Gross Incompetence Can Be Tolerated for Only So Long

There’s a fight going on in the Holland Central School district.  It’s the same fight being waged in many schools in Erie County: Too many teachers.

The teachers’ union (with the support of some parents) is resisting attempts by the Holland school board – with the support of other parents – to increase student-teacher ratios, especially in those grades with declining enrollment.  How much decline is there?  Well, the K-12 population of the school is currently 1,258 (last year’s graduating class:  99).  Next year’s kindergarten enrollment is currently estimated to be…less than 50.  Yet there are 6 kindergarten teachers.  Do the math and it is clear that in at least one grade there are probably too many teachers.

In Holland, this is a big issue.  It’s not even a blip on the Buffalo Public Schools radar.  In a bloated administrative system with an entrenched, uncooperative teachers union, a sense of victimization, isolation and systemic underachievement at all levels, the prospects for even incremental improvement to Buffalo’s public education seem remote.  Certainly, the examples set by union/administration feuding do not lend themselves to motivating students; and really, in the long run motivation is what it’s all about:  Motivated students will learn under any circumstances.

Holland is one of the most rural towns in Erie County and will spend $13,000 per student and graduate nearly all of them.  Buffalo on the other hand, spends upwards of $24,000 per student and will graduate less than half.  Holland’s board and the teachers will eventually reach some compromise.  Phil Rumore and James Williams will not.

What a tragedy for this area.  Most small businesses cannot offer jobs to those with such limited skills and worse, with little or no motivation.  The same local businesses starve for prospects because there are not enough skilled workers to go around.  And big businesses looking to possibly expand into the region?  Well, an educational system ranked at the bottom of the state drives one more nail into that coffin.

Our community’s future is being pissed away by a collectively incompetent group of professionals (and I use that word sarcastically) who appear intent on cutting the throats of the community around them.  It has taken us 50 years to get here, and we are guaranteeing at least 20 more years of another uneducated lost generation.

I get tired of watching so much money being thrown down a sewer; and greatly saddened that my analogy seems so appropriate.

The Spread of WalMart

WalMart Growth (courtesy FlowingData)

This graph at the FlowingData website caught my attention; it chronicles the growth of WalMart in the 45 years from 1962 to 2007, in a time-lapse movie format.

Walmarts are effectively wherever there is population; hence, the entire Eastern U.S. and the West Coast are lit up, but not the Rocky Mountain states.  Of particular note is that the Adironacks in New York are apparant in their lack of Walmarts, yet the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Ozarks are not.  In fact, practically none of the Appalachains are obvious.

Why is that?

Cutting Someone Loose

I hate firing people.

As necessary as it sometimes is for the sake of both the employer and employee to part ways it is never easy nor fun.  I abhor that part of my job.

My former employee and I will both go home tonight lost in thought.

Net 60 Blues

A couple weeks ago my company’s two largest customers informed us that they were unilaterally changing from paying us on a net 30 day basis to a net 60 day basis.  Our company’s most significant costs are labor, which means that the bulk of our expenses must be paid in a matter of days as payroll.  The difference between when our customers pay us and when we must pay our employees just went from about 23 days to 53 days.  For those 53 days our two largest customers essentially get a no-interest loan, and we get socked with whatever costs we incur for having to borrow the money to make payroll.

That might not seem like much, but those two customers represent more than a million dollars in revenue a year.  The 53-day float amounts to about $10,000 in interest payments on the money we will borrow.

Which is one less perk.  Or stifled Christmas bonuses.  Or 6 fewer laptop computer replacements.  It means a lot to a small company, but we have no leverage over the big gorillas whose CFOs will prop up their quarterly returns with a one-shot and probably get hefty bonuses for doing so, at my expense.

In my business, this is shit.