Well, it is just the first week of the great federal shutdown.  Too bad that Congress is not part of the shutdown since its members are about as useless as they get. But, wait, I have an even better idea. Let’s use this opportunity, seize the day, and release all educational bureaucrats, those in Washington and especially those in Augusta, who are paid from federal funds. 

I am the superintendent of four very different school systems. They are relatively small school systems which makes me in charge of all federal forms and filing.  For instance, I spent eight solid hours on the computer filling out an online federal form related to civil rights.  If I left the computer for more than five minutes, it would reboot and I had to start all over again. This was for Monhegan Island school, a school with five students, K-12. I finally spoke to someone in Washington to complain and she had little sympathy with me, saying that it took the average school district 13 hours. Imagine that, 13 hours without a bathroom break.

Now, I am wrestling with a Title One application that is so convoluted that even with three sets of eyes the application keeps getting returned because we apparently have uploaded the wrong data.  The form gives great detail about the accountability, a formula that will be used which will automatically place one of my high schools as a Failing School, to be published with headlines in an imminent news release.

We are destined to fail because one of our 15 high school juniors did not take the SAT.  He did not because he had already been accepted by a Division I school and found sitting for four hours on a Saturday to be a total waste of time.  That one student computes to 94 percent of our student population as having taken the test. The rubric to avoid failing school status was 95 percent. All 15 graduates from this class went to college and are doing quite well, thank you. Yet, in the eyes of some bean counting, nitpicking, federally-funded paper pusher in Augusta, we are now a failing school.

The effect of the federal government on education, in broad brushes, has had some positive impact. They basically stated that all children with disabilities had a right to public education. They have tried to address underachievement, dropouts, bullying and civil rights violations and have really been successful with the latter.  The high stakes testing now required has been compromised to allow each state to come up with their own ‘high’ stakes test, which means that in some states the bar is so low that my Black Lab has a better than average chance of passing the test.  Yet, states like Maine, which actually has developed a quality assessment, is dinged for having a disproportionate number of failing schools compared to a state, like, say, Texas, which, apparently has no failing schools. 

All of this nonsense is perpetrated and perpetuated by a federally funded system that is so partisan, so driven  by hidden agendas, that it defies any common sense. Now, they are all over bullying, holding school districts responsible for almost every act of incivility that happens in school, regardless of the family or community antecedents that triggered the untoward behaviors. You have a Congressman yelling to the President that he is a ‘liar,’ the same bureaucrat that championed anti-bullying legislation that has been passed on to the states and now to each school system. 

The feds are required be law to fund 40 percent of all special education costs. They now fund about 18 percent and yet hold schools hostage in rules that defy imagination.

Reading First is a mandated sacred cow reading program foisted on schools throughout America, a federal mandate.  The director has chosen his pals to provide the curriculum, and has lashed out against competing educational providers, calling them ‘dirtbags.’  Race to the Top grants that pitted states against states, required millions of dollars to write with little to show for the results, and the rubrics used to award favored states over others were shamelessly arbitrary.

Section 504, part of the Americans with Disabilities Act, requires schools to spend millions upon millions of dollars to make accommodations for students who have disabilities. It is really a civil rights piece of legislation designed for the work force, yet it has been used to force schools to provide services that even health insurance companies would not recognize as needed. For instance, a student with diabetes may have a full time nurse to insure timely treatments, yet in the home or community, no health agency would ever approve of such a level of service. 

All services provided under Section 504 come at the cost of the local school department. Unlike the special education legislation, Sec. 504 has no funding attached to it. Yet, the slightest violation, or even appearance of a violation, is investigated by the Office of Civil Rights and they have the incredible power to shut off all federal moneys during an investigation.

Right now, the federal government can essentially close down a school system of their picking, and I suspect that I am taking such a risk in writing this column.  I do believe that there is a role in setting high standards and expectations that all children are treated equitably in all states. Yet, the strong arm and inane mind of the Department of Education, with many disciples working in Augusta, has created such an endless morass of paperwork and shear stupidity, that it would be great to take a break from it all for a while, and allow  hardworking, well intentioned school administrators to provide world class education to all children, unfettered by a single bureaucrat.  

William Shuttleworth is superintendent of four school systems, has been a school administrator, teacher, and school psychologist for more than 40 years and can be reached at wshuttleworth@hotmail.com