An Unbroken Educational Apartheid Legacy: Chicago's South Suburban Predominantly Black Communities of Color.

By David E. Morgan Ph.D.

This is a thought-provoking book on the black-white academic achievement gap in Chicago’s predominantly black communities of color and what highly effective school boards can do to change it. In this book, the reader will be powerfully enlightened by a civil and human rights debate that calls for effective leadership in our schools, beginning with effective school boards. The primary agenda of effective school boards is raising student achievement performance levels and engaging the school district community to attain that goal. These instructive analyses of effective school board leadership builds on the research and wisdom of great leaders. Simultaneously, it develops a breath of fresh air for school reformers who seek to implement a new model and escape the insanity and pathology inherent in school board dysfunctions and violations of our civil and human rights which prevents progress in Chicago’s south suburban communities of color. In both highs and lows of awesome moments, as educational reform leaders and school board members, we are in a strategic leadership position to help school boards carry out their essential responsibilities for creating equity and excellence in public education. In doing so, highly effective school leaders can team with our school board leaders to lead our school district communities in preparing all students to succeed in a rapidly changing global society.
School board members doing the same things over and over again and then expecting different results in academic outcomes is the definition for insanity. Education is freedom. In an era of mass educational apartheid with its consequent mass incarceration of blacks that has surpassed the enforced chattel bondage of slavery’s peak numbers in 1860, this book addresses a subject that is critically essential, timely, and in need of immediate attention for the security, success, and ultimate survival of black America. As the problems of the academic under-achievement gap is addressed in this book, it is also essential that school boards, educators, and community and national leaders accept reality, to view the problem in its true perspective, to contemplate it as it is, in providing essential solutions toward removing limiting and limited school boards’ dysfunctions, obstructions, and other barriers to academic achievement in effective school board leadership. Supporting educational excellence will thereby produce more African American scholars in mathematics, science, and in many other disciplines. This book will provide information and focus on some key action areas that successful school boards in America and around the world have focused their attention on: Vision, Standards, Assessment, Resource Alignment, Climate, Collaboration, and Continuous Academic Improvement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504900577

David E. Morgan Ph.D.

The author, David E. Morgan, Ph.D., worked a combined total of more than forty years as educator and school administrator in various positions in the Chicago Public Schools and as full time assistant and associate professor in Educational Leadership. Now retired, today he writes, teaches part-time at area colleges and universities, and serves on a school board in a Chicago south suburban community. Morgan is married and has three adult children

Book preview

AN UNBROKEN EDUCATIONAL

APARTHEID LEGACY

Chicago’s South Suburban Predominantly

Black Communities of Color.

David E. Morgan, PhD

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© 2015 David E. Morgan, PhD. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/15/2019

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0056-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0057-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903928

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One: When The Facts Change We Must Change Our Minds

Chapter Two: Lessons Learned In A Blueprint For Change Toward Restoring

Excellence in Public Education in Chicago’s South Suburbs

Chapter Three: Foreword to An Unbroken Educational Apartheid Legacy:

Chicago’s South Suburban Predominantly Black Communities of Color

Chapter Four: Mirror To An Unbroken Educational Apartheid Legacy

Chapter Five: What We Must Do As School Board Members To Be Successful

Chapter Six: Nothing Happens Unless We Educate Ourselves As School Board Members

Chapter Seven: Why are School Board Members Failing Our Children?

Chapter Eight: Where Do We Go From Here? Continued Chaos, Debauchery,

Obstruction, and Free Speech Suppression or Leading Our Schools to Greatness?

Bibliography

Book Signing Author Signature Page

__________________________________________: Thanks for the role you have played in achieving equity and excellence in public education and for leading the community in insuring that all students succeed in a rapidly changing global society. The first responsibility of any elected official is to the community he/she represents, the people who elected them. Said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., All of us can be great because all of us can serve. That is why within this study, I speak of excellence in public education as the necessary rational end of rational men and women. I also realize that the pursuit of excellence, for some, may not be as dramatically binding and valued as the pursuit of that which is not as difficult to attain and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more of an urgent task than this one: Restoring excellence in public education for all of America’s children which is the school board’ role.

Improving our schools begins with the facts. In real life, for every act of transformation for the uplift of mankind, there is an equal and opposite reaction by the beneficiaries of the unjust social order in the status quo to keep things the way they were that benefits the few at the expense and loss of the many. Said W.E. B. DuBois, Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools – intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men, and women, to it. This is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. In writing this book, it is with great pride that I participate with these highly effective school boards and superintendent transformative leaders, presidential leaders, progressive and successful educators, progressive parents and community trail blazers, revisionist historians, successful public officials, educators, African American icons, and freedom fighters. Effective school boards have a role to play in making our nation stronger. Tribal alliances will select school board members back to office whether they are effective or ineffective. To have an accountable and effective school board we need an accountable and effective community who supports what is the the best interest of our nation’s children and our community.

First, let us then examine our attitudes toward excellence in public education itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. Unfortunately, that is a dangerous defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that failure is inevitable. That our schools, the future of our youth in endless possibilities, and our communities, state, and nation are doomed; that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. But none of that is true as witnessed by all successful educators and trailblazers.

Sincerely,

David E. Morgan, Ph.D., Educational Leadership and Historical Foundations

Book’s

Dedication Page

This book is dedicated to our family. A real family is the anchor that holds through life’s storms.

To my dear wife, Robena, our three children, Christine, Amanda, and Paul, and grandchildren, who have been taken to their wits end with these never-ending publishing projects.

