I take no solace in knowing that my beliefs have been confirmed by the recent report issued by the state of Georgia. But in the end, whether right or wrong, the conclusion is the same — I failed to protect thousands of children (children who mostly come from homes similar to mine).
I for one don’t want to see this board go back to the so-called 2009 “Board of Excellence.” Because that board failed to protect children who were cheated by this school district. That board was told to stop asking questions and to stop visiting schools. In the end, that board fell for a “micromanaging” ruse perpetrated upon it. Ultimately, it took civil disobedience to challenge the status quo and to get to this very uncomfortable, but necessary, day.
With that said, I’m confident that this board under Brenda Muhammad’s leadership and its new interim Superintendent Erroll Davis will coalesce and do what’s best for children.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the soul of Atlanta has been truly stirred. Atlanta is facing a genuine crisis of character — character that is decaying because of fear, intimidation and retaliation.
I believe three questions should haunt Atlanta for the foreseeable future:
1. Why was the cheating scandal so exclusively pronounced for some children and not for others, splitting sharply along racial lines, and yet equal in its mistreatment of the poor and disenfranchised? Why were these children — mostly low income and African-American — so cavalierly denied access to America’s promise?
2. How did we — the elected officials, business leaders and the system itself — become complicit in, through our actions and in our silence, a deal with the devil that sold out a generation of children for the sake of the city’s image and the district’s “perception of success”?
3. Who, in the end, benefited from this collusion? Why did powerful people use their positions to punish those who dared to speak out? Why was legislation created to expressly limit the voice of the electorate, the people? What was behind the decision to place into state law a provision to restrict the powers of the board as outlined in the APS charter?
If Atlanta is lucky, these questions will force the community to confront a long overdue and difficult conversation about race, class and power. And while some people will proclaim that we must move forward now to put this episode behind us, for the sake of the kindergarten classes that start next year and the year after that, Atlanta will have to be uncomfortable for a while before we can truly claim victory.
It has been said that “a man should be able to find an education by taking the broad highway. He should not have to take by-roads through the woods and follow winding trails through sharp thickets, in constant tension because of the pitfalls and traps, and after years of effort, perhaps obtain the threshold of his goal when he is past caring about it.” A parent right here in this auditorium demanded such; I just hope she was heard.
Khaatim S. El, a former member of the Atlanta school board who served briefly as its chairman, resigned from the board Monday to help administer a $100 million donation to the Newark public schools by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
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