Buford will toe Slay line on school board
By Percy Green II
Guest Columnist
From my observation, James Buford of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis is a nice person, but he is not what the St. Louis Public Schools’ Board of Education needs to succeed. Neither is Darnetta Clinkscale, now board president. Both should be voted off the board in April 2006.
Buford claims he has to do something to end violence in the public school system. That “something” was to have Mayor Francis G. Slay appoint him to the school board. In reality, he is not going to stop violence in public schools or anywhere else.
Since schoolchildren are reflections of their parents, they tend to deal with challenges similarly. A decent-paying job helps parents adopt good family-management skills. Most city parents are too poor to provide for their children as they would like. And many of these parents are victims of racial and/or class discrimination. Most parents who are working two and, sometime three jobs do not earn what Buford receives from the Urban League, although it is a non-for-profit agency. Yet, parents are blamed for being less fortunate.
Where was Buford’s involvement when other efforts to end violence in public school were put forth? Anthony Shahid, a long-time youth group director, routinely speaks to students in middle and high schools about anger management. He said Buford has never attended any of these sessions.
Buford admits that he is a supporter of the voucher program and charter schools, which is no different from former board member Vincent Schoemehl Jr.’s position. Both programs remove badly needed operating funds from public schools, with little or no accountability. Slay and Civic Progress also support these programs, which have shown no success in increasing academic achievements here in St. Louis.
Buford has a questionable history of supporting Slay. In March he joined a front group called Advocates for Kids to support Slay’s scheme to oust board member Veronica O’Brien. Their efforts failed. Before his support to oust O’Brien, Buford joined a front group to support Propositions A, B, C, & D. That, too, was defeated. Now, Buford is trying to convince the community, as reported in the American, that “there were no politics, no deals.”
Slay obviously appointed Buford to the board to maintain his control and to rescue Clinkscale’s record in the upcoming election. This board needs to move from the control of Slay and his band of bandits. Slay’s original four board members made incompetent decisions. They held secret meetings to exclude the public, hired William Roberti, a New York consultant for $5 million (that was not in the budget), closed Waring School and 14 public schools in North St. Louis, outsourced 1,500 service and maintenance jobs, conducted a disastrous superintendent search, hijacked the Teachers’ Pension Fund and overpayed top administrators at the expense of teachers.
It’s obvious that Buford will not make tough decisions contrary to the desires of the mayor and Civic Progress. If he should flip and become a legitimate advocate for public education like O’Brien, then our public education system will benefit. But Buford is not likely to do that. He is probably preoccupied with the possibilities of the white establishment carving him up like a Christmas turkey if he did flip.