If you’re a St. Paul public school parent, you should be angry right now. The latest in a long string of short-term inner city school superintendents, Maria Carstarphen, just decamped for Austin, Texas, after three years. We get very upset when Gopher sports coaches don’t work their full contract, but the harm is far worse here.

Urban school districts are some of the most deeply challenged and troubled institutions in America. For a good superintendent bent on “reform” (they all are), a minimum of five to seven years is needed to see such an effort through. I remembered hearing about how Minneapolis superintendent Carol Johnson would grow misty-eyed when she’d speak about her mission and how much she cared about “the children.” She dumped Minneapolis for Memphis, after an earlier dalliance with Nashville, and is now running Boston’s schools. She has built herself quite a c.v., I’m sure.

It generally takes superintendents a year to assemble a competent team and grasp the landscape. Another year to formulate a plan and several more to institute it. Superintendents who do not stay to see their initiatives through to the satisfaction of parents, board, and other stakeholders are perpetrating a fraud on communities.

Going forward, could we agree that superintendents should be hired on the premise that if they leave for another superintendent’s job before the term of their contract is up, they must return all the monies they were paid in salary and benefits? Why? Because we care about the children.

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Julianne Ortman is merely a Republican state senator from Chanhassen. She lost her cool during a capitol hearing about carbon emissions and the value of reducing miles driven. A U of M professor was illustrating the point by showing a WWII-era poster that noted “When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler.” It urged carpooling.

Political comic Bill Maher updated the sign post-9/11 to read: “When you ride alone, you ride with Bin Laden.” The point being that our use of fossil fuels funds our enemies, which last I heard, is a theme even conservatives buy into.

Ortman, proving her intellectual and moral mettle, squealed: “Are we still in America? . . . I find that to be very offensive . . . . An insult to everyone who drives a car.”

That attitude would have gotten you pelted with eggs in 1943, Sen. Ortman. And it should get you pelted with something worse today. To call you an embarrassment is to legitimize your capacity to reason, which I won't do. 

All of us who care about the Earth and its future, and try to live accordingly, make compromises along the way. The key is to acknowledge that waste and be cognizant of it and make countervailing efforts in other areas. But that requires half a brain. Or at least a quarter. 

It’s clear that a lot of us in America still don’t get it. From weepy liberals who care so much about the kids, but more about prestige and career building, to Republicans who wear patriotism on their sleeve until it calls on them to come to terms with their own waste and selfishness. Now pass me another tax cut.

We now return you to business as usual.