The NAACP picks their superintendent candidate (rough draft)

One after another officials and members of the NAACP lined up at the recent school board meeting and they all said at least two things in common. They wanted Kriner Cash out of Memphis to be Duval County’s next superintendent and they used the word transformational. I will just go ahead and say it, I don’t think they know what transformational in this context means, I know I don’t and I think them wanting Dr. Cash has more to do with his skin color than anything else.

Look who the NAACP has supported recently in local education, Connie Hall and Betty Burney both of who have profited greatly off our children while the schools on the north and west sides of town have floundered. Then years ago they signed off on magnet schools which many believe exacerbated the problems we have had and finally they have called for more African American teachers to teach our African American kids and run our predominantly African American schools. Well friends unless we plan to wall off the races I want the best teachers and administrators regardless of color to be in those schools. If you ask me education is an area that the NAACP should stay out of because whatever they touch gets worse.
Of the three applicants Mr. Cash is not my first choice and it’s not because of his skin color or some comment he made to a colleague a few years back, it’s because Memphis, the town he currently works in doesn’t want him and his employees instead of backing him up are glad that he is on his way out. Those are big red flags to me.

Maybe it is easy for me as a white kid from Murray Hill to say but I don’t think race should play a role in education. We need the best person regardless of skin color, religion, sexual orientation or political persuasion for the job. Now if the NAACP believes Cash is the best then fair enough, to me however it seems like their track record suggests they chose him for other reasons.

Finally and just what does Transformational mean? It’s one of those buzz words that is making the rounds and I bet if you asked everyone who spoke on behalf of Mr. Cash Tuesday to define it after some hemming and hawing you would get ten different answers. Can you define it? We don’t need transformational; we have a nice base here with which to work with here, what we need is a plan to improve things. I am not sure if Dr. Cash has it.