources say no, it's not going as well as some would have you think.

OTOH, perhaps a detailed 5 - 10 year private lease is just what the GSC needs. The problem is that to be effective there probably would need to be a last resort mechanism to remove the most troubled youths from the classrooms of those who do want to learn. But the biggest hurdle I see in a possible lease of the school city is what do you do with the current teachers and what of their salary packages? Are they grandfathered in en mass regardless of competence?? This question may be the major stumbling block in such a lease deal. Or perhaps not. But then what of the condition of the buildings themselves? Shouldn't an elected board have final say on a 40 year building commitment? OTOH one could argue that the board has always been a part of the problem and this would be a great test of whether locally elected school boards can negotiate contracts better than a budget conscious governor.

I think the state taking over the schools is generally a good idea, but how much authority it would have available to make long term plans is a bureaucratic nightmare. I think the governor should have taken over the Gary airport 2 years ago as a test run. In comparison that would have been a cakewalk!

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 Post subject: Re: For Sale - One School Corporation?
PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:25 am 
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A trial lease would be interesting

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 Post subject: Re: For Sale - One School Corporation?
PostPosted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 7:32 am 
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Does this mean the Gary School City is getting yet another free pass?

http://www.nwitimes.com/articles/2008/0 ... 011023.txt

Sounds to me like the state may chicken out on doing what's right and taking the thing over.

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If you voted for the Dems don't be surprised when things don't turn out quite as you were led to expect. Some might call it pure Marxism. But the problem with Obama economics is there's not enough money in the world to make it work.


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 Post subject: Re: For Sale - One School Corporation?
PostPosted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:35 am 
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Well we now know that if a school system fails it, just appeal and eventually it will back down and grant a passing grade it seems

no way in hell with as many schools failing, can theentire system pass, there is just no way

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 Post subject: Re: For Sale - One School Corporation?
PostPosted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:16 pm 
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This is quite a sticky mess since the state obviously does really want to take over the school corporation and taking over just the poor schools is an impossible situation. Then comes the quagmire of the state essentially wanting to take over control of ALL state schools, not just Gary schools. Could be the state is putting this off until then. Then there's the Federalization of schools under NCLB. But the problem with the Gary schools is the very problems with the city itself. It is but 1 more broken cog in the wheel of city government.

When you have the mayor bidding on private property (and I might add under suspicious last minute winning bids) at near the cost of 3 months of workers' insurance premiums and nearly getting the policy cancelled for non-payment all while the fire department is half staffed then you have a problem! Private bidders were willing and able to pay all the back taxes and invest in the city to make those properties productive, yet a bankrupt city government comes to snatch them up for "future use" but with no money to even demo those dilapidated buildings you begin to see that government is broken. There can be no "future plans" while the city has no money. As I said elsewhere, I think Clay's thought was to use the new property for some sort of collateral to borrow even more money the city can't pay back.

The state either needs to take over the entire city and try to rebuild a functioning government structure or it needs to cut off all possible funding to force the city to voluntarily unincorporate and either let the county take over or split the city up and let the surrounding cities take over. Not entirely unprecedented. I think in 1934 EC annexed Hammond and Gary then annexed EC until the state nixed both annexations. I'm not a big fan of forced annexation of any kind, but clearly Gary can no longer function and things are just getting worse by the day.

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If you voted for the Dems don't be surprised when things don't turn out quite as you were led to expect. Some might call it pure Marxism. But the problem with Obama economics is there's not enough money in the world to make it work.


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