State of City Address

As most know, I have been basically born, raised, and lived almost of my life in Michigan City Indiana. There have been somethings bugging me about politics in my hometown, so today is a long, long rant day.

As I see it, there are 3 basic criteria that one uses when deciding to move to an area or a town. In no particular order, families look at community safety, the local school system, and the local employment situation. Now there are exceptions and odd situations sure, but in general most people look at some combination of those 3.

Now with that in mind, we look at Michigan City's situation. Right now frankly the schools are in chaos. As I posted before the Administration decided that their suspension and explusion rates were too high (City ranked way high in IN's overall totals) so they directed the schools leaders to do everything possible to not suspend or expell students. The situation at the schools has deteriorated to the point where the sign out front might as well read Indiana State Prison instead of Michigan City HS. Kids did whatever they wanted to the point of endangering teachers and fellow students on a daily basis. Big fights are a regular occurance, students don't go to class, instead roaming the halls at will, teachers have been hit, students have been brutally beaten, and yet none of this info is ever really made public. Parents have no idea what is going on in the schools and don't understand the teachers action at all. Their kids are in danger, and they have no idea. As a matter of a fact the school board attended to school one day to attempt to show how safe the school was, and instead the Assistant Superintendant got to return to her roots as a former Assistant Principal, and break up a fight.

The school board ignored the protests from the teachers union to the point where they had to declare a "work to rules" action in which teachers would only work the specifics which were in their employment contract. The resulting action basically grinded the school to a mushy halt. Teacher couldn't volunteer for activities that they usually do in their freetime. They also couldn't do things like grade papers, write tests, and prepare for classes outside of their workday, which has led to more problems. Sick students also lost the chance to make up tests outside of class, because teachers weren't allowed to spend any extra time to give the test.

Finally the school board has realized the mess they have made, and relented into most of the teachers demands. The teachers have called off their action temporarily for two weeks to see how these new rules run. The key demand has been met, with disipline being decided at the school level instead of at the administrative level. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

But the symptoms of the problems are not going to be addressed. The purpose of high school is to prepare kids for the next level of their life. It isn't meant to be a finishing school. It is meant to prepare kids for college, trade school, or a job depending on the needs of the student. City has become so obsessed with test scores and expulsion rates that they have lost track of this. Instead the kids are hitting the workplace with no ability to learn, only the ability to regurgitiate facts in a short term time frame. They have no idea of work ethic or personal responsibility becaue they haven't been installed in these kids when they should have been. This is the problem that needs to be addressed.

The Superintendant of City schools Michael Harding's big soundbite is that all students "deserve an education" and I couldn't disagree with him more. Everyone deserves the OPPORTUNITY for an education. Once you waste that opportunity, you don't have it anymore. And once a student is taking away from the educational opportunities of another student, they have lost that chance in my opinion. The biggest problem with Harding's theory is it just furthers the point of view that many in our area have, that the system owes them something personally. No one is owed anything they do not attempt to earn for themselves, and an education is one of those things. It is out there if you want it. If you don't want it hard enough to work for it, you don't deserve it, an education included. When you are imersed in the entitlement mentality for your formative years, you hit the real world and realize that you aren't entitled to a nice job, fancy car, big house etc, and you have no idea how to get it, because you were never taught that you have to work for it. Michael Harding definately needs to rethink his philosophy in my opinion.

Next on my rant list is City and its politics. Currently their are plans around to bulldoze three more locally owned and operated restaraunts and build more condos and a luxury hotel. I know what the community leaders are thinking is that these condos will help the property tax rolls continue to grow, but they are once again looking at short term solutions to long term problems.

The problem is that people don't want to live in Michigan City year round. And mostly because of the three reasons that I listed at the beginning of my rant. There aren't many non-retail jobs, the school system is in shambles, and dispite declining crime rates, much of City isn't that safe. There has been an intelectual and skill flight out of City for at least two generations right now, that shows no signs of ebbing. Instead of giving abatements for companies to build casinos and malls, Michigan City needs to get out there and fight for skilled employment companies to down roots in City. Even with Condos being built, I truely believe the economic impact of someone paying property taxes on a $500,000 place while actually living there two weeks a year, is not as much as a two parent family each earning $30,000 but living here and spending their money here fifty two weeks a year. I would love to see a study on that done, but it makes sense to me. Also if City works to attact skilled labor, these are the types of people who are going to demand better schools for their kids, as they want their kids be educated and prepared for the workplace, knowing full well what that entitles. And these families being gainfully employed are way less like to be contributing to any kind of a crime rate. They are also much more likely to contribute to a community where they live, versus one they visit for weekends and vacations.

Instead our priorties are attracting $6 an hour retail jobs, because they are MUCH easier to attract, and selling out our precious lakefront to the highest bidder, even if that isn't the smartest thing to do for Michigan City as a whole, in the long term. This is also the kind of mentality that gives us half a million dollars worth of worthless brick structures on the sidewalks of Franklin Street at the same time we are laying off teachers. I know it is nice to present a pretty side to the tourists who visit us, but couldn't you spend that money a little better. The way I see it that money could have hired 10 teachers, cops, firefighters etc for one year, or one of those for about 10 years. Which one does that community more good? Are tourists going to remember those pretty brick things, and come back to spend again, or is that kid who is stuck in an overcrowded classroom more likely to drop out because no one has time to hear his cries for help.

I realize that things are a lot more complex than that, but putting Michigan City back into its former glory days is going to take a lot of work. I firmly believe that if they started to concentrate on those three main things, this town would explode again. It is in a beautiful location on Lake Michigan, complete with a port, interstate access, national parks, beachside housing, etc. During the 50's and 60's City's growth rate would have projected it to a population of 100,000 people today. Instead we are stuck at the same 30,000 people that we had 40 years ago. There is so much potential here, it just pains me to see it wasted, with such a basic solution right there at our fingertips.

If you have made it this far, thanks for taking in my rant. I would love to hear opinions and comments if you have them.