To our parents, Henry Louis Morgan and Linda Morgan: They are the people who laid the foundation for everything that I am today. My parents are my role models, my champions whose dreams and support in encouragement and high expectations propelled me through life.

This book is also dedicated to our family of brothers and sisters (Mazetta, Henry, Monroe, Annie, David, Frances, Dorothy, Nephew General, Robert, and Callie and to the Heavenly Father of us all for His plan of happiness for all our lives.

Acknowledgments

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First, I am deeply grateful to Dr. Gerald L. Gutek, Dr. Stephen I. Miller, and Dr. John M. Wozniak all of whom were my professors and dissertation topic supervisors at Loyola University of Chicago where I received the Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Foundations. Thanks to Dr. Gutek who directed the Dissertation Study in its entirety and for his commitment, concern, confidence, and encouragement in the writer’s love of educational administration, leadership and the history of education in America. In the presence of consciousness and love anything is possible. Dr. Gutek inspired an interest in these topics and gave generously of his time and effort in the preparation of a dissertation which would later better prepare me for writing the book entitled An Unbroken Educational Apartheid Legacy. Without a decent education, African-Americans will continue to face an uncertain future in Twenty-First Century America.

The author is thankful to Dr. Steven I. Miller for his diligent proof reading, careful scrutiny and reviewing of sentences, constructive criticism, and judicious advice in strengthening the mechanical portions of the dissertation and for encouraging the writer to constantly reevaluate his future work as an author. We do this job because in excellence in continuous academic improvement we see our students grow, succeed, and overcome. Retaining excellence in strong public schools transforms lives. There is nothing we cannot accomplish when we work together. Too, I am indebted to Dr. John Wozniak, also on the dissertation committee, and other educational leadership scholars for reviewing the dissertations’s research, for preparing me to write An Unbroken Educational Apartheid Legacy and for their encouragement, kindness, constructive criticisms, judicious advice, and wise counseling, the writer is sincerely grateful. Their positive mental attitude contributed in no small measure to make this study possible. This study is about school governance; how we think it should work; and who we think out government should work for.

This is a book about tough love. Today, there is still a need for qualified top leadership at the school board and superintendent level. Effective school boards are successful, maintain educational excellence in public education by hiring the best and brightest, and are unstoppable. Their boundless creativity reflects the deep concern given to excellence in public education in our country. Restoring excellence in our schools is easily achievable but it needs a transformational leadership approach. We need to do more and do it faster to achieve these goals.

Said John Masefield in his tribute to English universities: There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university. Said John F. Kennedy, in a Commencement address at American University on June 10,1963: John Masefield did not refer to spires, to campus greens and ivied walls. But he admired the beauty of the university, said Kennedy, because it was a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see. Truth as revealed in school district 227’s can be found at illinoisreportcard.com on the Illinois State Board of Education’s (ISBE) website. This book captures what has truly happened in the districts addressed here in Chicago’s south suburbs with its changing demographics from white to predominantly black and with it the reasons for the decline in its school systems. This is where highly effective leadership in accountability, commitment, integrity, kmowleege, skills, and successful experience would make the biggest difference of all the factors involved. It is important and essential for the educator and historian to develop criteria in truth and data by which textbooks and research studies can be screened based upon data in truth in order to determine objectively that which must be imparted to the student. For this reason, this book was written.

There is only one thing more important than the acquisition of knowledge toward acquiring a quality education: the lack of it. Our acquisition of knowledge in our ability to obtain a decent education is one of the most important topics on earth. Educating ourselves in striving to know in wisdom is one of the most important topics on earth. Says Proverbs 4:7 (KJV), Wisdom is supreme so acquire wisdom. If it cost all your possessions, wisdom is the principal thing and with all thy getting, get understanding. In this book it is our enlightened hope for the study of the history of education and public affairs to give our lives to public service and support for excellence in public education in making a difference for all of America’s children. Finally, I am also deeply grateful to the many outstanding educators, practitioners, and successful leaders in both the Chicago public schools’ system and at institutions of higher learning. This is where I have learned much in both places while serving in educational leadership positions. This was true in both Chicago Public Schools as a highly successful educator, principal, and later as assistant and associate professor and graduate studies director teaching first teachers and later educational administration and leadership courses for principals and superintendents at institutions of higher learning.

Thanks to the editors at Author House in Bloomington, Indiana for providing assistance in the publication of this book. I would also like to thank the late Mr. Charles Mingo, Mr. Ned McCray, Dr. Stephen Jones, and Dr. Larry Thomas, all principals in Chicago Public Schools. Thanks to Dr. Leonard Burns, Dr. Jerry Austin and Dr. Jerry Garrett at Eastern Kentucky University, my colleagues at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, and at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Illinois. I am thankful and grateful to many others in both the Chicago Public School System, those outstanding practitioners in higher education and the retired award winning Chicago public schools principals, educational leaders, in both higher education and at both the Chicago Public Schools elementary and high school levels for their inspiration in assistance and serving as role models and way showers along the path to excellence in educational leadership. Today, I acknowledge all of the above mentioned leaders and more too numerous to mention. Thank you for your continued service. Some also served with me on the superintendent advisory committee in Illinois High School District 227 in Chicago’s south suburbs. In New England, my full-time career in higher education began by serving as assistant professor and director of student teachers at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Today, I can’t help but feel the presence of all these educational but also those leaders including Harold Washington, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Phillip Randolph, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Jesse Louis Jackson Sr., Al Sharpton and other trailblazers and lights who paved the way throughout our history of living in America.

In District 227 is where I was a school board member, following full-time retirement, from 2009 to 2017, while teaching as an adjunct professor at local area colleges and universities and also being engaged in research, writing, and publishing. These educational leaders were instrumental in their superintendent advisory roles with me, as I was serving on the school board. Charles Mingo (IL ’93), a former Chicago, Ill. and Gary, Ind. middle- and high-school principal who believed that all children can learn, regardless of economic and social deprivations died February 9, 2012. As principal at Chicago’s Jean Baptiste DuSable High School, where he received his Milken Educator Award, Mingo’s innovations included redesigning the school’s structure, dividing it into ten houses, each with 125 students and six teachers who remained together throughout all four years of high school. This significantly enhanced the academic achievement of the students, as most of whom lived in a public housing complex across from the high school. Today, the superintendent still needs a united board team working cooperatively with the superintendent in support of excellence in public education for all students.

In retirement, Dr. Louise Coleman, was also a Milken Award recipient for outstanding leadership in the principal’s awards program in Joliet, Illinois. She went on to became the superintendent of schools there as well. In retirement, she served as one of the most successful interim superintendents in Rich Township District High School 227 for a short period of time. According to Dr. Carmen Ayala, new superintendent of Education at the Illinois State Board of Education, $2,750.000 have been awarded to Illinois recipients of the Milken Awards since the program began.

As an acting district 227 school board member, I also sought, encouraged and activated these retired Chicago Public Schools principals, Central Office Administrators, and educators alluded to above for support in serving with me in an advisory role to the superintendent in district 227, while seeking the full school board’s support in working as a team in this effort. We sought to bring more clarity, feedback, truth, and understanding to the school board’s and district’s leadership roles and challenges at both the school board and district leadership levels. To bear witness to the truth and to thank those who have inspired me with a shared vision worthy of a lifetime of work was my purpose. To my children, grandchildren, and to all students who are our future, may your teachers serve you well. In conclusion, in standing firm on the truth said the Reverend Dr. Derrick B. Wells at Christ Universal Temple in Chicago, Illinois on Palm Sunday 2019 in alluding to the endurance of a tea bag. Said Reverend Wells, The real thing about a tea bag is that it doesn’t release its full potential until it is a little hotter. All of us must pass through the crucifixion.

For a democracy to succeed, the school board must honor its oath, role, and common responsibilities to the children, and to the people in the community of voters who selected them to serve as our representatives and trustees. People are the voters in the community. Without people, you have no organization. People are important and should be valued and respected. To accomplish these ends each school board member must know the purpose, goals, and common vision of the organization, its rules, the rights of each individual school board member, and what each board member is expected to do in embracing their common oath, role, and public responsibilities as a school board member.

Respecting the rights of all school board and community members is essential without which we would be delinquent in our duties as board members. When we, as voters, accept corruption and failure in our schools, then we become the problem. At the same time, we have neglected instruction on democracy. Until the 1960s, U.S. high schools commonly offered three classes to prepare students for their roles as citizens: Government, Civics (which concerned the rights and responsibilities of citizens), and Problems of Democracy (which included discussions of policy issues and current events). Today, schools are more likely to offer a single course. Civics education has fallen out of favor partly as a result of changing political sentiment. However a voter may ultimately understand common as the common good, it must be understood that common, in the case of school board member implies the common oath, role, and common duties of all school board members to improve student achievement levels, restore excellence in public education where it is needed most, and engage the community to achieve these goals.

It is also true that, especially in the case of schoolboard members, common must refer to the duties that all school board members have in common in working as a team to improve educational outcomes for all children collectively, to the voters who selected them to serve and represent them, to the people or voters collectively or the national interest as a whole. This may, of course, diverge. Representing all childen and our community any good refers to that which is best for the children and our community whether in the short term or longer perspective. At any rate, deciding what is in the best interest of our community or the common good must entail some diligent examination of fact, data, and serious reflection. Anything that impinges upon that process of putting children and community first as board members, including pledges to various interest groups, which violate the board’s oath and role to carry out one’s duties without condition or reservation, loyalty to party or person, or indebtedness to supporters, including financial contributions, renders moot the purpose of democratic governance representation and the purposes of the constitutional structure. This includes the corrosive effects of money on the political system.

One of the greatest threats to our democratic board governance and way of life is for the board members to become apathetic, complacent and negligent in fulfilling their oath, role, and common responsibilities in sharing a common vision and in failing to work harmoniously as a team with one shared vision. Another threat, that we have seen on school board 227 on many occasions is when a small group of school board members work secretly behind the scenes to secretly accomplish only its own goals, its own agenda, but without a public agenda that put children first, then push it through without the rest of the school board membership having an input either through discussion or through the investigative process. The school board should be focused on real and pressing issues with a blueprint and action plan to restore excellence in our schools that should be on every school board meeting agenda, but it never appears. We need an action plan that is written down to prepare our students for the work that that needs to be done. Today, there are still no decisions being made and then acted upon to improve teaching and learning as revealed in the school district’s report card in data at illinoisreportcard.com, the Illinois State Board of Education’s official website for the state of Illinois. To restore excellence in our schools, we must act. We can’t have that which we have not focused upon, made a part of the school board agenda to be discussed, planned for, and implemented. It’s important and essential to develop understanding in how to improve educational outcomes and to insure discussion, reflection, and inquiry skills in understanding how to improve so that the real problems can be discussed. Where men and women cannot freely convey their thoughts to one another, no other liberty is secure.

Today, we must based our decisions on data and facts.

