Jun 02 2007
D.C. Schools: Where’s the Rage?
The head of the very city that is taxed without “voting” representation in Congress… wants to take away the historically created voting rights of the D.C. School Board. But his reason for doing so is amazing. Mayor Adrian Fenty says nine people can’t make effective decisions for the D.C. Public School System. He doesn’t know the history or the fact that there was a time when one or a few didn’t do much better. Fenty’s comment is like saying the D.C. City Council or the House of Representatives can not be effective, either: too many people to be efficient. What is just as paradoxical is the fact that the D.C. Council, both houses of Congress, and President Bush have signed off on an obviously flawed idea and document. For example… The Washington Post revealed in May 2007, that one-third of the mayor’s take over plan wasn’t even original; it was, in fact, copied from a yet untested North Carolina school system plan. BUT… these politicians didn’t blink at the finding of such gross “plagarism” in such an important and putatively transformative document. Nor did they explain why they would vote to take away the voting rights of D.C. citizens for a school board while supporting voting rights for them in the U. S. Congress.
Doesn’t anyone remember the hard fought battles to get an elected mayor for the District of Columbia? Doesn’t anyone remember what it was like before school board members were elected in the District of Columbia?
Where is the rage that a newly elected mayor who hasn’t even demonstrated that he can run one of the most important cities in the world wants to strip DC residents of power?
Where is the rage that the very deputy in charge of the mayor’s take over plan is the very one who admitted he didn’t credit others for borrowing their North Carolina ideas?
Where is the rage when the mayor says he doesn’t need to ask D.C. citizens about his take over plans because he asked the D.C. City Council, instead? So he understands the importance of representation in a democracy. But even more to the point, where is the rage that Congress and the President of the United States are having input on a “state” or local matter?
A victory for the Fenty administration may well translate into a historical loss for the residents of the District of Columbia. Fenty lacks a track record for useful input about the public schools when he sat on the City Council. Just because Congress and President Bush say the Home Rule Charter can be changed to exclude an elected school board… does not mean that it should be done? The same people who are undermining the public school system with private school voucher programs are slowly deconstructing the very infrastructure that is vital to a democracy. Aren’t these the same ones who have declared the DC Public Schools to be in a desperate state? Where’s the rage? I know… it’s been coopted!
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