Every tax is a pay cut.  Every tax cut is a pay raise.
Citizens for Limited Taxation


Dr. Mark Smith

After more than six years as the Superintendent of Schools for the town of Framingham, Dr. Mark Smith has retired and we can examine his legacy.  The cost of schools has climbed by 50% and the SAT scores have declined by more than 20 points.  To add insult to injury, the School Committee gave him a pay raise before his retirement.  Way to go, Phil Dinsky!  Reward failure!  

Dr. Mark Smith now speaks in favor of bilingual education over english immersion.  You would think he learned from his own experience, but he is still blind to the obvious.  Will somebody please wake him up.

Now that the voters have spoken on Novenber 5th, 2002, English immersion will be the law.  I assume that Mark Smith assumes we are all wrong to have voted the way we did.

If the selectmen intend to find another one like Smith, I recommend that we don't spend too much money looking.  At this rate, we'll have the worst schools in the area.  We'll be the pariah of the Metrowest area.

As soon as Smith resigned, the town immediately started a search for his replacement without a single statement about promoting the assistant superintendent of schools.  Back in my world, assistants are supposed to take over when somebody leaves.

We have an assistant school superintendent, Walter McClennen, who seems unable to assume the duties of the superintendent despite the fact that he will have been an assistant superintendent of schools for a year at the time Dr. Mark Smith leaves in August, 2003.  How many years will we pay him before he can assume the position?  How much does Walter McClennen make in order to not assume this position?

Log entries
11/26/2002
Mark Smith states that low MCAS scores at Woodrow Wilson elementary school are not an indictment of the faculty.  The superintendent is not responsible and the faculty is not responsible.  Don't you just love a country where no one is held responsible for failure.

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