Speech suppression is obstruction of justice in plain sight and a blatant violation of The First Amendment. These are the school board members who have built a wall to protect them from the rule of law, and we must tear that wall down. The school board’s code of silence, fake news, false promises, fraud, lack of substance without evidence, and a disconnect in gag rules and speech suppression from reality in lack of clarity and two-way feeddback, have kept the schools failing in Chicago’s south suburbs for decades. They betray their oath every day. These school board members, in their secrecy and false promises are made to get re-elected to office again to benefit only themselves. Their incredible dishonesty harms the integrity and office of school board member which creates corrupt conditions and an undue burden in obstructions of our ability to restore excellence in our schools in inclusiveness. Making decisions behind closed doors in closed meetings that benefits only themselves but not the children or community. This is why we should also be part of a broader district and statewide push for a civic education curriculum to connect what students learn in classrooms to what happens in government. We need protest. But when we can get inside and understand how government should work for all the people we can change government to better serve the people, not just a preferred and exclusive few in the status quo. True leadership means facing reality. The school board’s trail of lies strikes at the very core of their inability to lead. Their conscience is so diminished until it leaves them unable to discern the truth from the lies they tell to each other and to the public. The demorcratic process in our political system gives voters the right to choose the men and women who will create our laws, depending on the views of those voters being given considerable weight in determining ultimate policy outcomes.

The board members in question here continue in a dishonest and fraudulent manner from one election to another are still keeping the schools failing in their self-imposed exiles, limitations and secrecy in fake news, fraudulence and lack of substance. These are the school boards who are the biggest stumbling blocks on our way to restoring excellence in public education and to recovery. We are either a part of the problem or part of the solution. But if we are the ones who are holding ourselves back, then we are the ones who can stop limiting ourselves. There is no resistance to a made-up mind. In our conditioning we often put barriers in our way although there is no opportunity in failure. But there is also nothing to keep us from our good but ourselves. It now time to connect our souls with our roles on the school board and in daily life. Many people are engaged in work that they are not happy in. A vocation is about one’slife work that can be instilled in a purpose driven life by allowing our best and highest values guide what we do in the work place every day.

Speech suppression does not promote the active participation, promotion, involvement, and support of the full school boards, community, parents, and school employees in the support and full success of the schools. The research leaves no doubt that the success of schools, programs and all students served require active communication and participation in a common vision by everyone. Excellent in public education needs great school board member, superintendents, principals, and dedicated teacher and district employees to produce successful student and to restore excellence in public education. But none of these vital ingredients can bring true success without the active dedication, involvement, participation, and support of the parents and community, which this school board does not encourage, but limits and shuts. But is is public participation which brings parent and community support. The school board welcoming and encouraging parentsl and community participation support is key to understanding, active involvement, and support from parents and community.

As school board members and citizens enjoying equal rights and equal opportunities in our democracy, we must end exclusion and practice inclusion. This is arguably the most appealing aspect of our U.S. Constitution, our democracy, and of our culture’s moral sensibilities. In a democratic society of voters, the long marginalized and kicked to the curb can find Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure in fairness and equity, which this school board has adopted but does not practice. In a democratic society Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure extend a helping hand and invites our citizens back to the community of the truly representative and human as objects of dignity, value, and divine affection. This is why issues of inclusion and exclusion lies at the heart of our society’s most contested but celebrated democratic values. Whether it is part of the dynamics of racial tension dividing cities like Chicago, New York or Los Angeles or our nation’s heated discourse on race, sexuality and gun control, there is a need for us to have the unpleasant conversation of inclusion and exclusion which we discuss in this study in overcoming mediocrity in public education in our nation.

Being clear on what limits us in failure is our key to greatness and to restoring excellence in our schools. The community is kept in the dark by the school board in its pursuit of private power and profits. These are the same school board members who have done all of the talking at school board meetings that are open to the full school board and community input while denying others their equal rights to public participation. This is where these same school board members who practice exclusion, speech suppression, and unfairness while threatening to arrest their fellow board members for speaking or having an equal turn in addressing topics that all school board members should have an equal share in contributing to solutions to failing schools. Failing schools are a case for transcending partisanship. Those who are partisan to the last degree cannot solve the problems in school district 227 that they have helped create, sustained, and enjoyed in failure to lead. Those who wish to lead must never cease to learn.

Yet, those board members who engage in gag rules and speech suppression toward their fellow board members and community members who stand for children, who have done all the talking while telling others to shut up and be quiet but also have none of the answers to excellence in public education or to failing schools coming from them. Their secretive and often unseen acts show how much they truly care about the children, their community, and American democracy. It shows that this school board has no interest in children, schools, the school district, educational improvement, but only themselves. But someone who has nothing to hide has no reason to sit in the dark. That is why, in this study, separating in clarity, data and facts the real news from the lies, false promises, acts of school improvement shutdowns and going backward while calling it progress, is so essential.

In the annals of hypocrisy, this school board is truly in the hall of fame with the board presidents being the tip of the spear. In many cases. some liberals have come to see instruction in American values—such as freedom of speech, our right to public participation in our government, and religion, and the idea of a melting pot—as reactionary. Some conservatives, meanwhile, have complained of a progressive bias in civics education. Especially since the passage of The No Child Left Behind Act, the class time devoted to social studies has declined steeply. Most state assessments don’t cover civics material, and in too many cases, it isn’t tested, or taught. At the elementary-school level, less than 40 percent of fourth-grade teachers assert that they regularly emphasize topics related to civics education. Restoring excellence in our schools in freedom and democracy must become a way of life that is worth the struggle. The school board has a legal and constitutional responsibility and role to recognize the rights of others and to oversee and discipline the illegal and unlawful abuses of its fellow board members, but doesn’t. In their illusions of grandeur, they join the school board to scam the community rather than to give back to the community. School board members who do not recognize the rights of others are not above the law. Ignoring the rules of law implies that there is a constitutional crisis at hand.

