TKC BREAKING AND EXCLUSIVE NEWS!!! KANSAS CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS SHOWDOWN!!! COMMUNITY OPPOSITION SHUTS DOWN SCHOOL BOARD MEETING AND OPPOSES ACADEMIE LAFAYETTE DEAL!!!
Last night denizens of the KCPS turned out in full force to oppose a controversial partnership that many believe would further a growing racial divide in public schools.
We've talked about the big money ($15 MIL) deal and proposed partnership that is now meeting with MASSIVE OPPOSITION from throughout the KCPS . . . Last night seemed to be a turning point in the struggle.
Better than TKC description . . . Here's a quote from a community leader making a presentation to the KCPS Board:
Rev. Wallace Hartsfield: "We compel you to reject any unfair standards, any inequitable process or any uneven development that hinders or devalues KCPS student access to excellence in education. Please note that we are joined by approximately 100 parents, taxpayers and patrons of Kansas City Public Schools who oppose not only the proposed partnership with Academie Lafayette but any negotiation that is not in the best interest of currently enrolled students in viable district programs."
Another issue the selection process of the (interrupted) new Superintendent . . .
Here's another quote from an e-mail circulating and challenging the Board . . .
"We are equally concerned with what we perceive as racist & sexist discriminatory practices of the KCPS board of Directors as demonstrated in the recent exclusion of participation of Marisole Montero, the only Latino member of the KCPS Board, to an Ad Hoc committee for Superintendent Search Process. The manner by which Board Member Montero was denied participation as a committee member defies logic & process. Currently Latino parents & students represent over 30% of KCPS stakeholders. Their voices. concerns & representation was unfairly denied by this discriminatory action of the seated KCPS Board of Directors."
Now . . .
CLEARLY THERE'S AN UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL OF TURMOIL CONFRONTING KANSAS CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND OVERWHELMING OPPOSITION TO THEIR CURRENT COURSE!!!
Look for community outrage to continue on this front until Mayor Sly, the Greater Chamber crowd and big biz quit their social engineering strategy that attempts to impose more racial and socioeconomic segregation within the KCPS.
Developing . . .
Airick looks like he's in trouble and he may not have the same wherewithal and support to win this time around like he did in year's past. That's the perspective that you need to cover TKC.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't get is this ... if the school district is thriving as supporters want you to believe, why does what happens at Southwest matter? As I see it, it's only offering students another option for schooling. If the district schools are as great as supporters want you to believe, what's the problem? I think it's simply because they know the Academe group will create a school that will leave the others in the dust! How about this ...instead of trying to keep that school from opening, how about making the current schools you have better?
ReplyDeleteApparently partnering with excellence makes the school district nervous. Having observed the way the district dealt with those trying to save Thacher School from demolition, I have zero respect for those in charge.
ReplyDeleteAny time you gather a bunch of NIGGERS, in a closed up location, there's gonna be yelling and screaming and typical NIGGER behavior. It doesn't matter what the subject is either. It can be religion or politics or a food give-away.. Doesn't matter. Always begins with ooks and grunts and clicks....
ReplyDeleteInteresting observation Anonymous at 9:34. Were you there? I was and I didn't hear any yelling or screaming. I did hear several very respectful and articulate speakers. What I saw was a crowd of people standing in silence and sending the board a message. Not one yell or scream. Perhaps you should not comment when you obviously have an agenda and no idea what you are talking about.
ReplyDeleteCan't locate this chain of events in the Kansas City Star? Wondering why!
ReplyDelete1. "Unfair Standards" - if standards do not insure equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity.
ReplyDelete2. "Racist and Sexist" - also can be either racist or sexist. If the desired outcome is not met and candidate is a minority or woman. In this case, the rare "daily double" was achieved.
I'm willing to listen to real input from the community, but these tired tactics have played themselves out. It's time to let the adults work this deal out.
I'm reposting what I posted earlier. I think 9:15 also hit the nail on the head. You got 100 parents in the school district to show up? So what? Slow clap for you. If AL parents had been asked to this meeting there would have been twice as many. That's because there's more than 100 parents in our ONE school who actually care about their kids' education. I'm sick of special interest groups denying the fact that my children deserve another excellent public high school option.
