FREE WHITEWATER

Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Education, School District

The Visigoths Who Love Music

by  • 

It was quite some time ago that the Visigoths sacked Rome, acquiring thereafter (if not before) a bad reputation.  It’s safe to say that whatever challenges Whitewater faces do not involve rampaging hordes seeking to overturn our social order. 

We’ve had parents protesting over possible budget cuts, to music or other programs. You’ll see below, from a Whitewater Unified School District PowerPoint presentation, a full-room of concerned parents this spring, when the district proposed program cuts:

Community Reaction
Surprised and concerned, but wholly civilized

Why were they there?  An obvious reason is that they were concerned about program cuts. 

But, I’ve written before about those proposed cuts, and it’s also obvious that many parents were unaware about the district’s actual, fiscal condition: “if the district ran into a parental firestorm of surprise and frustration at the end of its budgetary process, then the district’s budgetary process was inadequate.”

(See, along these lines, The Whitewater Schools’ Recent Budget Cuts, and The Whitewater Schools’ Budget Cuts.)

When large groups of people are surprised, it’s most often because leaders have not communicated a difficult message adequately beforehand.

If while writing I fail to make my point, that’s almost certainly my error, not readers’.  Responsibility for communicating rests mostly with the speaker, not the audience. 

The same is true with leaders in business or government: the burden is on leaders to be clear, well in advance.  It is they who should have the necessary information about prospects, and so it is they who have the burden to communicate effectively.

People aren’t stubborn a tenth so often as they are surprised. 

We’re now looking at years of structural deficits for our district, but it’s not a sin to say as much.

The sky won’t fall.  Lightning won’t strike.  Barbarians won’t sack the city (as there are none around, anyway). 

Parents may support our music programs, but they aren’t Visigoths, so to speak.  It’s a mistake to see opposition from surprise as obdurate. 

We’ll manage, and would have managed even better, if we had been clearer about these problems sooner.

A discussion of getting through, however, should be one about the broader, comprehensive curriculum first, about the goals for academic, athletic, and artistic accomplishment.

That’s why this district should Lead Substantively, Support Fiscally.

It’s more than a shame that the biggest story of 2014 for this district may turn out to be a budget referendum.  In this year or any year, the biggest story should be what’s being done (that begins every conversation), as that’s what matters most.  
 
Tomorrow: What’s Being Done is More than Just a (Sketchy) Number.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.21.14

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have an even chance of thunderstorms today, with otherwise cloudy skies and a high of eighty-three.

In Kenya earlier this month, it was reptile v. mammals in a battle over an elephant carcass:

On this day in 1959, America becomes a fifty-state nation:

Hawaii … is the 50th and most recent U.S. state to join the United States. It joined the Union on August 21, 1959. It is the only U.S. state located in Oceania and the only one made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.

Google-a-Day asks a question about a narrator:

Who is the narrator of Conrad’s novel that involves a boat trip up the Congo River to Inner Station?

School District

A Whitewater Schools 2014 Referendum (Quick Politics of It All )

by  • 

The Whitewater Schools will likely vote to exceed revenue-caps by something over a million dollars a year for four years.  The proposal is in response to projected structural deficits of about a million-and-a-half dollars. 

A formal vote is yet ahead, and beyond that there are details and justifications to consider.  It’s reasonable to review all the information the district presents. 

As a policy matter, there’s time enough to read and then ponder the district’s proposal.  

As a political matter, I’ve a few remarks for today and tomorrow. 

I’m sure there have been lengthy internal conversations about how to advance a referendum politically (beyond discussions with the residents’ advisory group).

1. November 2014.  The key political consideration is that this is a November 2014 gubernatorial-year referendum.  The single-most important factor in the referendum’s success will not come from local proponents, but from statewide candidate Mary Burke’s showing in the city proper. 

(How close she can come in surrounding towns matters, too, but less so, as it’s Gov. Walker’s territory to win.)

I’ve predicted that Gov. Walker will win statewide, but that Mary Burke will carry the city.  (I still think that’s the most likely statewide outcome despite surprisingly close August polls.)