What is the role of the school district attorney? School lawyers are employed by effective school boards to represent their school district in protecting the community in legal matters, not individual and illegal board members who are out of control and wasting the tax payers money in fighting the community in court in attempting to upend and uphold that which is illegal, not real, fraudulent, and destructive in gag rules and free speech violations in a court of law. The school district attorney’s job duties include offering advice on legal and policy matters, researching legal issues, and representing the school district in litigation matters, not individual board members who are violating the voters’ right to public participation in free speech. Public participation allows everyone to express their thoughts on the make up of the school board and on how to restore excellence in our schools. In open and equitable public participation both among board members and the public at large all can air some past baggage and hopefully move forward in equitable and open discussion in agreeing to do things differently according to Robert/s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure and rules of engagement. Otherwise, without change on the school board, we will remain in a rut in repeating the same dysfunctional patterns over and over again. In Robert’s Rules of Parliemantary Procedure, we learn more tolerance and willingness to allow for difference of opinion. The school board must adopt the common language of Parliamentary Procedure in how to conduct the business of the school board.

In gross negligence of their oath, failure to fulfill their role and common duties as board members in failing thousands of students daily, these school board members have breached their duties of care to students who were injured. Will this school board ever be held accountable by the people who voted them into office, and if not, then by whom? In lack of accountability, honesty and integrity, in abuse of power, they are putting the case against themselves. This is not about politics as usual but about the U.S. Constitution. It is about a case for transcending politics. The board did not take its oath to serve and protect only themselves but to serve and protect all the people and the U.S. Constitution. For the past three decades all of the school board chairs have continued to engage in corrupt and impeachable conduct and obstruction of justice, but without accountability. Sadly, the reason for this tragedy is because we have developed a political system in our elections and in the governing process that provides disproportionate influence to a relatively small number of voters who are also the most partisan which allows a political party or community group through their closed procedures to limit the choices available to general election voters. Legislative rules also permit partisans to determine that constituency of legislative committees. These results leave the common good, children and community in the case of school board members, a secondary consideration at best.

It is difficult to meet a person who is consciously opposed to furthering the interest of the common good. This universal view has practical relevance. However, in the case of school board members, unless there is substantial agreement and understanding on their oath, role, and common duties of school board members who are tasked with the responsibility of improving student performance levels and engaging the school district community to achieve this goal, where is the collective good, the majority good, and good for whom in either the short term or long term that will be neglected, nor attended to and misunderstood.

Our U,S. Constitution deserves a government that match it. In the real world, we cannot let go or ignore any school district corruption in what is reported while still miraculously expecting losers to do so who are not interested in school improvement or restoring excellence in public education but in only themselves. These acts continue to put the best interest of our youth, our community and of the American people at risk. What has been at stake here is the inability of the school leadership to act in conducting meaningful, judicious and fair oversight over the past three decades based upon corrupt, dysfunctional, destructive and negligent school board practices that have lived on the school board and in the schools for three decades. These corrupt and obstructionist conditions creates an undue burdent on our ability to restore excellence in our schools in these pivotal moments for democracy in Chicago’s south suburbs. We must make clear that misdeeds and illegal acts of this school board in insuring that what has already happened in the recent past and continues today will never happen again. The school board has a constitutional responsibility to serve as a check and balance in being accountable in executing the board’s responsibilities. Rather than being accountable in serving the best interest of our youth and community, in keeping the community informed, of excellence in our schools, the school board has been instrumental and foremost in serving as the cover-up caucus in secrecy. These are the board members who have defied who we are morally and who we say we are to the world.

Human rights abuses limits us and are against the morals and values of who we are as a nation. As we remove the continuing existing embarrassment on the school board in the 2020-21 election campaigns it is also essential that we vote for those who stand for the best interests of our youth and community constituents in transparency and accountability. These school board members, through lies, fraud, and glittering generalities have continued to remain on the school board to pursue only their own best interest rather than the best interest of the whole community and our country. When we are true leaders we will function as human beings in integrity. Entertaining and valuing that which is not true in false promises to the community to gain an unfair advantage is not living in integrity. When we are living in tegrity things about us, our schools, and our community change for the better. According to Peter M. Senge, there are four challenges in initiating changes.

(1) There must be a compelling case for change.

(2) There must be time to change.

(3) There must be help during the change process.

(4) As the perceived barriers to change are removed, it is important that some new problems, not before considered important or perhaps not even recognized, doesn’t become a critical barrier.

Progress is made in going forward and not backwards. Make sure your words and thoughts are true. As public officials we cannot violate a public trust then pretend that there are no consequences. Where there are no checks and balances against abuses of power and fraudulent practices, there can be no progress in our schools and communities. Ultimately, this is not a system that is right, fair, just, or beneficial to anyone, but is born out of divisiveness, lack of knowledge, integrity, leadership skills, or desire; tribalism, non-collaboration, lack of vision and reasoning together, of disrespect, self-hatred, valuing that which is worthless, devaluing that which is of worth, ignorance, and self-destruction. In inclusiveness and collaboration, everyone has a contribution to make in appreciating the talents of others. Make the best ideas win.

