TKC BREAKING AND EXCLUSIVE NEWS!!! LOOK AT A LETTER FROM THE URBAN SUMMIT ASKING FOR A STATE TAKEOVER OF KANSAS CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!!

There has been a rather groundbreaking development in the history of Kansas City public schools.

TAKE A LOOK AT A LETTER FROM THE URBAN SUMMIT ASKING FOR THE STATE TO APPOINT AN ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD!!!



READ THE MEMO FROM THE URBAN SUMMIT FOR YOURSELF!!!

The letter is pretty brazen . . . However . . .

THE SUGGESTIONS FOR LEADERS OF A STATE ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD ARE COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE . . . AND I EVEN LIKE A COUPLE OF THE CANDIDATES!!!

Here's there list to basically help take over the duties of the elected school board . . .

Clinton Adams Jr., Attorney at Law
Immediate Past Chairman, Urban Summit

Gwen Grant
President & CEO, Urban League of Greater Kansas City

Rev. Wallace S. Hartsfield, II
Pastor, Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church

Rev. Sam Mann
Pastor Emeritus, St. Mark Union Church

wow.

Let's be clear about what's happening here . . .

THIS IS A GROUP OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS IN KANSAS CITY DIRECTLY ADVOCATING TO BYPASS THE ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD AND PUT THEMSELVES IN POWER!!!

They probably should have garnered more signatures because this letter just looks like people writing Missouri Education officials (and cc-ing The Gov. and asking for an appointment . . . Which is pretty much what it looks like to me.)

As much as anybody, TKC wants and had advocated for change for Kansas City Public Schools. We've noted previously that some members of the African-American Community were lobbying for position in the event of a takeover . . .

However . . . This isn't change, this is a power play pure and simple.

This is so important that I've copied the text directly so TKC readers can check it out here, in it's entirety FIRST. Natch.

28 November 2011
VIA email to: Commissioner@DESE.MO.Gov; Communications@DESE.MO.Gov
Dr. Chris Nicastro, Commissioner
Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education
P.O. Box 480
Jefferson City, MO 65102

For more than a generation, the Kansas City, Missouri School District (KCMSD) has failed to properly educate children. Our schools are plagued with abysmally low achievement levels and high dropout rates. Many of those who do graduate are functionally illiterate. Children who are dependent upon the KCMSD for an education and the taxpayers who pay for it deserve better. The inability of the Board of Directors of the KCMSD to provide an efficacious educational delivery system is a breach of their duty to govern the school district productively. The historical and chronic failure of the KCMSD to adequately educate our children is intolerable.

Collectively, the current board lacks the erudition, acuity and intellectual vigor needed to transform the KCMSD and lead it to full accreditation. Intervention by the State Board of Education, in accordance with law, is warranted. You should appoint a State Administrative Board (SAB) with unfettered authority to govern and administer the KCMSD. Because the district will lapse in two years unless it achieves accreditation status (an accomplishment all agree is impossible), it would be unfair to students to delay meaningful action. There is no compelling reason to wait.

The current board should be relegated to advisory status with a primary focus on improving parental involvement and community engagement. There is a need to increase the number of parents who understand and embrace their role and responsibility in their child’s academic success by being attentive and supportive advocates of the student and for the school they attend. There is also a need for partnerships with community-based organizations to provide tutoring and after-school programs to augment and enrich classroom instruction. Additionally, entrepreneurial and philanthropic organizations are needed to contribute financial and human resources to enhance student-learning experiences. As elected officials, school board members should be well suited to develop and foster the relationships necessary to forge productive partnerships and foster a culture of effective parental and community engagement. This will allow them to continue to serve their constituents.

The SAB must be comprised of well-educated and highly intelligent individuals with empirical knowledge of the challenges facing the KCMSD. Business and civic leaders (and their conferees) who have observed from afar should not be appointed. Those loath to collaborate with authentic African American representatives should not have any authority over the education of African-American children. A paternalistic, imperious, and condescending business community, whose primary interests in the KCMSD have been the district’s money and their own property values, having a representative on any SAB is odious. Any such presence will make it difficult, if not impossible, for our constituents to embrace and provide the support intervention will need to succeed.

Each member of the SAB must have a history of effective service on public boards or commissions and/or leadership in community-based organizations. It is important that they have authenticity with the primary consumers of the KCMSD – the African American and Latino communities.

To improve academic achievement levels, the KCMSD must have rigorous curricula and engaging pedagogy. These will instill in every child intellectual curiosity and develop their capacity to assuage that curiosity. To that end, each member of the SAB must have the commitment and ability to institute the radical changes necessary to implement a new and transformative administrative model for schools in the KCMSD. A model designed to jumpstart the educational delivery system via an infusion of social support and the deployment of exceptional instructional leaders into schools as teachers and principals with mandates to raise standards and expectations for each school community is essential.

Encroaching on an elected board is not something we take lightly. The democratic process is inviolable to us in all but the extremely exigent circumstances facing the students, parents and patrons of the KCMSD. We can only support intervention and displacement if we are assured that the members of the SAB are better suited to address this crisis than the elected board.

After exhaustive deliberation and consultation throughout the community, we have identified four (4) individuals who meet the aforementioned criteria and are the individuals best qualified to serve on the SAB. We urge you to appoint them along with an individual nominated by the Latino community. If an intellectually organic transformation of the system to provide a quality education for all students is a priority for the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (as you have indicated) you will appoint the following:

Clinton Adams Jr., Attorney at Law
Immediate Past Chairman, Urban Summit

Gwen Grant
President & CEO, Urban League of Greater Kansas City

Rev. Wallace S. Hartsfield, II
Pastor, Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church

Rev. Sam Mann
Pastor Emeritus, St. Mark Union Church

Finally, we implore you to act in the best interests of our children and not cower in the face of saber rattling threats of litigation. The expenditure of tax dollars to wage a misguided legal battle to retain political office would be an unconscionable and opprobrious breach of their fiduciary duty, and we will do everything we can to thwart any such effort by the school board.

All KCMSD resources must be expended to raise academic achievement and eliminate achievement gaps. Paying lawyers to protect politicians is anathema.

Sincerely,

Bishop James D. Tindall, Sr.
Founder and Convener, Urban Summit

Ken Bacchus
Chair, Political & Economic Empowerment Committee
Black Agenda Group

Gwen Grant
President & CEO, Urban League of Greater Kansas City

Rev. Sam Mann
Chair, Kansas City Chapter - Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Ajamu Webster
Chair, Kansas City Chapter - Black United Front
CC: Honorable Jay Nixon, Governor
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