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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (68944)	12/27/1999 10:52:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 108807

Hi Rambi, yes Christmas was wonderful with little Sarah. She has such a great disposition. Just smiling, cooing and hopping up and down in her Johnny Jumper. The kids got great presents, but I believe I made out the best. The wife surprised me with a new 500MHZ laptop! I just love this thing! The clarity is amazing! She must have figured out the hints from me setting the homepage right on the Quantex laptop system and leaving our Waterhouse paperwork (showing our profits this year) laying all around my desk. heheheh. I am a sneeky one no?? I'm getting a little concerned about Sarah's weight though. She acts perfectly healthy but she still only weighs 15lbs! We have another appointment tomorrow with the doctor to check her out. My instinct tells me something is wrong, but I'm at a loss to figure it out. We've shifted to shoving as much milk with iron in her as she will take. It was weird the way that article used the exact term "structure" as I've been using. But it's so true. I cannot emphasize enough that the structure of an organization must be connected to the end user in real ways if they expect the organization to adapt and meet the needs of the customers on a routine basis. The connection today is with the funding sources and not the customers. Oh sure, if you yell and scream enough as a parent, or get in the face of those in charge, the system will sometimes respond on an individuals basis. But why should we be happy with a system that demands this level of "in your face" attention to succeed. When I have a complaint regarding my kids at the Montessori school. The owner responds almost immediately! If I say I want Katie to focus more on her reading, by God they do it, and do it fast, with reports on her progress weekly. Why should we expect less from a public school? Why, because they have dumbed down the public into believing that your kid can't get that level of individual attention. WRONG! They certainly can if the organization was truly focused on meeting or exceeding the customers desires. If an individual school was worried that tomorrow the customers might walk out the door (like the Montessori schools) and go across the street, the structure would be far more flexible and responsive. We have pockets of wonderful public schools in the country today. But systemically, they are a failure. They continue to cost more and more each year, and the public feels more and more that the value of the product is declining. But what I really find perplexing, is the feeling among so many that we have this massive problem, but they aren't willing to look for different solutions like vouchers for the answer. What is the worst case scenario? Let's say we try a voucher system and it doesn't work. Have we really lost that much? Somehow the school system survived bussing kids all over the state for a few years. They surely would survive a worst case scenario with regard to vouchers or charter schools. People who are against vouchers have a theory that it will not work. Well, let's test it for a few years and see if they are right. We certainly couldn't do any worse, especially if it's attempted in the inner cities like D.C. I just don't get it. Actually I do, many people are against change. They fear it instead of embrace it. We've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't in the delivery of knowledge and how organizations who are complete monopolies insulate themselves against change. Yet many fail to see the correlation with our public schools. They will though I believe, it's just a matter of time. Michael