1 real question.

The United States Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has 53 questions for the Buffalo School Board regarding its practice of where students are sent to go for school.

Buffalo is a minority-majority school district that has, according to the Buffalo News, only 21% of it's students listed as being white. Yet this 21% has the largest percentage population at Buffalo's two best schools – Olmsted Elementary and City Honors.

So the OCR investigated and gave the Buffalo School Board a chance to reply. A consultant from UCLA was brought in, but his work was blown off by the school board.

Now, new Superintendent Kriner Cash has until Friday (October 30th) to answer 53 questions about the districts problems and how he plans to address them. That's no easy trick and I doubt there will be any treats for him in those questions.

And he wonders why leaders don't want to step up and help out.

He has a split and hostile school board, with Carl PaladiNO as its most vocal member.

He has a problem with securing funds that are needed to do things that would address the problem, like fixing up schools that are in such bad shape that it's a wonder that students learn anything.

Like buying up to date textbooks and computers so that students can get the best and most accurate information.

Like hiring enough teachers so that classroom sizes are around 15 students, which is what research shows is the ideal size for students to learn.

Like making sure each school has a properly staffed library with up to date books, magazines, newspapers, computers, and databases for students to research what they need to know and then dig into what they want to learn.

This problem has deeper roots though. Buffalo's decline is tied to the decline of manufacturing in the United States and capitalism's failure to do what it claims it can do – provide for everyone that lives under its wings (or more accurately, in it's claws).

Education's decline is also tied to the cutting in funds that would have kept the schools fully functional and fully staffed. Washington DC always seems to have money for misguided foreign wars that cost us billions and bring us nothing. (Remember Eisenhower's farewell address?) Or for foreign aid to countries that commit crimes against humanity. (Like Chile under Pinochet, and Saudi Arabia – to just name a two.  I seem to recall George Washington telling us something about entangling foreign alliances.)

Education's decline is also tied to all the tax cuts that the leaders in Washington and Albany seem to have for the 1%. When those taxes are cut,  education is cut back, and  the capitalist system starts cutting it's own throat with it's own hands. Uneducated workers are not going to provide the new ideas that are needed to keep the system going.

My one question is not for Superintendent Kriner Cash and the Buffalo School Board. It's for the people who place their faith in the capitalist system – When are you going to stop cutting your own throats?