Columnist Jamala Rogers
I keep making comparisons between the decision-making of the Bush and Slay administrations. It’s not exactly a quantum leap. I believe they share the same authoritarian leadership styles, wanton disregard of impact on people’s lives, disrespect of laws and rules, and so on.
George Draper’s recent book on Bush is entitled Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. Draper interviews all the key players of the current administration along with about a couple of hundred others in non-starring roles to penetrate the Bush persona.
Decisions made by Bush are driven by his personality, ego and his self-image. Bush has stopped a decimal short of proclaiming he is anointed by some higher power. With that kind of back up, what decision that you make could possible be wrong? What it means is that you end up ignoring common sense, the advice of experts, constituent sentiments and any other element that doesn’t fit in with your destiny-driven reality.
Bush says to Draper that he “can’t learn lessons by reading.” He “learns by doing.” I guess that’s why the U.S. invaded Iraq after an unjustified shift in focus from Al-Qaeda, which was said to be the architects of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
I thought about dead-certain decision-making when the bells rang for the opening of the St. Louis Public Schools nearly a month ago.
Driven by Mayor Slay, the takeover by the State officially happened this summer with little thought or preparation as to its impact. Unfortunately, several key African-American civic and clergy leaders joined the chorus singing the tune, “Our students can’t read.” This is a legitimate concern that I share, but I know the tactics of the mayor and the State will never address this issue. Like Bush, their policies and actions are leaving more children behind than I care to count.
A Special Administrative Board (SAB) was appointed but never confirmed to take the reins from the elected school board. A legal tug-of-war began and rightfully so. The “illegal” board has no statutory authority and little collective experience at running an urban school district. Neither they nor their supporters had a transitional plan for the district, and the first big crack was seen during the first week of class. The SAB has not given us a full report from the week of fiascos, including attendance numbers. The elected board had approved the necessary budgetary and policy items for a smooth start of the new school year, but that apparently was also left behind.
In addition to student and teacher schedules not being complete, bus schedules going awry and students not receiving lunches, there was no plan for dealing with the deadly heat wave. What is so unconscionable about this problem is that we had hundreds of students and staff in sweltering heat while 14 air-conditioned schools sat idle. These are the schools closed by Bill Roberti, the last appointed jester of our school district.
Like Bush, these folks seem to only learn by doing.
Both Slay and parrots at the State Board of Education told district parents that you now have more choices because of the State takeover. They told concerned parents, “You can go to any district and the St. Louis Public Schools has to pay for it.” They failed to tell these parents that those districts do NOT have to accept our students, and most of them have flatly refused to do so, much to the frustration and resentment of parents left behind.
In the case of Bush, our soldiers and the Iraqi people are the collateral damage from the Bush regime’s dead-certain decisions. Locally, Slay and his supporters learned nothing from the Roberti dead-certain decision. A district of mostly black and poor children – still a part of our future – are the collateral damage.
Appointed or anointed leadership must be challenged every step of the way. Our future should not be compromised by the lack of intelligence and vision of those who continue to make dead-wrong decisions.