For a change most of my information comes not from the P & C but from an interview granted to Katie Crawford of WCSC-TV. You can log on to a video of the interview through Channel 5's website or through http://www.linkcharleston.com/.
For someone in Charleston for barely a year, Crawford does a decent job of asking the right questions; however, she can't pin Goodloe-Johnson to specific answers on some issues of interest to readers of this blog, partly because G-J wasn't going to answer and partly because Crawford doesn't know enough yet about the CCSD's history.
For example, Crawford asks G-J about whether constituent school boards should continue or be abolished. G-J never directly answers except to say that no measure at this time shows they are effective. Neither addresses why constituent boards were created in the first place and whether that reason still exists. I'm sure Crawford doesn't know.
Although seeming unaware of Principal Sallie Ballard's manipulation of the lottery, Crawford does try to press G-J regarding parents' using false addresses to attend Buist. G-J would not answer if anything will ever be done about these students, although she essentially admits that they do exist. Instead, she uses the old "everybody has always done it" as cover while positing that all schools should have the resources that Buist does.
Well, that'll happen soon. About the same time these students get expelled from Buist, I guess.
G-J also reveals her naivete by suggesting that Charleston is a very segregated city where old attitudes die hard. As opposed to Corpus Christi where she came from four years ago? Yeah, right. Old attitudes there [read "prejudice] are between Mexican-Americans and whites; the schools had been segregated previously--white separated from Mexican. Virtually all of the black students in the city (and there are very few) attend the same failing high school with mostly Mexican students in a poorer area of the city. Mexican-American students won't speak Spanish to each other at school because they think it shows they are lower class. Part of the reason G-J left Corpus undoubtedly is that she knew she wouldn't advance because she wasn't Mexican-American. If she had been white, she wouldn't have advanced because she wasn't Mexican-American.
Crawford does manage to get G-J to admit, after some fumbling around, that basically she wants ANYTHING except a new charter high school at the Rivers Middle School building. Her attitude comes as no surprise, except perhaps to Rev. Darby, at least judging from his last op-ed piece. She was very defensive of Burke, stating that at last it had the right leadership in Benton, but didn't she appoint the previous principals as well?
Finally, G-J's comments about the state's funding of school districts speak to her ignorance. In the P & C's op-ed farewell, she says, "Let's determine what it takes to fund public schools and then allow the state to figure out where the money will come from." Allow?
Can YOU picture individual school districts' telling the legislature how much money to give them and the legislature's saying, "Oh, yes? You need $20, $30, $50 million more? Why didn't you say so before?"
It doesn't work that way, Maria, and you know it. And the 13 districts (like CCSD) getting less from the state were previously spending MORE than the other districts (that are now getting the difference). They called it the "Robin Hood Law" in Texas. But you already knew that. It just wasn't politic to say.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
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9 comments:
I just wish she was going to be here long enough for us to see her "lining up" to put her daughter Maya in Sanders-Clyde. Be-gone, you hypocrite!
Sanders-Clyde works for Ms. Moore because she's focusing on one type of student and you know it.
You're a racist, Dr. G-J, and we know it.
Thanks for giving us the link, Babbie.
I enjoyed "the Dance" so much between Katie and Maria that my legs are exhausted!
One more thing, did I hear her correctly? She's opposed to the Charter School because it will take the best students from Burke?
Does anyone have a q-tip?
And then there's that cheap shot again about charter schools taking money away from public schools. Didn't we already establish that a charter school IS a public school?
If that wasn't enough, she implied that James Island Charter HS somehow wrongly(wisely budgeted?)and therefore withheld (saved?) $4 million that should be returned to CCSD (reinvested in JICHS?) so they can throw it away (frugally spend it?) somewhere else (on planned improvements to JICHS academic programs?).
This is worth of repeating: She said it so casually that Charleston is "the most racially segregated divided place I have ever lived". What an appropriate parting gesture to all those who stood by her and defended her [depite her many mistakes]. Ask the B-Team pac, the fawning business groups, the mayor and individual county board members who sang her praises...if they appreciate this final epithet she has launched in their direction.
I bet if you asked "those members", they would say they thought it was their duty to support the superintendent. If they had done the "right thing" years ago, we wouldn't have been in the mess we are in. The kids are suffering and they want to blame Sandi Engelman. I wonder if she is singing, "I told you so" now
There are quite a few people saying "I told you so", but just like G-J in Diette's final puff piece in this morning's paper, we'll never hear G-J's supporters on the county board admit they made a mistake by backing her. Crow is a very hard dish to swallow. G-J's parting shots that have targeted her even her most ardent supporters won't make it any easier.
Hey, didn't Jerry Adams look cute helping Maria pack up her office yesterday? Looks like he's doing everything he can to appear humble in the transition. What a suck up as he tries to save his job. Oh, Jerry, you burned most of your bridges with so many people when you thought you were untouchable. How can anything you say be believed? You're a communications director that doesn't communicate honestly. You did the same at DSS.
Has anyone noticed that whenever Goodloe made broad sweeping statements she would pepper them with catchy phrases and sound bites like “coherent curriculum”, “data driven”, “plan for excellence”, “plantation mentality” or even “playing the race card”? Many of her quotable comments after a while seemed to have a familiar ring to them. By this I mean that when critics raised questions about conflicts in administrative policies or the effectiveness of certain programs, she would often brush them off. Only she had an annoying habit of later adopting the same phrases and linguistic concepts used by her growing number of critics. Their words and phrases would often appear later as part of her canned speeches and dogmatic arguments used to defend things just as they were.
Then there was that parting comment (actually a slap in the face directed toward those who thought she was a "friend") about giving in to racism and using for the first time a remark about subordination to a “plantation mentality”. After nearly 4 years, why did she suddenly use this phrase so full of color and meaning? In truth, it a phrase used by the District 20 Board, its chairman and several of its individual members who didn’t mince words in their criticism of CCSD in general, and more specifically, in their condemnation of the inequities found within the downtown schools perpetuated by 75 Calhoun and the county school board. Vocal District 20 leaders have long called CCSD's management of downtown schools and its policies of containment a reflection of its "plantation mentality".
She’s right. CCSD’s "plantation mentality", but it's a condition that many political leaders, both black and white, have cultivated within the black community. Goodloe used it to her own advantage. And we shouldn't forget those black educators who want promotions who went along with it. These would include administrators like Earl Choice who owed their jobs to Goodloe. They willingly became her "step and fetch it" appointees. Their desire to advance themselves without taking risks continue to hurt minority kids. In many cases Goodloe easily enticed them to become what would have been easily called sellouts, if Goodloe had been white.
Regardless of her appearances, Goodloe proved early on that she was not an advocate for reform, as had been hoped. District 20 leaders objected loudly by calling CCSD’s policies as more of the same and part of its “plantation mentality”.
Goodloe from the very beginning ignored their complaints. She was consistent in ignoring them to the very end. It's interesting that she would use their words in her own defense.
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