More than thirty years ago as I began my teaching journey, there were three things I knew… One, the administrative teams that sat in seats of elected power were wholeheartedly supportive of the efforts of the entire teaching force in New Bedford. Two, that businesses, without exception, felt it incumbent upon them to “fill the gaps” where budgets and student needs failed to meet. Finally, our local news media was a constant source of positive profiling of an ever-changing, always-striving city of learners.
One year ago, I began a series of articles, some irreverent, some serious, that grew from a threat to our school system as an entity. What gave me pause were the groups of individuals who created, even fanned the flames, of this threat. Our elected leaders, one after another, began to shirk their elected duties, their guarantees of service to this community, to publicly chastise our work while simultaneously supporting outlandish proposals that would forever change the basic structure of public education in New Bedford. By the slimmest of margins, the electorate gave the highest seat of power to someone who immediately began a campaign to defame and accuse an administrator who was charged with healing a system whose teachers had been thrown into chaos after an intense power battle with our previous superintendent. Even as this was happening, two sitting school committee members took it upon themselves to augment their elected capacities to give support to the design and proliferation of so-called Innovation Schools whose intent it is to bully their way into two of our institutions. While these three elected officials, and their contemporaries, were busying themselves with playing school, our system was running aground and now finds itself with a three million dollar shortfall. Keep in mind that anyone who sits on the New Bedford school committee, whether they be elected school committeepeople, or its ex-officio chair, are first charged with two jobs: that of fiduciary oversight and the creation of system-wide policy. In supporting Innovation takeovers and allowing us to fall into the red, they have done neither.
When my students’ needs could not be met by our budget supply, I wore their hearts on my sleeve and spent countless hours campaigning at our local businesses for materials and in-kind services. My students performed publicly in support of many civic leaders’ causes. In turn we received a wealth of assistance that allowed us to grow and flourish. Local business was a partner in education at the grassroots level and, to be sure, many continue to walk that walk today. Yet there exists in our community an ill wind of business and quasi-business folk who have taken it upon themselves to create discontent and a perception that education is failing. How odd, how interesting is it, that many of these same people have never educated themselves nor their own children in our schools? They hail from surrounding communities. Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Westport and more. They are the legion of idiocy who have created a place for themselves at our table due in large part to their controlling votes with nebulous “Roundtables”, “Associations”, “Foundations”, and more. They have interests that go far beyond our system inefficiencies. They wield one thing: Dead People’s Money. And they, like anyone who spends OPM (other people’s money), are willing to elide their names with that financial source. What possible reason do they have? What is their true agenda? I have one thought, but it’s a pretty dark one… What will be left for the public school system to educate when the Charter schools, Innovation schools, et. al. are full? WHO will be the New Bedford public school student of YOUR future? What will be the socio-economic, ethnic, racial composite of the NBPS?
Finally, our news media is a sham. Our local newspaper prints one letter after another praising the benefits of Innovation schools whose model exists nowhere but in the two proposals that presently sit before the school committee. They hold up a Level Three Charter school as exemplary. They tout the hard work of three of your colleagues who would propose to forcibly occupy space in the Gomes while denying the teachers there the right to self-will. They laud the second design team’s proposal, a team of individuals who have never been aligned, in any way, with you. Three short miles to the east, moderators for our area’s radio station derail opponents of these proposals while paving a broad street for these teams to engage listeners.
What remains?
You do.
In the vast abyss that is our city’s future, you are the one, true bearer of the torch. Inherently you know what is right and what is wrong. You are the sleeping giant these three groups must come to fear; not because of your power, but because of your indignation. You must rise against these false prophets who would create our professional Auschwitz; a place where you will labor not for your own, but for the totalitarian society controlled by, and for the benefit of, the few…
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1 comment:
.and yet another one today....how many times have we heard these schools will share "best practices"? Remember the Global Learning Charter was going to be an incubator of success that would share info with the NBPS? That did not happen. We are all trained(perhaps over trained) and ready to implement best practices, we just need a system that is supporting us NOT destroying us. Members of our own school committee have betrayed us all.
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