After reading about the preliminary report from the State of Ohio and seeing that Middletown failed 21 of the 23 Indicators which is abysmal in my mind, we need a change.

How about instead of a Pay to Play we have a Pay to Perform for the Teachers.  It is obvious that there is something drastically wrong with this school system and that requires drastic changes before it has a total failure which it is near to becoming now.

I would also urge the BOE to put more emphasis on the bulk of their student population.  Personally I am tired of hearing about Gate, Central Academy, the special programs for the students who can't seem to function in a classroom atmosphere, the students who are high achievers, pay to play, sports programs.

It is time to focus on the 90% of the student population that makes up the majority of the school population.......the average student.  Raise their scores and you will see a dramatic shift in Middletowns School System.

I could not agree more with the first post on this thread. The Politically Correct trend for the school system to be every thing to every one has come at the expense of the majority.

Speaking of salaries, again as mentioned in the first post, I was in Lafayette Indiana a few weeks back and picked up the local paper and noticed the annual listing of salaries for public employees. It was obvious after just a few minutes of reading that not all cities our size are paying their administrators what we are. Its also obvious that higher salaries do not strongly correlate with better student test scores.

This, in my opinion, leaves us with two options to explain our current situation. Middletown students are just born with a genetic disorder that along with their environment makes them predisposed to test poorly OR we have a breakdown in leadership.

The former being just a smart aleck comment we are of unfortunately left with the latter.