SERGEANT BLUFF ADVOCATE EDITOR SOUNDS OFF ON IASB & ISEA TEACHER'S UNION

By Wayne Dominowski

SBA Editor

  (SB) – Now we have the corrupt Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) looking for a reprieve saying they’re going to make changes. That’s supposed to tell us they plan on making amends for their criminal misappropriation of funds. 

 Looking and searching for what all the executives do over there, I could only find that their main function is lobbying and collecting membership dues. They’re a lot like the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA) teacher’s union. Both make themselves rich off the dues, fees, and backs of people in the education arena. It’s the good life for those slippery enough to get positions in those agencies.

 I know, I know… “It’s about the kids.”

 They all say that. But in fact, it’s about them. Kids are a pawn to hold on to their positions and jobs.

 I’ve gone through documents and minutes of IASB records online. I had a hard time staying awake. I’m not going to list what I saw. Look up the IASB online site and read what the board of directors discussed. You decide if it has anything worthwhile to do with our kids.

 Years ago, Iowa ranked first in the nation in education. Not anymore. What happened?

 Of the 100 Best Public Schools in the U.S., Iowa isn’t even mentioned. (www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/school-district/ratings/top100); thank God there isn’t an Iowa school listed in the Worst Public Schools in the U.S.

 Who was it, Einstein, who said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” He may as well have been talking about the IASB and the ISEA. While the latter two like! to throw out the caveat “It’s about the kids,” our Iowa kids – not to mention the rest of the U.S. – continue to sink into an educational suck hole. Meanwhile, China is producing technicians, scientists, engineers and medical professionals at an astonishing rate. In the near future, we will have to beg them to send us their best because ours went the way of do-nothing institutions that have made talking and meetings a national pollution phenomenon.

 Years ago, the IASB should have addressed issues such as persons ‘serving’ on local school boards who just happen to have children attending the very school that they are ‘serving.’ Too, the IASB should have addressed the issue of persons ‘serving’ on a local school board who have a spouse, relative, brother or sister employed at the school in which they are a board member. How about nepotism? Check out the Sioux City school system and see how many surnames are the same.

Conflict of interest? Of course it is, but let’s just keep doing what we always do and let our kids take it in the mouth in the end.

Organizations like the IASB and ISEA are outmoded, archaic and out of touch with reality. They need to disband. Teachers pay out exorbitant dues each year to have the state’s teacher union protect their jobs – a position teachers can do for themselves by forming professional groups within their own school system. Put the annual fees into a local group bank account to be used for worthwhile things, do your jobs well, take care of kids first, and you will be secure.

Linn-Mar, Dubuque and Lewis Central School districts said the! y won’t renew their IASB memberships, according to recent report s.  Area schools like Lawton-Bronson, Woodbury Central, Hinton, Sergeant Bluff-Luton, Westwood and Whiting should consider following suit.