Erin Kutnick’s Blog

I know it’s old news now but just wanted to share how excited I am that the recall of Trustees Maddox and Winsten were certified by the Registrar of Voters.

An amazing accomplishment in a district that has already seen two recall attempts and most astounding was the amount of time in which the signatures were gathered.  No one thought it could be done but with hundreds of volunteers on the street, anything is possible.

This November could finally be the end of the turmoil and instability in our school district.  Hopefully a new superintendent, a few new board members, and the community working together will finally push us through the upheaval.

Now is the time to look forward and work together to enhance education and improve programs and schools for the students in our district.

The recall committee, masters of spin and propaganda, were in attendance at the premier of a “documentary” that allegedly chronicles failing public schools.  At the center of the film is our very own district, Capistrano Unified.

Many things about the movie are disturbing.  The most disturbing is that the movie makers took the opinions of 5 or 6 individuals and thought that somehow that adequately represented a district with over 50,000 students.  nothing could be farther from the truth.  One of the parents interviewed doesn’t even have children attending public schools so how could he possibly know whether they are failing or not?  Why not interview the thousands of parents whose children attend top-notch universities, or the teachers who are in the classroom everyday?

Are public schools perfect, no.  But our district (up until the recall board took over) had an excellent reputation and was doing a very job at educating students.  We have highly trained administrators; hard-working, dedicated teachers; and devoted parents.  So there are 6 or 7 parents that are upset, what about the other 50,000?  Why weren’t they interviewed?  Was that an “inconvenient truth” that the movie makers didn’t want to deal with?

Not only did they limit the information presented in the film, they limited the attendance not allowing anyone who might question the validity of their data to attend making it even more biased.

One thing the film does accurately portray is the recall committee’s agenda to destroy public education in order to further their agenda for public school vouchers.