A Point of View

Gwendolyn Grant
President & CEO
Urban League of Greater Kansas City
March 28,, 2008

In the aftermath of the KCMO School Board’s most recent poor judgment and bad decision making that resulted in the de-facto buy-out of Anthony Amato’s contract, business leaders, the Civic Council, state legislators, MCC and a host of others have surmised that the problem with the district is its governance structure.

Certainly, when a school board has a string of bad decisions such as giving Amato a $225,000 golden parachute instead of terminating him for cause; retaining Amato’s incompetent staff and vacuous programs; and ignoring claims that an Associate Superintendent referred to school principals as “hos,” it stands to reason that some might conclude that the governance structure is fundamentally flawed.

Some have called for a board appointed by the Kansas City Mayor or Jackson County Executive. Others have suggested an all at-large board or having the district administered by the Metropolitan Community Colleges/Penn Valley. This is a scary thought in light of that institution’s record. Don’t you find it curious that Dr. Bernard Franklin is meeting with civic leaders and state legislators to discuss the travails of the KCMO School District when his own house is wrought with student protests, reports of blatant disrespect and ridicule of African American students by white faculty members, and an embarrassing track record with respect to hiring, promoting and retaining minority faculty and administrators.

It is a fact that KCMO School District students arrive at Penn Valley academically unprepared. So do students from the Hickman Mills and Grandview school districts. Yet, Dr. Franklin appears to be oblivious to that pertinent fact. Why has Dr. Franklin singled out the KCMO School Board as the structure needing an overhaul? Is he and others blaming the governance structure for the academic failings of the District? If that is the case, then perhaps we should also take a look at MCC’s governance structure.
Recently, KCMO School District Board Member Bill Eddy announced that he would not pursue re-election to the school board because the “the District organization is fraught with long-term dysfunction…” In a letter to friends and supporters, Eddy went on to say that the problems with the District are sustained by the governance structure, the Board is too large, too Balkanized with parochial alignments and special interests, and too hampered by relationships that divert attention and energy away from a total focus on quality of education. What?

I am confused. Bill Eddy is part of the solid majority voting block consisting of Board President Dave Smith, Harriet Plowman, Ingrid Burnett, and Joel Pelofsky. Yes, the same voting block that has been governing this district for the past four years. 
Instead of taking responsibility and being accountable for his own poor judgment and bad decision-making, Eddy and other members of the Smith led cohort have chosen to cry foul and try to divert the attention away from themselves by pointing to the structure as the reason for their failures.

This is akin to George Bush blaming the opponents of the war in Iraq for its failure.

Yes. Something is terribly wrong with the KCMO School District. But structure isn’t the prevailing problem. The problem with the KCMSD is a failure of personnel – an absence of leadership at the board level and throughout the system.

Will changing the structure from an elected board to an appointed board solve the problem? I don’t know.

What I do know is Dianne Cleaver and Jewell Scott, executive director of the Civic Council visited with Senator Yvonne Wilson last week to present their proposed solution, which recommends that the current board structure be suspended to make way for a non-partisan, five-member board of trustees appointed by the Governor.

The document reads as follows: “Members of the board of trustees would be leaders in the region and experienced in managing or serving on policy boards or large, complex public or private organizations. The transition board should be racially diverse, but board level leadership and experience in civic engagement and/or complex organizations would be a prerequisite for any member of the transition board. At least three of the five would have to live inside the City of Kansas City, Missouri, and two of these three would have to be residents of the Kansas City, Missouri School District.”

Legislative intervention or restructuring at this time would be premature. This district needs a community based reform effort derived upon sober analysis of empirical data and implemented with deliberate speed.

It would be imprudent and paternalistic for the legislature to change the governance structure, disenfranchise citizens or diminish votes when for the first time in history, Kansas City’s African American community has an opportunity to elect a majority of the school board.

We should not forget that the people who have misgoverned this school district over the years have always been elected and controlled by a majority white electorate. The same electorate that has refused to pass a levy increase since 1969. 
Under these circumstances, the community should be given an opportunity to coalesce and lead a comprehensive reform effort that includes governance, administrative personnel, teacher quality, and accountability for all.