On March 20, 1994, the Xiaonan Provincial Flood Prevention and Drought Relief Work Conference and the World Water Commemorative Conference were held in Tingyuan Hotel, Langliu City. Yue Dingyuan, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee of Xiaonan Province, Zhou Chongnian, Secretary General of the Provincial Party Committee, He Wuan, Vice Governor, Hao Wenyong, Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee of Langliu City, Yang Haoyuan, Mayor and other provincial and municipal leaders attended the meeting.

In the large conference room of Tingyuan Hotel, flowers are blooming, Chinese lights are blooming, and the graceful and atmospheric furnishings make the whole conference room serious and peaceful. Vice Governor He Wuan, who is in charge of agriculture and water conservancy, presided over the meeting and spoke first.

"Comrades: flood prevention and disaster relief is a major event related to the overall economic and social development of our province, and a major event related to the safety of people's lives and property. Today, the provincial party committee and the provincial government are convening a provincial work conference on flood prevention and drought control, which is aimed at scientifically analyzing the situation of flood prevention and drought control this year, mobilizing and organizing the whole province to take rapid action, seize the opportunity, make comprehensive preparations for preventing and fighting major floods, and strive to win new victories in flood prevention and drought control this year. Yue Dingyuan, secretary of the provincial party committee, and Zhou Chongnian, secretary general of the provincial party committee, will make important speeches, and we must deeply understand and implement them in an all-round way. According to the schedule of the meeting, I would like to make three points first......

Xiao Chen listened honestly below, and carefully memorized these "nonsense" points. It is said to be nonsense, because many things have to be said every year, especially in Xiaonan Province, a large province with serious floods, such meetings are held every year, and the words of the generals are basically the same, and after listening to them too much, many cadres regard these words as nonsense, and their left ears go in and out of their right ears. But Xiao Chen knew very well that he didn't know much about the water situation in the south, and other cadres could treat these words as nonsense, but he couldn't. Moreover, don't feel that the leaders on the stage are talking nonsense, you must know that these nonsense words are carefully finalized by the pen of the departments above before the leaders read them, and this should not only closely follow the spirit of the central authorities, but also reflect the leaders' plans, not only reflect the far-sightedness of the central authorities, but also explain the leaders' checking and filling in the gaps and adapting measures to local conditions -- should you just make do with it and read it for fun?

Yue Dingyuan, secretary of the provincial party committee, is 53 years old this year, and his eyes are gradually becoming farsighted, and he can see things in the distance very clearly. At this meeting, he looked at a distant corner of the audience, looked at it several times, and people with strong observation could judge a rough idea, which was the direction where the second and third leaders of several districts and counties in Langliu City were sitting.

Xiao Chen knew that Secretary Yue was looking at him these times, in fact, he was a little strange in his heart, Secretary Yue was a person, he didn't know much about it, although his position before coming to the provincial party committee was actually quite important in the Chinese economy, but he was not too close to the Xiao family, so Xiao Chen's understanding of him was extremely shallow, and even today was the first time he officially met him.

Before Secretary Yue came to Xiaonan to become secretary of the provincial party committee, he was the executive deputy director of the State Planning Commission. Of course, judging from the fact that he can now be placed in the position of secretary of the provincial party committee, he should also be relatively optimistic in the hearts of the central leadership, although Xiaonan's economy as a whole is lower than the middle in the country, but after all, he is also a provincial feudal official, unlike when he was in the Planning Commission, although he had a lot of power, there was always a director at the top of his head.

Xiao Chen was a little confused about Secretary Yue's intentions to see him, although his identity must be clear at the level of Secretary Yue, but obviously Secretary Yue followed Zheng Lao closely, and it didn't seem to have much to do with the Xiao family.

He was in a trance, and Vice Governor He Wu'an's words were about to be finished.

"Comrades, after this meeting, we must act quickly, organize cadres and the masses in accordance with the requirements of preventing and fighting major floods, make solid preparations for fighting disasters, resolutely win new victories in flood prevention and drought control this year, and create a safe and stable water environment for the sound and rapid development of the province's social economy."

The audience burst into warm applause, and most people breathed a sigh of relief in their hearts: it was finally finished.

Xiao Chen was very relieved when he heard several county magistrates and deputy secretaries of other counties around him, and he was a little amused in his heart, looking at the time, it was really not short, and he spoke for more than an hour.

Next, Secretary Yue Dingyuan delivered an important speech, he emphasized that the overall goal of flood control and drought control in the province should achieve the "three guarantees": in the design flood, ensure that the lake area does not collapse a dam or embankment, and the hilly area does not collapse a reservoir and a dam, so as to avoid mass deaths and injuries; Ensure the safety of key embankments, large and medium-sized cities, and important transportation arteries, and ensure that the basic domestic water supply of the masses can be met in the year of great drought.

Zhou Chongnian, secretary general of the provincial party committee, pointed out that political axes at all levels should conscientiously implement the spirit of Document No. 3 of the Government Affairs Yuan, vigorously strengthen the construction of meteorological service capacity, meteorological modernization and meteorological legal system, and speed up the development of meteorological undertakings in accordance with the goal of "public meteorology, safety meteorology, and resource meteorology". In particular, it is necessary to strengthen the analysis of the medium- and long-term weather situation and the forecasting of water conditions, and strengthen the weather forecasting of short-term heavy rainfall in local areas, so as to provide a basis for scientific decision-making and real-time dispatch of political axes at all levels.

……

After the meeting, Tingyuan Hotel provided a sumptuous lunch, which was eaten by provincial and municipal leaders and cadres from Langliu counties and districts. The afternoon session was followed by a series of detailed presentations after the analysis of scientific arguments.

Secretary Xiao once again experienced the feeling of taking lecture notes while reading, and wrote more than 30 pages in the notebook he brought......

It was not too late to adjourn the meeting in the afternoon, and at four o'clock, leaders at all levels had already walked out of the venue. There is a very important episode: after Secretary-General Zhou got up, he casually waved to Lin Zhili, deputy secretary of the Dingqing District Party Committee and head of the district, and District Chief Lin immediately got up and went out with Secretary-General Zhou.

Xiao Chen immediately felt a lot of eyes looking at him. Among them, Secretary Xie and Deputy Secretary Zhang of the District Party Committee, and even Secretary Hao Wenyong and Mayor Yang Haoyuan of the Municipal Party Committee also cast their eyes, but they couldn't see any real meaning in their expressions.

Xiao Chen didn't seem to see the scene just now, he still smiled and nodded to the leaders and colleagues who looked at him, which made these people a little uncertain in their hearts, Xiao Chen was so calm, did he not see the meaning behind the scene just now, or was he really holding the pearl of wisdom and didn't take it to heart at all?

Dozens of various cars and off-road vehicles drove out of the Tingyuan Hotel one after another, although it was impossible to do anything if he rushed back to the district committee at this time, Xiao Chen still asked Lao Han to drive the car to the district committee, and did not leave early after work, which was his consistent habit.

After entering the office, Xiao Chen called Zhou Ping and asked him to ask him for the statistical table of the funds allocated to the education system by the Finance Bureau in recent years.

After Xiao Chen saw it, he didn't say a word for a long time. He found that the most serious problem of indiscriminate fees for education is probably not the miscellaneous fees that Yue Xiaolian said, judging from the statistical statements of the Finance Bureau, what really carries the banner is the additional costs incurred because of school choice.

Some scholars have suggested that as long as there is an imbalance in educational resources, school choice will occur. They believe that educational resources cannot be absolutely balanced, so school choice is inevitable. However, Xiao Chen believes that although it is indeed impossible to achieve absolute balance in the allocation of educational resources, the trend of school choice has widened the gap in the allocation of school resources. The emergence of key classes, key schools, demonstration schools, and star-rated schools in compulsory education is not made by the non-governmental organizations, but by the educational administrative organs.

In Xiao Chen's view, the main body of compulsory education is the state, and now the gap in resource allocation is getting wider and wider, and school choice has appeared, which makes compulsory education unfair. In fact, the core issue of the "Compulsory Education Law" is to rationalize the allocation of resources and achieve educational fairness, Xiao Chen is very radical in this regard, and compulsory education cannot achieve fairness without abolishing school choice in compulsory education.

And because of the choice of schools, it has given rise to the generation of education overcharges, key classes, key schools, demonstration schools, and star-rated schools, none of which is not to implement high fees, and it does not matter if the key classes, key schools, demonstration schools, and star-rated schools are not subject to high fees. So school choice has caused, or at least exacerbated, the turmoil over education fees.

When overcharging students who choose schools, the burden on parents increases. With the advent of high-quality educational resources, what parent wouldn't want to send their child to a good school? Smashing the pot and selling iron also wants to send the child to a key school, so there will be some unspoken rules, and there will be indicators outside the enrollment plan, parents beg the principal to collect money, and the principal collects the money, and the child can enter the key school. As a result, the financial burden on parents has increased.

Then, because of the "heavy" point, the burden on students is heavy. It is said that the burden on students is heavy now, and when they are in elementary school, they think about choosing a school for junior high school. In junior high school, I also want to pick a good school, and teachers, parents, and students are busy together. Students have a lot of homework and practice repeatedly. There is so much homework at school, usually around 10 p.m. is not too late, and you have to wake up at 6 a.m. There is no rest time on weekends, I do homework assigned by the teacher in the morning, and I have to go to school in the afternoon to participate in the Olympiad or other classes. Now the purpose of attending the specialty class is to choose a school in the future, and some junior high schools are special schools, which accept special students, and the entrance examination is required. Can students have a heavy academic load under heavy pressure?

It is inevitable that the burden on students will increase, and the burden on teachers will increase. The burden on teachers is not only the workload, but also the psychological burden. Don't look at the three mountains on the students' heads, in fact, the teachers still have them, and the teachers also have to run for the "job bowl, the promotion rate, and the professional title", which are the "three mountains" on the teacher's head. At present, there is a big gap between the salaries of urban teachers and rural teachers, and outstanding teachers from rural areas are constantly being selected to enter county (district) middle schools. Teachers in key secondary schools are paid higher salaries, so that teachers are also pursuing this benefit, and the burden on teachers is increasing, including psychological pressure. The reason is that school choice is a toss-up.

After Zhou Ping left, Xiao Chen was smoking a stuffy cigarette alone behind his desk, thinking about the problem, but he knew very well in his heart that although his attitude towards school choice was very radical, he deeply knew that this matter could not be done at this stage, even if it was a pilot, it was almost impossible. So, even if you can't cure the root cause, can you treat the symptoms first? It's just that education is not my business......

For the first time, Xiao Chen felt that the power of the deputy secretary of the district party committee seemed to be insufficient.

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