For me, being on the school board in standing for children and community I was considered to be an outlier, someone that stands outside of the body that it belongs to in embracing their rightful oath, role, and common school board duties as a committed board member. But together, as a united team standing for children and community in embracing out oath, role and common duties, we can restore excellence in our schools and win for everyone. Together, we can succeed. None who stand for children and our community should be subjects to such abuses, non-cooperation, mistreatment, and debauchery described here or should be consigned to fight alone for restoring excellence in public education for all of America’s children, which is the common oath, role, and common responsibilities of all board members who should be working as a team in this direction. Sadly, some of these board members, have abdicated their common responsibilitity in practicing their common oath, role, and public duties. These issues are real and they take on lethal proportions when in denial of reality, they are ignored and not faced. Those in leadership positions should be about uniting people for the common good, not dividing them along the lines of only What’s in it for me only?

Their list of negligences and abuses, explained here, have caused the schools to fail miserably in Chicago’s south suburban predominantly black communities to the detriment of the children and communities that should be served, but aren’t, and to the destruction of our schools. Without accountability, we cannot move forward, only backwards and progress may be impossible without it. With the majority white flight over the last three decades, and with increasing board negligence and corruption, accountability was lost with no board or community input or responsible oversight. Today, as the schools continue to fail and go backward, there are still no constitutionally reasonable and principled reasons for the continued accommodation of these corrupt practices or plausible arguments to these illegal behaviors and incompetencies that keeps our schools failing.

Hopefully, by the year of June 1, 2020 there are alternatives being worked on in the community and in the board-superintendent room to embrace the eight National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) eight policies for school success as outlined in the Key Work of School Boards Guidebook in honoring the school board’s oath, role, and common responsibilities in a common team vision. Today, the policies as written in the District 227 Handbook and the habits practiced by school board 227 are opposites and represents two different realities on the school board. By October 2013, the so-called reform school board members of April 2013 in false promises to their community to restore excellence have acted unfaithfully. In rejecting the board-majority approved NSBA’s eight best practices policies and then begin to practice them they have failed to have published these same board-majority approved policies in the board policy handbook in obstructing justice, excellence in public education, and information sharing. In doing so, they have failed to honor their oath, role, and common duties in practicing the eight best practices policy habits for school board success. When the so-called reformed school board of April 2013, who still has done nothing to improve educational outcomes for children, were asked to fulfill their campaign promises in working with me, their fourth majority vote, by October 2013, six month months after the April 2013 elections, the progressive community and I learned that their false promises made to restore excellence in our schools or any future attempts to even try were already excised as soon as they were elected to office in April 2013.

Focus is our key to greatness in honoring our common oath, role and common duties as school board members. In this manner, in their lack of focus, their own corruption and dysfunctions have continued to bury them and the future of our schools, children, and community they are tasked with representing, but don’t. These are the reasons why they have chosen to live in secrecy and not to reveal themselves as public officials, trustees, and representatives of our community and the public’s business that they do not share with their community for its support. These school board dysfunctions will not end until the community rises and takes charge. Their troubles have come to roost on our door steps as the school district’s data that doesn’t lie indicates. The Key Work of School Boards Guidebook developed by the National School Boards Association for 2015 addresses the best practices policy habits for school success in Chapter 1: Vision, Chapter 2: Accountability, Chapter 3: Policy, Chapter 4: Community Leadership and Chapter 5: Board and Superintendent Relationships. It concludes with the Center For Public Education (NSBA’s) eight characteristics of effective school boards, with references, resources, and acknowledgements, which this school board has never practiced. Today, we desperately need those school board candidates who are better trained, more prepared and deeply engaged and committed to the eight best practices for school board success if we are to ever restore excellence in public education in America’s most under performing school districts in Chicago’s south suburbs and across America. But progress cannot be achieved unless we educate ourselves in the commitment, knowledge, skills, and desire in our ability to move forward rather than backwards. People die from lack of knowledge.

But to give the appearance of unity before the public on the so-called reform school board of April 2013 who was truly not reformed with no systemic change, by October 2013 the new school board majority had voted in every policy that the so-called reform school board advocated for before the election of April 2013 and rejected after the election of 2013. In fact, more than that, the new board majority had also pushed for full board community and public participation in our school district’s internal affairs. Now that the so-called democracy phase was over by October 2013, we had enjoyed some of the rights cosmetically that all Americans, including us, already had but were denied by the school board chairs both before and after April 2013. After the election of April 2013 the progressive community and I, their fourth majority vote on a 4 to 3 split school board, had tried to move forward into the next phase in academic improvement toward restoring excellence in our schools. To the progressive board members and to our progressive community, our loyalty is as humbling as it is inspiring. But we were without the supportive school board policies in habits and practices as well as the so-called reform board, by October 2013 of only three. These are the three who had promised everything in working with me as a board majority team to restore excellence in our schools before the April 2013 school board elections but delivered nothing by six months in Ocrober 2013, after the election regarding their false campaign promises. By October 2013, the school board, the schools and the community were also still without the supportive eight school board policies in place to sustain democratic participation and progress in the consciousness and habits of best practices, which they had rejected in October 2013, which made them the board minority.

Because of our efforts to move forward in fulfilling our campaign promises in helping our children and improving our schools in accountability, collaboration, and continuous academic improvement in restoring excellence in our schools we had come to a fork in the road. The so-called reform school board by October 2013, who were now rejecting their campaign promises made and the eight best practices school board policies for success which they had promised to act upon in helping more of our students succeed after the election. Thus, by October 2013, we were finally learning the real truth about the so-called reformed school board for change and educational excellence. At this time, it had become more than apparent that after all of their friends and buddies had been hired, with their fourth vote’s assistance, many of whom like them were unqualified for the positions they held, the so-called reform school board was no longer interested in moving forward into the next phase which I had begged and pleaded for: Improving student performance levels and holding ourselves accountable in the process.