ReplyDelete"As the parent of an AL student who has been praying for a miracle to get a high school at Southwest, I am hoping that we can finally get this to happen. Our family can't afford St. Theresa's, Sion or Pembroke. We're also not willing to move out of the city.
My taxes pay for the KCPS, why shouldn't my children be able to benefit from a public high school education too?
I'm sick of "special interest groups" trying to keep the AL/KCPS collaboration from happening. Academie Lafayette has the highest test scores of any charter school in the state. Our scores are better than any of the suburban schools in the metro as well. It's obvious that AL is better at educating kids than KCPS. Why on earth wouldn't you want your kids to have an alternative to Lincoln Prep?
There's no denying Lincoln is a great school, but isn't this town big enough for TWO high performing high schools? It's idiotic to hold back this opportunity.
If the protesters against this would spend one hour at AL in the classroom and really open their eyes, they would be able to see how an AL education is amazing! I was skeptical of a charter school education (especially in French immersion!) but we took a tour when we were trying to decide where to send our daughter and the second we walked out the door at AL we knew that was the place to send our child. The spirit of the teachers and students is incredible. You actually could see children from all kinds of backgrounds learning together in the classroom from teachers from all over the world. Their test scores and the character the school instills in their students speaks for itself. Even the youngest students are held to high standards academically and behaviorly and they achieve it.
Why on earth would you try to stop proven success? It makes no sense!
I'm praying that we can get this through. It's an incredible opportunity for ALL CHILDREN that live in Kansas City. This is an urgent situation in our community. Egos and agendas need to be put aside and do the right thing for KC's kids...ALL of them!"
“The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
ReplyDelete^^All true. But, can my child at least not be subject to violence and harassment while being brainwashed?
DeleteMissouri needs to eliminate local school boards and create a single state education commission
ReplyDeleteI TKC actually has his finger on the pulse of this issue, the KCMO public school system is not only in a death spiral, it also is about to commit suicide. Developing a viable Southwest HS just might save the district. Ignoring, or even fighting the AL proposal may be the final act.
ReplyDeleteNo one is opposed to Academie Lafayette. Wish them all the best.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes this deal stink is:
1) AL siphoning subsidies from KCPS to the tune of over $600,000 annually in ADDITION to the local/state/federal dollars provided for each student
2) getting Southwest rent free (worth $350,000 annually based upon the rent the district charged the last charter at Southwest. AL was willing to pay $500,000 annually to use just a portion of Westport, so this is extremely attractive and, obviously worth fighting for)
3) AL wants to offer 3 academic tracks to accommodate its lower performing students, but all KCPS students must qualify by passing an IB-level entrance exam.
Now, do you get it?
Last year KCPS administration recommended the board sell Westport High School to a developer for $1 million. Also in 2014, KCPS sold Westport Middle to a developer for $750,000. Where were the big-backers of effective schools when KCPS refused to sell to charters? Why no resistance?
10:22 You nailed it.
ReplyDeleteThis is not about whether or not AL is a good charter. It is about using the tax dollars intended for one student to subsidize another student in order to meet an agenda that has nothing to do with good education.
Academie Lafayette was denied opportunity to bid on both Westport buildings by the same guy Cozad decided to hop into bed with, Airick West. Poor choice of partners, friend.
1. "Siphoning subsidies"? That would be money being used to educate KCPS students too, ya know. AL gets $0 from "local" funds.
ReplyDelete2. Rent free? So what? It's a school that would be educating DISTRICT kids. Plus, AL would be responsible for ALL of the maintenance and upkeep.
3. This is the stupidest argument and it just needs to go away! KCPS students would have missed out on 3 years of AL's IB Middle School Program. Kids that didn't go to Lincoln for middle school still have to test in to get into Lincoln's high school. To get into AL, the requirements would be IDENTICAL to those for Lincoln.
