The Chicago Way

Future G-Man Jim Malone when explaining how to bring down Al Capone to Eliot Ness said, You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!

Public education brought a knife to a gunfight this past Tuesday in Florida and where it’s not officially in the morgue it is on life support. Friends there is no way to sugar coat it, education took a severe beating.

Deborah Gianoulis lost to St. Johns county carpetbagger Jon Thrasher and this race wasn’t even close as Thrasher won by almost 20-percentage points. Gianoulis ran on improving and helping education and Thrasher ran on, I promise not to give all the special interests that I serve the kitchen sink.

Rick “I am not a criminal just mistakes were made, and it’s funny how that one never works at the courthouse”, Scott spent 73 million of his own dollars to buy, err win the Florida Governorship. We didn’t have an election so much as we had an auction. Mr. Scott by the way didn’t think the reviled by everybody who wasn’t related to or had his or her hand out looking for money from John Thrasher (he’s not only a representative people but he’s the Florida Republican chairperson too) senate bill six went far enough.

Then there is amendment 8 which failed to pass; unfortunately this was a bit of a hollow victory as a greater percentage voted to roll back the class size amendment than voted for it originally. I have to say where I voted against amendment 8, the class size how it is being implemented has become part of the problem. Even my meager victory is actually a mind numbing, heart breaking defeat.

There is no silver lining that I can see and the glass isn’t just half empty, it’s smashed broken into a million pieces.

It’s like Jack and Jill public looking at their ballot said to themselves how can I devastate public education, how can I set it back and assure more children fall through the cracks and more teachers leave the profession and then voted accordingly.

Supporters of pubic education we did not get our message out there. We didn’t let Jack and Jill public no the urgency of the situation. Friends we brought a knife to a gunfight and were treated the Chicago way.

Gianoulis

It’s nice to see a politician or a prospective politician who gets it and that’s what Deborah Gianoulis seems to do. To paraphrase a famous political quote, it’s education stupid.

The economy is rough, crime is up, civility is down; apathy, hopelessness and hypocrisy have replaced motivation, hope and sincerity, well look at education because all those things can find their roots there.

If we want society to improve, we need to better prepare the next generation and that means we can no longer can we just play lip service to education or allow our leaders to be at the beck and call of special interests unless it’s what should be all of our ultimate special interests and that’s our children.

Though I wonder what good this advocate of education will do, just as I sometimes wonder what would happen if we funded education properly as long as we here in Northeast Florida continue to have a school board that has a one size fits all curriculum, ignores discipline, blames teachers when they are put in impossible situation and don’t succeed to the level they hoped for and seems more interested in protecting their positions than doing what’s right for the children and city of Jacksonville.

However If Mrs. Gianoulis a long time children and education advocate does get elected and then practices what she preaches maybe just maybe that could be step one on the long road of turning this thing around.