Now, I’m not defending DISD in this instance, nor am I saying that what the News published Sunday about DISD’s pretty lax policies about who gets paid what for overtime or extra work is just fine with me. But I do have to wonder: When is the News going to start suggesting solutions to all of these problems with DISD it keeps finding as opposed to continuing to stir the pot about DISD finances, management, operation, etc.?
No doubt the News would argue that its job is to find problems, and DISD’s job is to find solutions, but that rings a bit hollow these days after story after story after story about all of the problems the News keeps finding with DISD and, indirectly, the job Michael Hinojosa is doing as superintendent. What about, just as an idea, if the News pulls a couple of reporters off the Trinity River beat (I think we all pretty much know what they’re going to be writing anyway) and assigns them to do a huge investigative report about how DISD should really be operated and who should really be doing what at the Ross Avenue office?
I’d be interested in reading something about the practicality of breaking DISD into 4 to 6 smaller districts, each with separate superintendents and each operated independently so that the 160,000 students are broken into units of 20,000-40,000 each; certainly a more manageable number and one less prone to the incredible bureaucratic excesses of an institution with a belly so big that it can’t even see its feet. Now that’s a story I’d be interested in reading — complete with racial overtones, funding messes, kids who need to be learning, and furious parents. Sounds like a Pulitzer Prize winner, doesn’t it?