I wish AL would have gotten Westport High School so it wouldn't have to deal with the idiot "supporters" of the KCPS. A collaboration would benefit ALL kids in KCMO. It's not just about money. Think about how much the KCPS flushes away each year....
10:30: I don't get it? What's the "agenda that has nothing to do with good education"? What other agenda should we have but that?
ReplyDeleteTax dollars have been circling the toilet that is KCPS for years now. All of the sudden the citizenry is up at arms because a charter school will receive funds to do the job KCPS is either unwilling or unable to do? Makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteWho gives a fuck...the grifters keep fucking the KCPS as they always have..
ReplyDeleteBut we don't need schools anymore! We need daddy supported faux artists, FIFA soccer watchers, craft beer addicts, and toy train riders!!!!
ReplyDelete"We compel you to reject any unfair standards, any inequitable process or any uneven development that hinders or devalues KCPS student access to excellence in education."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, every student is entitled to the least worst education available, and we don't want anyone to have access to anything better because that would be inequitable.
Folks, the KCPS is not going to get any better. What you see is the best it's ever going to be.
What a sweet racket education has become. Kick them all out. Can't do that because of golden parachutes attached to their butts.
ReplyDeleteHow is AL different from school vouchers? Isn't it essentially parents taking tax dollars to send their children to a parochial school? If the best outcome for a KCPS student is to be educated outside of the KCPS why don't we just give all students a voucher and let them go where they want?
ReplyDeleteRacial politics has burdened the KCMOSD for years, and there is no sign it will stop or even slow down. No Child Left Benind, stupid as it is, is not enough for these folks. They want No Child Gets Ahead.
ReplyDelete10:48 with the sub-rube regurgitation of the hour.
ReplyDeleteWhat in the flying fuck does this have to do without streetcars, you unhinged one-trick pony?
What do streetcars have to do with the 21st Century?
ReplyDelete12:12 has his/her finger on the pulse of the racial schadenfreude that has it's tentacles around the throats of those white folks who want to send their children to a school where education is top priority and, of course, little Johnny and Suzie don't get assaulted and raped by blacks in between 5th and 6th hour.
ReplyDeleteThere is "No Country For White Children".
There ARE dramatic differences between the races and they SHOULD be segregated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-zttPCDqYU
That's right 9:48, NIGGERS are always quiet and respectful of others. You might even refer to them as "gentle giants". Stupid fuck.
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't understand, 1:35, because you are stuck in 1987. Sorry the city you live in a suburb of finally decided to pass you by. I'm sure that stings.
ReplyDeleteLet me say this clearly fuck Airwick West and the KCPS board...there I feel so much better...they fucking every student in the system....why doesn't anyone see THEY ARE THE PROBLEM!
ReplyDeleteIt would be an outrage to deny KCPS students access to excellence in education.
ReplyDeleteSo let AL take over Southwest High School
ReplyDeleteHere's a great idea:
Let's just make Rev. Wallace Hartsfield the new KCPS Superintendent AND Board Chair. He can appoint his own board -- people like Gwen Grant -- and let THEM have it.
A.L. is one of the few bright spots for the district -- along with Lincoln. A great idea with great support from community and business leaders challenging the District to be great.
Sure, the business community wants the District to improve -- Because a Strong Public School System is GOOD FOR BUSINESS.
But should narrow minds prevail, let the grifters have it -- once and for all. Then we can all step back and watch the district will fail.
What we are seeing in the inner cities of America is genocide on the installment plan. Those brothers and sisters who think the government is their friend and savior are living with a fatal illusion. Those who think Barack Obama is both the Black Moses leading them to the promise land or Black Jesus their savior, have been fooled by the propaganda. Obama is not a brother, he is Big Brother. The United States government is very good at genocide on the installment plan. They eliminated the Native Americans as a threat.
ReplyDeleteThe once mighty Lakota (Sioux) Nation, whose warriors defeated and nearly destroyed a regiment of the United States Army, are reduced to Third World standards on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Those might Sioux who haven’t died from poverty, tuberculosis or alcoholism are dying now from drinking water polluted from uranium mining their loving government allowed in South Dakota. The inner cities of America are becoming urban Pine Ridges.
