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Heroic Eastern Shore Superintendent’s Dr. Andrea Kane’s Words About “Evil Noise” Race Ring True: “Give It Some Time; Evil Will Consume Itself”. I Hope She Is Right!
Of late I have been limiting posts to this blog on public education and preparing to launch a new one that tackles broader subjects… but an article by Erica Green in today’s NYTimes warrants a post. In “Black Lives Matter, She Wrote. Then ‘Everything Just Imploded'”, Ms. Green describes the heart-wrenching experience of Queen Anne’s County (MD) Superintendent Andrea Kane after she sent an e-mail in June 2020 offering her support for those protesting the George Floyd demonstrations and indicating that systemic racism was a problem in her district as much as it was across the country. After a few weeks, the blowback was horrific. You see, Ms. Kane was the first African-American Superintendent hired in that county and the county included a stronghold of Trump supporters who became activated by the email and eventually ran a slate of candidates who sought to have Dr. Kane removed from office. The article recounted all that happened in Queen Anne’s County since Dr. Kane arrived: the “welcome” she got from some of the white school board members, her efforts to increase the awareness of the community about the effects of systemic racism on the student body, and her decision to fire a central office staff member for racist comments he made.
In the end, the so-called “Patriot” slate won the three seats needed to dismiss Dr. Kane and, despite her accomplishments, she was dismissed. Near the end of the article, Ms. Green describes Dr. Kane’s farewell speech at a newly created community center:
One day in June, almost exactly a year after Dr. Kane had written the email, her voice rose above a rumble of thunder as she addressed a crowd outside the Kennard African American Cultural Heritage Center, named for Lucretia Kennard, the county’s first “supervisor of colored schools.”
One of the first events held at the center, which had educated the county’s Black students during segregation, had been to welcome Dr. Kane. On this day, she was saying goodbye.
“There’s some noise out there, and it’s an evil noise,” Dr. Kane told the group. “Give it some time; evil will consume itself. Any time we let children express who they are, and set examples for them about what is right, we can’t go wrong.”
The children are always watching us. We need to set examples of the kind of world we want to leave for them… and it isn’t the world Dr. Kane experienced in Queen Anne’s County.
CRT Laws and Texas Abortion Law Have One Thing in Common: Citizen Arrest Provisions. But CRT Laws Cost the Accused Far More then $10,000
News coverage on Texas’ recently passed abortion legislation has gotten widespread national coverage as has the anti-CRT legislation passed or under consideration in 28 states. What seems to be lost in an examination of these laws is that the anti-CRT bills have the potential to harm the accused teacher far more than anyone who abets an abortion and requires a much lower legal threshold to place the accused teacher in the spotlight.
The vigilante justice inherent in the Texas anti-abortion bill is tempered somewhat by the requirement that the accuser must go to court where the accused will presumably have an opportunity to present evidence that supports their innocence. The anti-CRT bills, though, offer teachers no such due process and the “evidence” an accuser presents could be hearsay based on a 7-year old child’s interpretation of a lesson the teacher taught, “evidence” the teacher or Principal might hear for the first time at a public school board meeting. Worse, unlike “abortion” which is a clearly understood action, a clear definition of CRT is non-existent. Laws like the one recently passed in NH that ban “divisive content” further complicate matters since the accuser gets to define which topics they perceive as “divisive”. A teacher might withstand a hearsay accusation leveled by a irate parent on behalf of their child who felt uncomfortable by the content of a lesson, but the price they would pay if they are “exonerated” is immeasurable. Should a teacher lose their case, they could lose their job, a cost far more than any fine a court would levy for teaching a lesson on an undefined topic. The Star Chamber trials will begin soon. Stay tuned.
The Nationalization of Local School Board Races Continues: Parents Need to Pay Attention
As noted in earlier posts, well heeled conservative activists are interested in seizing power at all levels of government… including the school board level. As this NBC report indicates, dark money is behind over 150 “parent organizations” designed to bring hot button faux issues like the instruction of CRT and debates over masking to the forefront in local school district elections. Parents and voters who value local control of their schools should pay close attention to the candidates who are running for seats in their local elections, for if they are part of the Trump wing of the party they are also part of the privatization movement. The REAL reason for questioning curriculum and mask policies is not to make local schools better: it’s to erode public confidence in the government and thereby open the door to privatization through vouchers. If anything, union leader Randi Weingarten understates the danger in this quote:
“It’s about constant destabilization, creating anger, exploiting the anxiety that people have right now,” she said. “it is also kind of rooted in the destabilization of the institutions in America that have, you know, long been used to unify the country. Like great neighborhood public schools.”
Look carefully at each and every race this cycle and make sure none of these anti-democracy candidates are elected.
Vote even if you think it doesn’t matter…. and be grateful you still can!
Network Schools - Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for 