The Buffalo Schools Gong Show

schoolboard

When it comes to the Buffalo Public Schools, we have clearly entered a period of severe and acute self-parody.

The new majority on the school board – Paladino, James Sampson, Patty Pierce, Jason McCarthy, and Larry Quinn – were ostensibly elected to fix longstanding structural, substantive, and procedural issues facing the beleagured district. Perhaps Paladino and his cohorts are taking a cue from revolutionary Cuba – perpetuate the crisis to remain politically relevant and legitimate. After all, if everything is going smoothly, and the emergency has ended, who needs their special brand of “leadership”?

The past 15 years of schools stewardship have been marked by failed experimentation. The popular and effective Marian Canedo was superintendent for 4 years, and left abruptly before her contract expired. After an interim period, the board retained Dr. James Williams, whom they ultimately had to pay to leave. Amber Dixon was interim superintendent for a year before Pamela Brown was hired to serve from 2012 until this new majority forced her retirement in 2014. She had about two years to try and turn around a lumbering behemoth, and the majority essentially hand-picked Donald Ogilvie to serve as interim superintendent while they performed a national search for a new permament placement.

Ogilvie has barely served a year, and Paladino now wants him fired because … well, here’s what Paladino says,

Paladino said Ogilvie has become an obstacle to making the dramatic reforms the district needs to move forward. Even waiting until June or July for Ogilvie to leave is too long, he said.

“I will be presenting a motion to terminate his employment effective immediately,” Paladino said. “I do what I think is right. I’ve reached the point where I felt betrayed. I feel there was a lot of treachery.”

It’s no secret that members of the board majority have been disappointed in Ogilvie’s performance on the job, saying they expected more sweeping and immediate changes than have occurred under Ogilvie’s leadership. Paladino said Ogilvie misrepresented his position when he met with the board majority prior to his appointment.

Board majority members were clear about their vision for the future, Paladino said, and Ogilvie led them to believe he was on board.

But over time, Ogilvie’s lack of enthusiasm for charter school takeovers, slow movement on school downsizing, and general unwillingness to fire administrators and reduce the size of the Central Office has frustrated the board majority.

“We’ve made some marginal kind of progress,” board President James Sampson said, “but not the kind of progress the community wants to see.”

The “snap your fingers” method of effecting wide, sweeping privatization simply isn’t real life. Paladino may be the dictator within his narrow business interests, but he is now an elected official – a trustee who owes taxpayers and students a fiduciary duty to do the right thing. What we’re witnessing, however, is utter lunacy. This is cloud-cuckoo land, and even Paladino’s own allies think he’s gone too far. The majority may be disappointed in Ogilvie, but not enough to throw the entire district into further disarray and fire him before a replacement has been found. Because to do so would be irresponsible and stupid.

The minority, for its part, is already under constant siege by Paladino’s intemperate and childish mouth, and can do little more than use their own words and conduct to be islands of class in a sea of intemperate privatization. Parent activists have demanded that Paladino resign, and suggest that Carl’s own South District constituents are silent because they’re, frankly, embarrassed they elected him to be a constant, stupid distraction. I don’t know whether or not that’s true, but if Pamela Brown only got two years to turn around this district, why should Paladino get one day more?

“It’s always everybody else who’s the problem,” said the Rev. Kinzer M. Pointer, pastor of Agape Fellowship Baptist Church. “We need Mr. Paladino, for once in his life, to take an honest look and determine that he’s the common thread.”

What if Paladino has made the dysfunction worse, not better? That’s the charge, and it’s quite persuasive. Members of the parent group are sick and tired of administrative and legislative ridiculousness, and calling for a federal receiver to take the district over. What an incredible indictment that would be.

In the end, we’re learning that a functioning, collaborative school board is important in order to effectuate change and improve results for students. Even if you buy into the privatization model being pushed by Paladino and his confederates, the fact that they have so far failed, and that Paladino now wants to fire his hand-picked superintendent for putting students before politics, establishes how words don’t translate into deeds if you denigrate and dehumanize, rather than persuade and compromise.

Ogilvie explains that his job was made harder by the fact that “key positions” were vacant, and he’s had an uphill battle made worse by a distracted, belligerent board.

Buffalo and its students deserve better than this pseudo-reformist clown car. Perhaps it’s time for a receiver to assume control of the schools and render the board as irrelevant in law as it has become in fact.

As for Carl Paladino, he was sworn in to that school board on July 1, 2013. He seldom gives people time to do his especial bidding, so who will call for his expulsion or resignation come July 1, 2015? After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the tea party gander.

What’s Up, Larry Quinn?

Courtesy of Sean Crowley at the B-LoEdScene blog, Larry Quinn made an ass of himself during a recent Buffalo Board of Education visit to the beleaguered Lafayette High School. Carl Paladino, of all people, comported himself professionally and respectfully, and stayed after the visit to try and smooth things over, leading to an unexpected thank you call from the Buffalo teachers’ union boss, Phil Rumore.

