Why Inner City Schools Keep Failing
There is an exquisitely sick irony to the fact that segregated and purposefully maintained inferior inner city public education could not be maintained at the Los Angeles Unified School District and elsewhere in this country without the administrative participation of the same minorities it keeps in their unachieving places.
Unless minority administrators were willing to turn momma’s picture to the wall and follow orders—for a six-figure salary and a place at the privatization feast at public expense—real positive change in public education could rather easily be achieved at far less expense and in a relatively short period of time.
The willingness of minority leadership to sell out the inherent intelligence of Black and Latino children to assure that they never reach their potential is both deplorable and at the same time a negation of racism.
I say ironically because the willingness of minority leadership to sell out the inherent intelligence of Black and Latino children to assure that they never reach their potential is both deplorable and at the same time a negation of racism. Why? Because irrespective of race what all human beings have shown themselves regrettably capable of is a willingness to do pretty much anything for a large enough pile of bucks and benefits.
The minority administrator’s rationale goes something like this: Better I initial play along with what I know to be a racist system of public education to get into a position of power. Then, once I have the power, I will be able to effectuate real change.
But as these minority administrators continue moving up and compromising their core values, they never seem to get to a place where they can effectuate meaningful change without jeopardizing their of careers—and that is not something that most human beings are willing to do as they continue to abdicate any individual moral imperative to change this racist system.
By cloaking themselves in being a part of some collective LAUSD leadership identity—sound familiar for all you history buffs—where no individual is ever held responsible for their individual acts as long as they continue to blindly support The District, no matter what it does, this dysfunctional system has now gone on for generations destroying the lives of inherently clever young people, who are never given the opportunity to reach their potential.
While there are people of integrity that cannot be bought, LAUSD has a system of choosing prospective administrators that filters out any “troublemakers” long before they get an administrative position, no matter what their objective qualifications might be. And for the few honest administrators who slip through this selection process, they learn to keep their mouths shut, while reciting the vacuous slogans of, “No child left behind” and “Every child is a life-long learner,” that could easily be contradicted and seen for the nonsense they are, if one bothered to actually walk into a classroom and see the chaos that continues to be allowed.
Many of the administrators of LAUSD who wind up being chosen to address the problems of this Inner City Schools:
