“It’s important to have this conversation,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre last week about the need to change the name of the Atlanta Braves.
Is it really? Is it important? Without any comparison to other White Houses, this one amazes me with their lack of perspective on what the average American is thinking. These people have a proverbial house with the back porch on fire and they’re saying it’s important to change the cat litter box.
Just a matter of time before these people come after your Chiefs, mark my words.
In my lifetime, Jean-Pierre and Anthony Scaramucci have been the worst press secretaries in communicating to the American public in my opinion; by a long shot. The problem is ScarAmucci’s press career ended after 10 days, Jean-Pierre’s continues.
Anything I said and advice I offered about the Landmark Pick’em contest and NFL football on Landmark Live before the football season started was wrong. Plan your life accordingly going forward.
Landmark Music Man Brad Carl has become an NFL conspiracy dude. It’s sad, they tell me he used to be a normal conformist person.
He’s convinced the games are rigged and I’ve been dragged into a group text chat with him and he points out his evidence during games now. I consider him a threat to democracy at this point. Next thing you know, he’ll be storming the NFL offices in New York and putting his feet on Roger Goodell’s desk and stealing a podium or something.
Liz Cheney will probably investigate him eventually. The only good thing is that he will be able to give his testimony in song version, which is more entertaining than run-of-the-mill questions and answers at most Senate hearings.
Speaking of conspiracies, I have my own crutch and it’s called public education. You’re welcome to eye roll at this point. I just cannot believe what a train wreck public education has become. I know you love your kid’s teacher and your kid’s school. No one says, “I send my kids to a crappy school.”
This complaint is a step higher than your conformist acceptance of the new normal.
A “school choice” proponent tweeted out an interview last week and it just resonated with me. Tiffany Justice, the co-founder of Moms for Liberty said this, “Teachers unions don’t care about kids. Public education has become a jobs program. Decisions are made at every level in public education about what is best for adults, not what is best for kids.”
Here is the best example of why it has become a jobs program. Since 2000, administrative staff has grown 88 percent in public education. 88%! Let that sink in. Principals’ and assistant principals’ staff have grown 37%. Students and teachers have grown at approximately 8%.
We got more cooks in the kitchen than we need. It’s obvious to anyone with a high school business class under their belt. We pay people six figure salaries to handle rudimentary tasks that are not befitting of their alleged education or skill set, yet we just keep hiring.
I know of small schools that have a superintendent, high school principal and elementary school principal officed within a few feet of each other in the same building, managing a hand full of teaching staff and less than 100 students. In big schools we pay administrators to be proverbial babysitters at extracurricular and co-curricular functions that rarely require their input or action; a task that could easily be handled by employees with less education and less salary, yet here we are.
They flood you with their newsletters, emails and social media posts that tell you how much good they’re doing, and we just quit looking at what it is actually costing us to feel this good. By the time we look at the tab, it’s too late, you’re already drunk from the feel good. It’s a hangover that may have no cure.
(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or being the guest speaker at public education union meetings)