The bluer the electorate in Whitewater proper, the better the chances for a referendum’s success.  A referendum victory would require a thank-you card to Ms. Burke, no matter how she does statewide. 

2. Conservative Credibility.  Conservatives locally are not in control of their own destiny – over years they’ve thrown their credibility away, and now depend on red years elsewhere (or years that aren’t so blue elsewhere) to prevail in the city. 

They dribbled away their credibility by backing local big project after big project, and now they’ve no credible claims against multi-million-dollar spending. 

They’re big-government ‘conservatives,’ and that’s a losing long-term proposition. 

A big-spending conservative is like a clergyman in a cathouse: repulsive and hypocritical, both.

3. Conservative Voices.  Even if, within the city, there are conservative leaders who will oppose a referendum (and I think most of them will stay quiet), those who do so will probably offer inarticulate objections based on anti-labor whining.

That’s not the way to contend against spending in an increasingly-blue environment, but they’ll think a bit of carping (in big red letters) is an adequate substitute for a comprehensive assessment of how much spending the district needs. 

It’s not; their approach will be ineffectual, if not counter-productive.

This discussion needs to be moved to different ground, to a conversation about what the district truly needs to meet its academic, athletic, and artistic objectives.  (That may mean more in some areas, but less in others – distribution matters.)

There are no self-professed, longtime conservative leaders in the City of Whitewater proper who will take that approach.  They’ll either stay quiet or mishandle the issue.

That would be, however, the right conversation: what do you want to accomplish for the children of this community, and what do you need to meet those objectives?  

What’s gained by the additional spending (or what would be lost without it)?

The only conversation worth having about education is an inquisitive, thoughtful, sharp one, in which arguments are carefully evaluated. 

Tomorrow: The Visigoths Who Love Music. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.20.14

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-three. Sunrise today is 6:07 AM and sunset is 7:49 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with twenty percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater CDA Seed Capital Screening Committee meets at 3:30 PM, and the Community Development Authority Board at 5 PM.

On this day in 1911, the first telegram travels around the world by design in a commercial test:

The New York Times sends a telegram message to test how fast a commercial message could be sent around the world. Reading simply, “This message sent around the world”, it left at 7 PM, traveled over 28,000 miles and was relayed by 16 different operators. It arrived back at The Times only 16.5 minutes later. The building where the message originated is now called One Times Square and is best known for where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

On this day in 1794, American soldiers win the Battle of Fallen Timbers:

Fallen_timbers
An 1896 depiction of the battle from Harper’s Magazine.

1794 – Battle of Fallen Timbers
On this date American troops under General “Mad” Anthony Wayne defeated a confederation of Indian forces led by Little Turtle of the Miamis and Blue Jacket of the Shawnees. Wayne’s soldiers, who included future Western explorer William Clark and future President William Henry Harrison, won the battle in less than an hour with the loss of some 30 men killed. (The number of Indian casualties is uncertain.)

The battle had several far-reaching consequences for the United States and what would later become the state of Wisconsin.

The crushing defeat of the British-allied Indians convinced the British to finally evacuate their posts in the American west (an accession explicitly given in the Jay Treaty signed some three months later), eliminating forever the English presence in the early American northwest and clearing the way for American expansion.

The battle also resulted in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, in which the defeated Indians ceded to Wayne the right of Americans to settle in the Ohio Valley (although the northwestern area of that country was given to the Indians). Wayne’s victory opened the gates of widespread settlement of the Old Northwest, Wisconsin included. [Source: American History Illustrated, Feb. 1969]

Google-a-Day poses a question about poetry:

In the poem that includes the lines, “This is the dead land, This is cactus land”, to what work is the first epigraph an allusion?

City, Development, Marketing

One Reason a Comprehensive Marketing Plan Can’t Work (Now) in Whitewater

by  • 

There’s talk, about every six months or so, about launching a comprehensive marketing plan for Whitewater.  (This must be version 17.0 by now.) 

