Oh, how outstanding - a commissioner who lives by the golden rule of "do as I say, not as I do"?

AC/DC said it best when they said:

If you're havin' trouble with your high school head
He's givin' you the blues
You wanna graduate but not in 'is bed
Here's what you gotta do -
Pick up the phone
I'm always home
Call me any time
Just dial
36 24 36 hey.....

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Dirty Deeds and they're Done Dirt Cheap

So, the Inquirer broke the news that Radnor Township Commissioner Lisa Paolino is involved in the Radnor Grade Fixing Scandal? A sitting commissioner?!

And to fix a grade, even gym class, that isn't parenting, is it?

See, case and point about what is wrong with some parents today - at the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, when parents disagreed with a teacher they apparently had a teacher fired and for what reason? Because the teacher didn't tell the parents what the parents thought they were paying to hear?

So anyway, here's the Inquirer article... Stay tuned.

Radnor report to revisit high school grade changes
By Dan Hardy
Inquirer Staff Writer

A contentious debate over grade changes at Radnor High School will be reopened this week by a report to the school board that is expected to affirm a physical education grade change made last fall for the daughter of Radnor Township Commissioner Lisa Paolino.

Teachers erupted in anger when they discovered earlier this year that principal Joseph Cannella had changed three grades for another student with the approval of superintendent Gary Cooper and without the knowledge of the teachers involved.

The teachers and their union called for an investigation, saying they had lost faith in the administration.

District officials have since reviewed both grade changes. Paolino's daughter's was upheld. The three changes for the other student, a male senior, were overturned, district officials said.

Paolino said in interviews last week that her daughter received the grade change because of a medical problem. "There was no political influence, no behind-the-scenes action here," she said. "Just because I'm an elected official doesn't mean I give up my rights as a parent."

The report, the result of an investigation by lawyer Michael Levin, who interviewed 30 people, is expected to review both cases and recommend changes in district procedures.

It also is expected to address a third problem that, like the grade changes, was accidently discovered by the teachers: Final grades were calculated incorrectly last spring for a10th-grade math class. Paolino's daughter was among the students; Paolino said she learned about it a few weeks ago when she got a letter from the district.

The investigation is expected to conclude that the incorrect grades were the result of a computer error that failed to properly include all test scores for the class.

.....Early this year, when word of the incidents surfaced, teachers were stunned, especially after they learned that Paolino's daughter was involved. They asked whether there had been favoritism.....In an interview last week, Paolino said her situation was much more mundane than all the fevered speculation supposed.

She said that in spring 2006, it became clear that although her child was an athlete who had engaged in other sports, a medical condition prevented her from taking part in all the activities of her physical education class. Paolino said she sent doctor's notes to the teacher and made "repeated phone calls," to the teacher and then-principal Joane Eby that she said were ignored.

When report cards were issued, Paolino's daughter, then a sophomore, got a D in physical education.

In the fall, Paolino turned to Cannella and Cooper, voicing the concern that the district appeared to lack a procedure to deal with students with medical problems, she said.....Eby, now principal of a Lancaster County high school, wrote in an e-mail: "Returning parents' calls has always been a priority for me, thus I find it incongruous that I would not have returned her call, had I received it." She said she did not recall hearing about the problem.

Ok, Pretty weird...

At private schools, money rules
Offend a donor or disagree with the head of school, and ability and educational issues suddenly take a backseat. By William C. Kashatus

Patsy Tollin, the second-grade teacher recently dismissed by the Baldwin School, allegedly to appease a wealthy couple, is lucky. She enjoyed a 22-year career on the Main Line before she was sent packing.

There are many others who were dispatched much earlier in their careers for challenging the authority of an administrator or wealthy parent. Some were forced to find employment outside teaching, their chosen profession.

How do I know? I taught at some of the area's most prestigious private schools for 15 years. I have known many wonderful parents and heads of schools. I also knew a few who placed their own agendas ahead of the school's mission.

Baldwin is one of the area's most respected private schools. Like the other institutions that make up the prestigious Inter-Academic League.....At the same time, these schools are forced to operate like businesses, competing with each other for students, generating exposure to raise funds, and trying to increase their endowments while finding ways to cut escalating costs. They tend to define "growth" by the number of facilities built, the size of the enrollment, and the diversity of curricular and extra-curricular offerings.

Instead of shaping the moral and intellectual fiber of students by making them and their families accountable to its educational mission and policies, the private school has become a kind of shopping mall for the most affluent families, one in which the "customers" are "always right."

If there's a dispute between a wealthy parent and a teacher, the head of school, increasingly a fund-raiser, often buckles under the economic pressure and sides with the parent rather than the teacher.....One of my former colleagues, a director of college counseling, was relieved of that responsibility because the child of a wealthy donor was not admitted to her top choice. Another colleague was fired for openly questioning an administrator's decision at a school that prided itself on "open dialogue." I had other colleagues who were afraid to voice their opinions for fear of retribution by the head of school.....

William C. Kashatus (bill@historylive.net) is a professor of history at Luzerne County Community College. He lives and writes in Paoli.