Malcolm X is venerated by Black America but none of the brothers read him. He preached separation and self-sufficiency from the White man. He warned about letting the White man educate Black children when he said: “Only a fool lets his enemy educate his children.” How many more Fergusons and Baltimores is the White Power Elite going to allow? How much crime will the White people allow before they demand troops be sent in? Black people should stand up and take control of their schools back from the White bureaucrats and the Black conmen administrators who control them but sixty years of the current education system and the Welfare State have probably made that impossible. Like the mighty Sioux, all the warriors have been eliminated from the urban Pine Ridges.
The Sioux were soft serve ice cream compared to the Comanche, the greatest light cavalry the world had seen since Kahn. That said, they were both aboriginal civilizations, whose high points were counting coup and life, was, short, brutish and dull.
ReplyDeleteThe pretense that Native Americans would have fashioned a much better world, had they been free to continue to hunt buffalo and rut in teepees is as romantically misguided as the idea of Kevin Costner finding a hot red head on the plains to pork while not engaged in fighting off the evil white hordes who ruined America. Kind a like believing that the many, many colleges and high schools, that emphasize "African American" studies in lieu of the basics are providing a great education for their charges.
White Americans, consumed with "White Guilt" and ethnomasochistic hatred, are an easy mark, for the unwashed idiot masses of blacks, whose one trick, Civil Rights pony just keeps jumping through the hoops and collecting that white coin of the realm. The metronomic drumbeat of Progressive cant from the 4th estate, politicians, Hollywood, the Pope (Yes, he hates your fucking cat.) imbues the zeitgeist with doubt and self recrimination.
Those whites, wet by every rain and blown by every wind, are what keeps organizations, metaphysically corrupt, venal, pernicious organizations like the KCSD on it's feet like a living corpse.
So sure Nat, let blacks run their own schools and create their own curriculum. It won't be a problem, because actual success and achievement is not important in an "Equal Outcome" Affirmative Action country, where the real racists are black.
Please try to separate my comment from some of the other nasty, racist comments here, but this needs to be said: The number of white students in KCPS is a barometer for it's progress. I understand the fear that the black community has; that the needs of the white students will be met, taking even more of the resources that the black students are already struggling to maintain away from them. That is a possibility, but so long as the black community continues to fight AL, it is undermining the opportunities for the students in KCPS.
ReplyDeleteThere are students at Foreign Language Academy and Carver Dual Language who would also benefit from a foreign language magnet at SWECC. The black community should be working on an equitable solution to bring AL into the district rather than fight them for holding high standards. Lincoln Prep has a similar admissions structure and the black community heralds it.
10:22 raises fair concerns but I side with 10:37 and 5:22. Lincoln Prep has similar standards and students from FLA and Carver would benefit from AL running SW. My own children are at Lincoln and this debate has been going on since they were at three or four years ago.
ReplyDelete5:22 shut the fuck up. If you want to come out, put your sheet on, grab a rope and come on down to a Klan meeting.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, shut the fuck up and put your wife's panties back in her drawer.
3:03: I only wish I lived in the suburbs, where I wouldn't give a rat's ass about how KC spends its money.
ReplyDelete4:52, good post. I disagree only on a few points. "Counting coup" was not a Comanche thing. Flaying enemies alive, and gang raping white children, was. I assume by Kahn you mean Genghis Khan; but the Mongols were organized, armed and led much better than the Comanche, as were all Asian nomadic armies. The Comanche can be compared better to flash mobs than the Golden Horde. Finally, I don't think it is reasonably disputable that Amerinds, both Eastern Woodlands and Plains varieties, were much better land managers than the white who replaced them.
ReplyDeleteThe race-baiting Rev. strikes again. You couldn't compel a Black person to cease fire on its own people. This is just an exercise of influence hustling with the usual suspects in tow.
ReplyDeleteLet's give the KCPS more $$$ to fuck it up again...AL seems to do thing right...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-most-costly-educational-failure