Quinn was reportedly dismissive and rude to teachers and staff at the school, and Crowley contrasted Paladino’s reputation with Quinn’s,

…now that we’ve seen Quinn’s petulance — saying of the faculty “I only came here as a favor to Carl I didn’t want to meet with these clowns” his disdain for working people, calling teacher leader Pat Foster “an idiot” you can be sure Larry will make some half hearted obligatory attempt to reign in his tongue. But we all know better. A guy like Quinn is not going to negotiate these waters with grace or skill. He’s going to be spending a lot of time out of his boat getting bounced around in the rapids. The peek he gave Buffalonians of his true self at Lafayette is just the beginning of Larry Quinn’s unraveling. Carl tried to apologize away Quinn’s boorish antics when pressed about it by a news reporter. He admitted Quinn was rude and unprofessional in his dealings with school officials and teachers. He then tried to slip a card from his sleeve hoping nobody would notice describing the performance as “a bad hair day.” He should have said “That’s just Larry Being Larry.”

and from the News’ account,

Teachers also said Quinn acknowledged attending the meeting only out of respect for Paladino, who had asked him to come, and even said to Paladino, “Why would I want to go there and talk to those clowns?” He also reportedly referred to a teacher and BTF representative who had left the room as an “idiot.”

Finally, Quinn questioned [Principal Naomi P.]Cerre’s leadership in front of her staff, pointing out that the district clearly has qualms about her leadership since the administration did not grant her tenure this year, instead only offering her an extension of her probation.

 

Even Carl Paladino was embarrassed,

Paladino, however, did not disagree with Rumore’s account of what transpired and agreed that Quinn’s behavior was “rough” and “harsh.”

“It wasn’t pretty,” said Paladino, who described Quinn’s behavior as an exercise in self-induced frustration. He added that Quinn’s remarks were not badly intended and chalked up his behavior to “having a bad hair day.”

After Quinn left, Paladino said, he stayed behind and worked to smooth over hurt feelings. That earned him a thank-you call from Rumore – a first-of-its-kind event for two men with a history of animosity.

Paladino said he was so surprised to hear from Rumore that he initially thought someone was pulling a prank on him and demanded to know if it was really the BTF president on the phone.

Rumore said he was genuinely appreciative that Paladino listened to Lafayette’s presentation in a thoughtful and open-minded manner.

What bizarro world is this?

“He actually was there to listen,” he said, “and the teachers felt he was really interested in what they had to say.”

Wha? After the News pressed Quinn on the matter, he gave a classic ‘sorry, not sorry’.

“If I offended anybody, then I was probably stupid because I know we’ve got a big fight on our hands with people who don’t want to change anything,” Quinn said. “So it’s my fault. My point is, I should be smarter than that.”

Well, you were elected to be smarter than that, so your conclusion is spot-on. You were elected to be a trustee for the school district, and these people may be answerable to you, and they may be employees of the entity you serve, but they’re fallible human beings who are doing their best under difficult circumstances.  One thing they probably don’t need is a preening, monied, rookie know-it-all to tell them all how badly they all suck, and how they’re all idiots.

Quinn signed up for a job that puts him in the same damn boat as all of those teachers, students, and administrators.  If he doesn’t like they way others are rowing, then he should take the oars himself.

Communication Breakdown

On April 28th, the Buffalo News’ editorial page offered up its recommendations in the upcoming school board races. One of the most intensely watched races is that of developer and tea party gadfly Carl Paladino. While the News expressed support for Paladino’s proposals for fixing the school board – many of which are totally reasonable – it would not endorse him. 

But we won’t endorse Paladino, either. He insists that he is not racist, but he shows no comprehension that the emails he forwarded not only suggest that – and powerfully – but that they would be painful and insulting to thousands of minority families and students in the district he wishes to serve.

While he is, in some ways, the candidate this district has needed, we cannot lend the weight of this page to a candidate who still insists those vile emails were funny. No one is perfect and it is always necessary to allow people their failings, but in life, there are some bright lines. Paladino crossed this one.

Nevertheless, it seems all but certain that Paladino will win this race; the South Buffalo neighborhood supported him overwhelmingly in his 2010 campaign for governor. If he does win, it will be his chance to prove that he is not racist.

He could go a long way toward showing that by acknowledging the despicable nature of those emails.

These emails (NSFW)

To be clear, I read that editorial very carefully – it’s not condemning Paladino for sending the emails, but instead for not acknowledging that they were disgusting, misogynist, and racist. There’s no question he sent them around, but he can’t just say, it was stupid, it was wrong, I’m deeply embarrassed and sorry. He’s like Otto from A Fish Called Wanda

So, what does Paladino do? He blasts some more emails out calling the News and its editorial page writer Dawn Bracely names. 

That’s not enough, though.  Paladino pal Larry Quinn had to chime in, too. 

Both of these guys need to take some remedial reading comprehension classes. Perhaps a lesson in humility wouldn’t hurt, either. It must be nice to be so righteously indignant over a perceived slight. It’s also easy to see all the answers for Buffalo’s failing schools from atop a mountain of white privilege.