Today former school board member Bob Simmons performs the service of spinning out the alt-history narrative of how “selfish” suburban parents are at the root of what ails CMS. The Uptown crowd and the entrenched CMS bureaucracy at the Ed Center love this little tale, and Simmons renders it well, with the conviction of a true believer. Alas, it is but fantasy.
We need only go back to the bond campaign of 2005 to watch Simmons part with reality. His fantasy has greedy suburbanites marching to the polls to vote down the bond because not enough money was being spent in the burbs. Not true.
As I’ve noted repeatedly, this version does not explain why Southern Meck voters spurned a bond which, by all accounts, was a great deal for them. The bond was also supported by then-candidate Ken Gjertsen, contrary to the commonly held fantasy that local Republicans uniformly opposed the bond.
Simmons refuses to wrap his head around the fact that the $300,000 vote-yes bond campaign was dealt a crushing defeat primarily because voters all across the county did not trust the CMS leadership with more money — for any purpose.
What voters rejected was the implicit deal CMS and its Uptown apologists had offered residents after the end of cross-county busing: You want neighborhood schools, then give us ever more money and ask no questions. Plus the suburbs were being held hostage with a looming “bus-for-space-not-for-race” mandate as CMS dithered on building schools where the population growth actually was happening.
And like all apologists for the CMS status quo, Simmons is oddly silent about the CMS Task Force, which took one look at Eric Smith’s grand plan for “partial magnet” schools to attract suburban kids into inner city schools and urged CMS to chuck it. In its place the Task Force urged the creation of a parallel choice system that would compete with CMS for students. It is easy to see why Simmons and other defenders of CMS cannot allow that to ever happen.
A less fanciful story would look and see that opposition to CMS “solutions” was building for years. Not just on wacky school construction plans, but on chronic discipline problems and a detached, belligerent even, Ed Center command structure. CMS leadership tried to paper over these issues, and perhaps reached its nadir with the shameful performance in Judge Howard Manning’s courtroom which saw CMS officials take the stand to blame CMS teachers for the system’s shortcomings.
Presented with the opportunity to send a strong message of dissatisfaction, voters in November 2005 told CMS to change. Peter Gorman was the response to the message, although it remains to be seen if he will be the answer. However, Gorman has moved to give principals more power and authority, a key reform the Ed Center had resisted for years.
So there’s the truth. Screeds about “selfish” parents — are there any other kind? Should there be any other kind? — are not part of the record.
