“Ridgewood will not do better until we allow an open fair vetting for key positions, inclusive of people outside the village .
Can anyone really defend that Fishbein or Gorman are the best there is?
Just the performance of the schools shows us they are sub-par. But they live in the village so we hire them. Remember when Fishbein threatened to leave for more money and couldn’t find anywhere else to take him? Same position on police, why limit it to village residents, why no college requirements, why not raise the bar for these high paying, high benefit jobs. Shouldn’t we be insisting on the very highest standards for the taxes we pay in our schools and
The root of the problem is we elect sub-par leaders who have no idea or interest in how to lead or make tough decisions that need to be made, or they have personal agendas to keep things as they are.”
How and why was Gorman allowed to nurture and later celebrate a mass student walkout and protest with utter impunity? This kind of crap caused the University of Missouri to tank. Why should anyone believe that RHS is immune to that kind of fate?
Marty Brooks and his wife were hardcore constructivists. Thankfully Brooks quit before starting as the Ridgewood district superintendent or he and his wife would have turned Ridgewood into a reform math/constructivist education mecca. Regina Botsford, the assistant superintendent in charge of corrupting the district’s curriculum, mercifully quit soon afterwards, seeking greener pastures to satisfy her constructivist bent. The current superintendent, while also a generally ideologically driven progressive liberal (like they all seem to be), never developed a national reputation or following.
So he could never overwhelm the district with pure nonsense the way the Brooks family would have in short order.
All we know is that under his leadership, the debt has increased and rankings have fallen.
If you ever want to see why we’re slipping in rankings, look no further than the FB pages of you children’s teachers. Filled with union and liberal claptrap. It’s all about the bucks, the bennies and a job for life.
Many of our teachers are excellent and among the best in the nation. They are truly trying their best to properly educate our students. Many others are like one of my daughter’s teachers who said, “I really don’t have to do anything but fill a chair until I retire. I HAVE TENURE!” Or another daughter who constantly cut class and was in danger of not graduating because she had not filled her Physical Education requirements. I said “summer school for the educational classes she cut.” They said, “Oh, no. She has health problems so we’re only double upping on her PE.” And this went on while we were still highly ranked! At that time, however, we had 12 or more National Merit Scholars and around 35 National Merit Awarded Students. And they ALL got tons of offers including Ivy and other highly ranked colleges. Even as bad as the schools have gotten, how could we only have 4? Nowadays Ridgewood parents tutor their kids for everything so are the tutors that bad as well? It’s really an unreal situation to be that badly thought of by colleges. And I personally know many of the current great teachers. What is happening to the schools?
Look no further than this commentary to confirm why the blog is way more honest than Facebook. no one with kids in the school or teachers who are neighbors would post so honestly on fb.