Kohut’s Cure For Failing Schools

The city’s education system is a mess. Jeff Kohut, independent candidate for mayor, shares his views to fix a broken school system.

Equal doses of pragmatism and idealism are needed to address the Bridgeport public- education morass

“… We are constantly faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems …” Lee Iacocca

The current crisis in Bridgeport public education is actually just the worst in a very long series of annual, public-school system budget crises; it is the highly predictable, resultant cumulative effect of many years of severe underfunding and mismanagement of a critical, municipal budget area. Indeed, if Bridgeport, as a municipality, has anything of which to be ashamed, it is the shameless manner in which it has allowed patronage parasitism and political expedience to destroy its once-vaunted, public-education system …

To address the current crisis in Bridgeport public education, it must be recognized that we, as a city, are in a triage situation, with a critically ill public-school system lying alongside a seriously ailing city, which is dependent for assistance on a severely anemic state economy, which itself can turn only to a federal government that might develop fiscal apoplexy at any moment …

In terms of priorities in this triage situation, it must first be recognized that our public-education system is of the utmost priority, right up there with public safety and public health. A city with a moribund public-education system is surely about to start convulsing with the municipal ‘death rattle …”

It is in this context that Bridgeport must realize that in these dire economic times, we have nowhere to turn for a fiscal remedy except internally. We have finally hit the proverbial wall. We obviously have to make timely, critical choices …

Steps to restoring the Bridgeport school system to health

The first step in the process is to establish an education budget that provides the public-education system with the financial wherewithal to heal and reestablish healthy function. That obviously means funding the essentials (academic, arts, sports, and psychological/social-support programs–including substance abuse treatment/prevention) beyond the basic levels indicated by the $233 million budget requested by the Superintendent/BOE … The Superintendent/BOE must come up with a budget that leaves all programmatic aspects of the system unscathed, and indeed, somewhat “over funded” such that unforeseen expenses can be dealt with in order that no program will suffer interruption or negative alterations …

The second step in the process is for the Superintendent/BOE to dispassionately examine the administrative and non-programmatic portions of the education budget–with a non-political eye–such that all redundant and superfluous administrators, at all levels (especially the no-show and double-dipping pensioner, political patronage hires–and there are certainly millions of dollars worth of this description of superfluous employee in the school system)–are purged from the system. This budget-reducing approach should then be applied to other non-programmatic portions of the system, with the exception of school security personnel and crossing guards, such that the system, including physical plant, is operating at optimum levels of efficiency (even the politically directed Bridgeport Regional Business Council budget audit recommended this latter policy …).

The third step in the process is for the mayor to reconvene the city budget process and find another $19 million for the schools … I’m sure that if he takes the same administrative-efficiency approach to City Hall/all municipal departments as is being recommended for the public-school system, he’ll be able to find $5 million worth of redundant, non-union, non-civil service positions–especially among all of the expensive “consultants” retained by the various departments–to cut out of the budget … Other areas where the mayor can indefinitely defer spending/program implementation in the current budget are: tree-planting/landscaping programs (enlist volunteers, donations) (savings=approx. $1-$2 million); the creation of the new system of parks from brownfields sites (savings=approx. $5 million); cancel the current, election year street paving program–use hot patches for another year or so (this approach to road maintenance, by keeping our traffic-taming potholes/bumps intact, will also save the city money on speed-related accidents on our traffic-safety compromised streets) (savings=approx. $5 million); eliminate all unnecessary employee “perks” (savings=approx. $500,000 – $1 million) … And finally, if all of the illegally operating industrial polluters, zoning violators, and major tax deadbeats (Manny Motinho, Sal and Nancy DiNardo, et al.) are forced to pay their fines and taxes–or their property sold on speculation in lieu of official confiscation–the rest of the $19 million shortfall can be found to turn a public-education crisis into the start of a Bridgeport public-education renaissance …

This current education crisis should be seen as an opportunity for the Board of Education and City Hall to get our collective municipal “house” in order, and to reestablish our public-education system as a top-priority investment that helps to assure our future as a municipality (by nurturing/expanding our Bridgeport brain trust and building a 21st century workforce) …

All of these measures should be taken in the context of full community involvement, including the creation of a mayor’s advisory board on public education that can be used to recruit volunteers to fill critical voids in the system (such a board was in place in 1968, when the Bridgeport school system was featured in LIFE Magazine (June 21, 1968, pages 56-62/62B), as we take the next logical step of seeking to create a standard-setting public-school system through focused, hard work and the deferment of other municipal non-essentials for as long as necessary …

If we take the above measures toward creating a cutting-edge public-education system, we might find ourselves being the beneficiaries of an unparalleled efficiency and effectiveness of municipal government that proves irresistible to the mix of new business development/tax-base and entrepreneurs that Bridgeport needs in order to re-establish prosperity and a sustaining civic pride …

This is how the Kohut Administration will deal with the education issue when the time comes …