Useless Conversations

He was tall, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties. He spoke with an authoritative tone. I saw him emerging from an aisle in Target last night. He turned his head back and spoke to someone behind him.

"Well, what did you expect?" He asked, a bit annoyed. "I told you--you're exothermal!"

After a few seconds his companion emerged: a little girl, perhaps five. She looked unhappy and her arms were wrapped around her body as she walked.

I don't know how these two particular people got to this point in their conversation, but it was clear that it was doing nothing for the child, who was cold and miserable. And quite certainly was not "exothermal."

Useless conversations. Exchanges that improve nothing. Disputes for the sake of dispute. Accusations which have no basis. Meaningless controversy. And that brought to mind...

The Howard County Board of Education, ladies and gentlemen.

While important issues like school overcrowding, the achievement gap, plummeting teacher morale, addressing bullying and sexual assault, illness-producing mold at Glenwood Middle and other schools, and inequity in special education raged on, our board was more concerned* about:

Silencing Allen Dyer.
Getting rid of Allen Dyer. (How much did that cost?)
Getting rid of middle school reading classes.
Vacillating about running for higher office. (Okay, just Dr. Siddiqui.)
Accusing Cindy Vaillancourt of something.
Accusing Cindy Vaillancourt of another something.

If we want to make any progress at all in addressing the real issues that impact our students and our community, it is essential that we remove the incumbents who have perpetuated this endless cycle of useless conversations. Not convinced? Take a look at this page from The People's Voice for additional information about what these incumbents have done with their time in office.

We have some excellent candidates running who are ready to get the right conversations rolling. I'll talk about them tomorrow.

*These are just a few examples. Click on the links to refresh your memory.

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