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School district mismanagement similar to Enron’s

James K. Sayre Oakland
Tuesday February 26, 2002

Editor: 

 

Q: What's the difference between the top management of Enron Corporation and the administration of the Berkeley Unified School District?  

A: not much, apparently. In Berkeley, we have a top-heavy politically-correct administration made up of people who cannot add, cannot administer and cannot audit. 

How can you possibly spend seven million dollars that you don't have? Credit card bills? Cell-phone bills? 

Practicing "whole math"(where students were encouraged to invent their own answers in math, as: 2 + 2 = 7)? 

By hiding debt offshore in the Farallon Islands?  

These folks are trying to pass the blame onto “old obsolete computers,” but that argument won't wash. 

Spreadsheets, such as Lotus123 and Excel have been functioning perfectly well for the last fifteen or twenty years. Obviously, some Berkeley school administrators said, “Who cares? Let the good times roll. Its only public money and we can always get more of that from the suckers (tax payers).” 

Computers and computer software are dumb, blind machines. If you put garbage in, you get garbage out. 

Simple. It is obvious that the administrators of the Berkeley Unified School District could not be bother to add, check on software to see that it included all ongoing expenses and then audit the results at the end of each school year. Remedial arithmetic classes are indicated. 

 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland