“Without education, no jobs, no housing, no prosperity.”
“…the need to read and write and be trained.”
— Nellie Stone Johnson, co-founder of the DFL (Democrat Farmer Labor Party)
When it was announced that interim Superintendent Michael Goar withdrew his name for consideration for permanent superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), it exposed a weakness of the adults in whose hands and care we have placed the children, weakness in two areas.
- Not taking action out of fear of being accused of not being politically correct.
- Letting “pirates” take over their ship of education and sink their meeting.
All kinds of questions are now fair game. Our children’s future is at stake.
When MPS board rejected Sergio Páez as superintendent two weeks ago, and were then going to consider interim Superintendent Michael Goar, the Minneapolis Branch of the NAACP and Black Lives Matter conducted a disruptive demonstration, causing the meeting to end. They later went public in their declaration that they stopped the vote for Michael Goar.
Weak boards give in to unwarranted pressure by groups. Goar obviously decided to act to end the charade that is the search for superintendent by withdrawing his name. The third candidate is an African American from Houston, Texas.
The Board should not have allowed themselves to be intimidated. They should have recessed, cleared the room, reassembled, reconvened, and taken their vote. There is also an uneasy feeling that a political decision has been made that an African American shall not become superintendent of schools in a school district in which 65 percent are students of color, with half of the students African American. The Board seems unclear regarding diversity in the next selection round.
There has been, as of the writing of this column, the question as to why the gentleman from Houston was not offered the opportunity to be superintendent. And, despite the story in the Star Tribune about the NAACP president stating she sent a letter to the MPS board calling for Michael Goar not to be considered for superintendent, I have not been able to find any member of the NAACP branch who participated in the vote to authorize sending that letter to the Minneapolis Board of Education. If there is none, then one person is holding up the progress of the district. That demonstrates that once again it appears that the rules and constitution that govern the long-standing organization were dismissed as insignificant.
I would hope no one takes great satisfaction in having aided and abetted the continued chaos and delay of the implementation needed to guarantee quality education for the students of this district. We said in an earlier column that the adults should place significant demands on the importance of excellent education for the students, to demonstrate that adults know how to get the job done.
Instead, the adults are showing to those in power that despite the responsibility for education, others and their notion of political correctness rule the day, demonstrating they don’t have a clue regarding how to solve this disaster. That is unacceptable.
At the legislative session starting on March 8, 2016, the Minneapolis School District should seriously be considered as a candidate to be placed in administrative receivership by the state of Minnesota.
The Republican majority in both houses of the legislature have to be licking their chops like barracuda in the water for this golden opportunity to embarrass a DFL strong hold, the city of Minneapolis and its school district, who just cannot seem to get it right. Our children and our citizen deserve better.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books, and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books, go to www.BeaconOnTheHillPress.com.
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