To advance a public agenda for the children and community is the role and purpose of school boards. In these cases, to compromise for those on the school board for selfish reasons must learn how to negotiate best by also recognizing and supporting the children’s and community’s needs first and foremost as well. In doing the right thing in these cases, full board negotiation must be a strategy, an alternative to defeating a motion to avoid embracing their oath, role and common duties in the eight best practices for school success as follows: (1) Vision, (2) Standards, (3) Assessment, (4) Accountability, (5) Alignment, (6) Climate and Culture, (7) Collaborative Partnerships and (8) Continuous Academic Improvement.

Most issues are negotiable and can be resolved through discussion, reasoning together, and carefully listening, and then being flexible in using the amending process. For instance, one can say that the member is divided on supporting the eight best practice for school success, which is the role of school board members. The real truth is that no one should be divided on the school board in our first common responsibility, role, and duty as public officials in improving educational outcomes for all children, a public agenda. Unfortunately, when this is not the case for those on the school board for selfish reasons, the so-called reform school board whom we will call group A, does not support the eight best practices for school board success which is the role of the school board. But group B, who has also historically been as equally non-involved, non-compliant, and uninterested without a vision may want to support the eight best practices in honoring their oath, role and common duties on a 4 to 3 7-member school board. This they will do in a political move to become the board majority again with the assistance of their fourth vote which makes them the majority, whose goal was for the whole school board to approve, institute and enter into the school board policy handbook eight policies for school board success, and then begin to practice the above eight best NSBA practices school board policy habits for school success. However, unknowingly, Group B’s aim, like Group A who first rejected the policies, was to approve these policy habits for school success simply for political reasons, but without any commitment or interest in putting them into action or practicing these policy habits on either side of the school board divide aisle. Thus, although both sides, in their political moves wanted to be the majority but neither side was interested in improving educational outcomes for all children, which is the role of the school board and then to practice the policy habits for school success.

Thus, Group B, like Group A, supported the fourth majority vote in approving the policies to become the board majority for selfish reasons, but like group A with no interest in instituting the policies or practicing and living them. After much discussion and proposing Group B board members voted to approve the eight NSBA policies for school board success in joining me, their fourth majority vote, to become the board majority. This approval move was, of course, a beginning, but not enough for either side to begin practicing these eight habits for school board success.

Board work is, well, work! The board president should have a broad and thorough knowledge of the rules of law, the board’s oath, role, and common duties, of fairness, democracy, inclusiveness, reciprocation in working as a united team to improve educational outcomes for all children, and of parliamentary procedure, but doesn’t. To be an effective board requires reading, training in the art of school improvement, and understanding our roles in improving student performance levels and engaging the full board and school community in achieving this goal. We had (all four) of the so-called reformed board, voted for six months with the triumvirate headed by the leaderless host, who was also without a clue, including the board president of April 2013. But by October 2013, the three novice board members of the so-called reform school board who were lost, who sought to take over the board leadership in April 2013 for selfish reasons, who had fired almost the entire former administrative staff to personally select their friends whether qualitied or nor, were now no longer interested in being accountable and representative to the people who elected them to office and in moving our schools from tragedy and defeat to success, school improvement, accountability, and meaningful self-direction.

In an effort to be a cooperative team, in reciprocation, almost everything that the so-called reform board members had advocated for their friends and buddies from April 2013 until October 2013, had been supported by me and the progressive community, without reciprocation in standing for children and community on their part, none of which included their promises made to their community to restore excellence in public education. These were the promises that had been advocated for and supported by the progressive community and me, their fourth majority vote. But in our second and most important phase, the reason why I came to the school board, to improve student achievement levels to save our school district from further ruin, they have supported nothing on the part of the progressive community who elected them to office, and I, to improve our schools and to save our children and community from further ruin.

By October 2013 they were using their so-called policy committee to destroy and fail to put in the policy handbook the National School Boards Association’s October 2013 board majority approved eight best practices policies for school success. By October 2013, the board president had assigned the so-called policy committee chair, who doesn’t produce but obstruct progress, who have created no policies to be approved addressing their election promises of school improvement. But the policy committee adopted another illegal function: To tear down any policy approved by the school board majority that advocate for children and to gut it and make it worthless, then fail to put it into the policy handbook as the board’s rules or parliamentary procedure dictates. This is not the role of the policy committee. The role of a policy committee is to insure that the already board-majority-approved policies will be instituted in the policy handbook for school district 227 success. Once the policy is discussed, reviewed and approved by the board in an open session, no further action is necessary. What is described above are the inner workings of the school board which determines success or failure that the public most often cannot see, often cannot understand without clarity, revelation, or explanation in transparency or hear about, but also determines whether we will fail or succeed as a school district.

Any school board best practices policies for school success are developed essential steps, without which we cannot succeed as a school board or school district. Any policies that have been proposed by the National Association of School Boards have already been broken down to its barest essential steps and have been proven to be successful when the school board works and practice them in the school district. Any of these essential steps tampered with or removed from its essential role in the process of any of the eight best practices for school success will make the policy practices worthless. This is the 2019 school year, not 1920. Today, in fall 2019 none of the eight best practices policies for school success approved by the board majority in October 2013 have been entered into the policy handbook and certainly not adopted or practiced by the remaining so-called reform school board members in district 227 or by the so-called reformed board policy chair. By October 2013, nothing that the board majority had voted upon for six months have been sent to a policy committee without examining its contents, for discussion and hearings from its sponsors and then approved by the school board majority. Our essential restoration of democracy phase has come, but without the essential board best practices policies in justice and accountability to sustain it and to begin and to sustain excellence in our schools as outlined in the National School Boards Association’s Key Work of School Boards eight policy steps. For these reasons, the policies have become worthless on the so-called reform school board. As I and others in the community have pushed for a return to democracy and excellence in our schools by fall 2019 it was more than obvious that there is still no interest in either democracy or school improvement on the part of this school board. Embracing their oath, role, and common duties in restoring excellence in public education are not their reasons for being on the school board.

