By Art Burton
As a community activist, I have given 17 years of my life to the idea of ending educational inequality in this city. In 2000, along with Roy Bryant, Sister Denise X Alford and Sister Bey, we started an organization called “Parents for Life.” The group's purpose was to address the environmental racism that was occurring at A.V. Norrell and Whitcomb elementary school.
In partnership with school board members Reggie Malone and Bill Laffoon we began to advocate for the closing of these two schools. At first the board members only wanted us to call for the closing of the schools. I felt the need for the community to present a plan to move the children to safer conditions.
In response to our presenting a plan to close and move the children the then school administration stated they could close no schools and move the children in an arbitrary manner and thus would need to create a comprehensive plan for addressing school facilities. I am sharing this information with you so that you can understand that from the very beginning the facilities study plan was created to stop and/or slow the community demand for educational equality.
The process for creating the plan involved meeting and focus from all 9 district and it took some 2 years to complete. It was never intended to be a political document. It was supposed to be a need-driven study of school facilities that would be used to determine how the school system would move forward.
The effort to move the community toward equal schools has always been a brutal fight. Our efforts resulted in the largest turnover in school members in 2002 and the firing of the Superintendent. By 2003 we were leading the largest school reform movement since segregation.
Since 1980, black political leaders had operated public education as a part of a political patronage system. They used their influence to reward allies’ jobs and provide “pupil placement “for their family and friends in the best schools. The black middle class is also largely concentrated in public education and city government; and so our call to close schools and reform the system was viewed as a direct attack on teachers and the political elite.
The year 2004 ushered in the Mayor at large system and Mayor L. Douglas Wilder with the promise to end corruption and cronyism that had been long plaguing both city government and public education.
In his view millions of dollars were being wasted in public education and he called for a downsizing of schools that included the consolidation of schools. In addition; he and Paul Goldman announced “the City of the Future Plan" which called for the building of 20 new schools.
Then Supt. Jewell-Sherman countered which her own plan and by 2006 the entire city was forced the chose a side. The council sided with the school board largely because Mayor Wilder was stripping them of the power they had been accustomed to and the business community sided with Wilder.
In order to break the stalemate, I formulated a new strategy. We merged both the Wilder and the Dr. Deborah Jewell-Sherman plan. We choose the 10 schools that community wanted closed and called the new Movement “Build Schools Now”. I was able to convince the Richmond City Council of PTA’s to champion the movement and in late 2006 took the position of legislative chair of the Richmond City Council of PTA’s.
Between Mayor Wilder’s constant attacks and our advocacy, Whitcomb closed in 2007.
By 2008 “The Build Schools Now” movement caught fire throughout the city. An environmental disaster and with political support from then school board member Carol A.O. Wolf; forced the closure of A.V. Norrell in September of 2008. Mayor Wilder declared the disaster a result of “Environmental racism.”
He was the first politician in 8 years to acknowledge that the community had been right regarding the conditions surrounding the school. By November of 2008 there was no politician in the city or any person that was running for public office that was not saying “Build Schools Now”!
Why am I sharing all of this with you? I’m sharing because I want you to understand that no one has given more to forward the idea of first class school buildings for all children. Why would I say then that in 2017; we don’t need new school buildings!
First of all; the study itself is based on ideas that were generated 12 years ago. While the intention may have been to present a plan that would be non political -- the facility study plan has never been anything but political. After 17 years of little movement, only 4 schools built and no academic progress nothing that was generated by Paul Goldman or the school system is really relevant to the education of children of color that dominate the school system.
The technology is different; there are multiple educational programs to choose from; we have an understanding of the need for CTE that we didn’t have then.
- Over 17 years we have consistently increased funding to public education. Currently we spend 330 million dollars a year to educate 24,000 students.
- We run a school system that has 4500 employees. That’s a 2 to 10 ratio. If 330,000,000 dollars is not enough money to educate 24,000 students what is the number that makes us successful.
- As a city we have spent 100’s of millions of dollars building public facilities. As a city we have 6 museums, including a new one that literally lights up at night with one more scheduled. We have three universities; multiple libraries to include the state library? We have a convention center and coliseum that sit largely empty; a new Main Street station that sits largely empty.
- We have a least a 100 churches; dozens of parks and a riverfront on which the country was founded and the first 150 years of our history created.
- We spend $9 million dollars a year transporting children to run-down schools. We have at least 5 facilities studies; a CTE study that was commissioned at a cost of 125,000, a "Just Children" report on Juvenile Justice in Public education and a MOU with the State.
We claim that we must make public education socially and economically diverse. So why don’t we just take the children are educate them where white and middle class people are in this city.
Why not just give every teacher an aide; 12 children; transportation and a 60,000.00 a year salary and charge them with educating these children using the city as their classroom.
Why not just give every teacher an aide; 12 children; transportation and a 60,000.00 a year salary and charge them with educating these children using the city as their classroom.
Why can’t we take the opportunity with our new Superintendent ( NO. 4 ) and take all of this information and figure some creative; innovative and cutting edge ways to educate children that doesn’t require us to present $800 million dollars and 17 more years.
I’m not saying we don’t need any school buildings; but we certainly don’t need 47 school buildings for 24,000 children. I believe that if we put community members from each district in a room with their political leaders we can take all of the 17 years of data and create a plan with a price tag that educated all children in this city -- regardless of color or economic background -- will place us on the road to equality.
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