I’ll set aside the problem of past efforts at marketing the city dishonestly, as though prospects were too dim to see through blatant exaggerations or omissions about life in town.  (See, The Failure of Marketing (and the Marketing of Failure)). 

There’s another problem: to market the town to good prospects requires presenting it both honestly and differently from the way in which declining town squires insist it must be presented.

Present effectively, and a waning old guard will be alienated or insulted; present as that old guard insists, and few prospects will find the presentation persuasive (or even credible).

Aging insiders would have to set aside their own pride to present Whitewater both honestly and effectively to newcomers.  They’d have to learn new tricks.

Even if they’re able to imagine a campaign that would be effective to outsiders (and that’s doubtful), they’ll never launch it as the content of that effort would undermine years of smug insistence that they’re masters at all this. 

So, here they are: waste money on a futile effort that appeals only to insiders’ pride, or commit to an effective program that abandons insiders’ tired method in favor of an appeal to motivated newcomers.  

It will be nearly impossible for them to overcome their own pride; it would be easier for them to flap their arms and fly. 

City, Culture

The Fragmented Audience

by  • 

Whitewater’s a small town, but it has more than one culture within its nine square miles. 

(There’s a separate issue, suitable for another time, about whether it’s legitimate to have more than one culture or method from Whitewater’scity government.  It’s not; unlike diverse private life, a representative government cannot legitimately allow its officials and employees different standards from that of the community.)   

In private life, however, many combinations are, and should, be possible. 

What’s characteristic about Whitewater over these last ten years or so is that a supposedly common view of life here has collapsed.  Some see as much; others refuse to see it.  Many grew up or arrived with the idea of one Whitewater, but that’s no longer true.  Wishing for it will neither obscure change nor restore an older condition. 

Consider just a few statements made in town, or from nearby places.  For those who made them, they seem perfectly true and reasonable.  For others, they seem odd or ill-considered.

  • Ongoing businesses that display a window sign for a program entitled, “What you Will Need to Know When You are Ready (or Not) to Sell Your Business.”
  • “One of the primary purposes of the next meeting is to ensure the construction site is properly protected in anticipation of UWW students returning to campus.”
  • “A major reason for a styled-up front [of a public building costing more than 8 million] was to create curb appeal for the thousands of motorists who travel Highway 51 into the city each week, he said.”

It’s part of Whitewater’s lingering past that some will see them as sensible; it’s part of her transition to something new that others will see these statements as odd.  The older group overestimates its size and ability; the newer group underestimates its own. 

(Election results reveal change, and because of that the older faction avoids any other accurate, comprehensive surveys of popular opinion, lest the extent of this transition be made more obvious.)

Here we are, in flux. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.19.14

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday brings a slight chance of thunderstorms and a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:51 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with twenty-nine percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On August 19, 1934, Germany selected Adolf Hitler by plebiscite as leader-chancellor. Here’s how the New York Times reported Germany’s descent into despotism the next day:

Berlin, Monday, Aug. 20 — Eighty-nine and nine-tenths per cent of the German voters endorsed in yesterday’s plebiscite Chancellor Hitler’s assumption of greater power than has ever been possessed by any other ruler in modern times. Nearly 10 per cent indicated their disapproval. The result was expected.

The German people were asked to vote whether they approved the consolidation of the offices of President and Chancellor in a single Leader-Chancellor personified by Adolf Hitler. By every appeal known to skillful politicians and with every argument to the contrary suppressed, they were asked to make their approval unanimous.

Nevertheless 10 per cent of the voters have admittedly braved possible consequences by answering “No” and nearly [text unreadable] made their answers, ineffective by spoiling the simplest of ballots. There was a plain short question and two circles, one labeled “Yes” and the other “No,” in one of which the voter had to make a cross. Yet there were nearly 1,000,000 spoiled ballots….

Google-a-Day asks a question about musical history:

What musical period is best described as an era of contrasts; e.g., between loud and soft, fast and slow?