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Saturday, February 20, 2010

Fight over school closings dates back many years and many superintendents - KansasCity.com

Fight over school closings dates back many years and many superintendents - KansasCity.com:

"When Bernard Taylor heard about the storm over Kansas City school closings this week, he felt like an old fan tuning in a familiar soap opera.

“It’s like ‘The Young and the Restless,’ ” said Taylor, now a superintendent in Michigan, who tried and mostly failed to close Kansas City schools several years ago.

“You can come back after five years and it’s the same story line and the same characters. The saga never changes.”

Taylor, superintendent from 2001 to 2006, was one in a line of misstepping superintendents walking a perilous road with fainthearted school boards and communities, bearing Kansas City’s own version of a growing real estate bubble on their backs.

With John Covington proposing what would be by far the district’s largest one-time closure of schools, Taylor sees another superintendent standing where he was — under fire."