Sadly, today the school board chair still does not appear to understand that any board member who brings an item to be placed on the school board agenda has a right to do so and has the first and last word on the item in board discussion prior to its approval or rejection. More than that, the chair’s role is to see that during debate on the item, its sponsor is given the first opportunity to explain all the facts both pros and cons that should come out of a full discussion so that the board can make an informed decision. No member should feel that the presiding officer takes sides, but rather that the officer allows the assembly, through the democratic process, to arrive at the will of the majority. To ensure fairness and impartiality, the president should adhere to these rules first. In business meetings, the president cannot make motions or enter into a debate. The president is obligated to help members phrase motions, even when he or she is opposed to the motion. The most important principle that all school board chairs must remember is that they represent all the members, not just a select few or two people and not just those with whom they agree.

As a community and full school board let’s unite in the biggest challenge that we face in Chicago’s predominantly black communities of color: The epidemic of continuing failure in our schools with its growing gun violence, a random bullet cutting a life short that devastates families. In ruined lives, it also destroys our children’s futures, shatters communities, buries dreams, and holds children hostage to failure in low expectations, the prison industrial complex, poverty and wasted lives without purpose. Tackling the problems of poverty means tackling the problems of inequity and mediocrity in public education. It means having a purpose in living a life of integrity in making a difference in the lives of other people. To live in your zone of genius is learning how to thrive in love, abundance, and creativity. It is not enough to be merely an observer in the universe and watch it pass by. Rather, we must be actors in the universe and make a difference. Are you in? Are you involved? Are you an actor making a difference in the universe? Setbacks, personal failure and disappointments offer us opportunities to faithfully renew our commitments. In this manner, we can begin to live and stop running from who we are.

As school board members we must find ways to make our lives more meaningful, useful and purpose driven in our roles in forging a more personal relationship with out creator. When we are bold, our collective efforts will resonate for years to come. We all must be a part of the solution. Will you join in this historic effort to end this scourge? This is a school board transparency emergency issue that has prevented our schools from being successful but in going farther backwards and leaving the public, whose support we need, uninformed of the emergency that the school board perpetuates through secrecy and will not reveal. But the best way to restore excellence in public education and to stop the steady decline of our schools is to get all the facts out with the community participation and involved, not shutting them out in lack of school board purpose. This is the purpose of this study. These board members are despicable for doing the opposite of what it takes to effectively govern. Yet they can scam and fool the community who doesn’t look at the school district’s data that is easily accessible at illinoisreportcard.com. Consequently, the community continues to vote for these same board members over and over again that keeps the school failing and going backwards.

When we hear that only 12% to 15% of our predominantly African-American youth are ready for college and successful careers after graduation from high school in these communities, people in Chicago and across Chicago’s south suburbs and around the nation from all walks of life begin to wonder if this is a place where they can continue to live and raise their children. Many in these communities who can’t afford it have already answered the question by moving away. This is particularly true for the hardest hit communities like Illinois Rich Township High School District 227 where schools have failed for decades. This mass exodus both in Chicago and in Chicago’s south suburbs further saps the economic, business, and academic vitality of these communities. It inflicts long term harm, trauma and more school failure in lack of leadership that spreads throughout the community like a virus. Barack O’Bama maintained that Despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we’ve let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us.

Institutional racism appear to be the main driver of the maintenance and perpetuation of the white-black academic achievement gap. To end the academic achievement gap and racism in America correcting information is also essential. In America many people’s experiences and attitudes toward blacks and minorities are still influenced by outdated, unscientific, and distorted racist theories. The eugenics movement was based on such untruths. According to modern science and anthropology, human beings are one species with significant cultural and biological differences. Each human being is valuable beyond measure and deserves to be treated with total respectr in equity and equality. But lack of scientific information and misinformation has caused many white people to lack information, for instance, about the history and nature of the oppression that people of color have endured over the centuries, including slavery in America. For example, most have learned little about the history and genocide of indigenous peoples, the kidnaping and enslavement of African Americans and the oppression of their descendants. Most are unaware of the US military seizure of the Southwestern territories from Mexico; the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during World War II; or the struggles most recently of just sixty years ago to regain the rights and privileges in the Civil and Human Rights Amendments of the 1860s won in the Civil War which ended slavery, for the right to vote and for the regaining of the constitutional citizenship guarantees in human rights for African Americans as well. In the nineteenth century after slavery and Reconstruction, the Thirteenth Amendment freed the slaves. The Fourteenth Amendment which made them citizens of the United States, and The Fifteenth Amendment gave them the right to vote. Over two hundred thousand black men served in the Civil War and fought to end slavery in America.

Today, after the 1960s Civil and Human Rights Movement, if the principles of democracy are not upheld on the school board, at open school board meetings and in closed session, knowing but not following the rules of parliamentary procedure becomes worthless. Any errors or lack of oversight in omission or commission in this study can be attributed solely to me. As school board members, we take an oath to protect and serve the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the state of Illinois. and to protect and serve our children, the schools, and the people in our community first and foremost to prevent a dictator or autocrat from taking over our schools and our country. In doing so, we took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States,