April 15, 2011 05:35 PM UTC

Sorry that the Easley recall failed

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• by: dwyer

I think the reason stated on the petition was incorrect.  But, Easley supported a so-called “community” effort that I believe is bogus. (Please note that Denver Public Schools uses the term “community” all the time. but never provides a legal definition). That is the reason I supported the recall.

I do not believe that private corporate and political interests should be allowed to come into a school district, set up committees and decide WHO will sit on those committees, exclude most parents and teachers in the impacted schools from sitting on the committees and then dictate a so-called “reform plan.”  This is the decision making plan that Easley endorsed for NE Denver. (It is also the plan currently in NW Denver, only this time instead of the A+ Committee, it is the Jesuits who are probably calling the shots. Great.)

I think that such plans are profoundly anti-democratic and inherently unfair.

I also think they do not work.  

Politically and sociologically, I believe that Denver Public Schools has more in common with the Third World or LDC than a school district in the US, for the following reasons:

1) The District is black, brown and poor.

2)  There is a small minority, usually white and usually affluent, who are in the better schools and do well.  Access to these schools is controlled in a variety of ways.

3)  I assume that a number of parents in the District are not eligible to vote, either because they are here illegally or because they have to move too

frequently to establish the necessary residency. It is illegal to ask a parent/child about their immigrant status so this fact cannot be documented.

4)  The consequence of a significant number of parents not eligible to vote means that the elected representatives are less responsive to parents.

5) The large number of effectively disenfranchised parents, means that they have no voice.  I believe that that this facilitates the entrance into the District of a large number of well-meaning Foundations, NGOs, business interests, national advocacy groups; all of whom have come to “help.”  I believe that they develop relationships with each other and with board members, and “select” members of the community.  I believe that this results in a loss of accountability and makes the students of DPS, all too often, guinea pigs for the latest reform “fad.”

Study the tragic history of Manual High School. And then, study it again.

6) The recent diaries and comments here illustrate how easy it is to use DPS to project one’s own perceptions and agenda.  When I first posted my support of the Easley recall, I was criticized because I didn’t agree with the assumption the recall was unnecessary.  I was then told that I was “free” to start my own recall of Easley.  Except, I was not.  DPS is divided into representative districts and I don’t live in Easley’s Districts.  But the person who “knew” what the recall was all about, did not know that. It is not necessary to live in Denver, in order to “know” what the problems are and how to “cure” them.  It is not necessary to suffer the consequences of bad decisions, which is the heart of accountability.  Just like Americans don’t have to go to the LDC , to “know:” how to cure the problems, DPS is a blank slat on which everyone can write.

7) One of the lasting legacies of the rule of the British Empire, are the horrendous political divides within the former colonies. “Divide and Conquer”

was the successful strategy employed by the British Imperialists to manage their colonies.  I rest my case.