I have thought Greene should go for a while. Her silence on important education issues became complicity and I believe, willing participation. I think we can do better. That, however, is not why she is gone and I find the competing narratives as to why she left incredibly disingenuous.
Her supporters claim she is being forced out because she wouldn’t follow the governor’s agenda. Warren Jones and others said as much Tuesday. UM WHAT!!!!! All she has done is follow the governor’s agenda. When the governor asked her to jump, Greene replied time and time again, how high would you like that sir.
Then her detractors said she needed to go because of a grand jury report, fifty unreported cases, and what’s happening a DA. Um, the grand jury report came out three years ago; the fifty unreported cases aren’t going to amount to anything substantive, and then there is DA. That looks like it is going to be bad when the investigation is finished in oh, about a year.
Here supporters often pointed out that what is happening at DA started before she got there, which where true, ignores that Greene has been here for 5 years, and DA has been a trouble spot for nearly all of them.
So did any of that play a role? Yes and no, this is what I believe happened.
Greene’s disastrous book policy embarrassed the governor. It was the first chink in his armor after last year's reelection victory and since then, he has been flailing; Disney, his disastrous trip abroad, and his plummeting poll numbers show that.
The governor was embarrassed, and as a petulant child who has never been told no, somebody had to pay but and even though she has carried his water, it was going to be her. The thing is, you can’t just replace a black woman superintendent, especially in a town where your support is already wobbly.
Then DA broke, and the grand jury, three years after its release, was thrown out meaningfully for the first time, and DA snowballed where more teachers were removed from the classroom.
DA, however, was survivable; she ready weathered a couple DA storms in 20 and 21.
I have no doubt she believed she could survive this until the revelation that 50 cases hadn’t been reported to the state over a three-year period. Even though I don’t believe these cases are going to amount to anything, that was the sound bite her detractors, outraged by the district embarrassing the governor, needed.
Even though she had been on team DeSantis, even though she had done everything and more Mom’s for Fascism, sorry Liberty had asked, it didn’t matter because to them you are useful until you are not, and she lost her utility when the district embarrassed DeSantis over books, the handwriting was on the wall, and she knew it was just a matter of time.
So, what to do? Retire, that’s what; take your six-figure payout, your drop money, and your 38-year retirement and hit the road.
In the end, I don’t think it was DA, or the grand jury, or even books, though that was the impetus for her being judged out the door, no, it was some run-of-the-mill Greene administration incompetence, not sending the reports to the state that ended up closing the books on Greene.
Others will spin it as she was forced out unjustly or celebrate her departure even if the reasons they give are dubious, but I believe at the end of the day, it was Greene and Greene alone that cost her the job.
Now you might ask, if she had stayed, would she have been fined or replaced by DeSantis? Maybe, but only because she had given them the opening so soon after embarrassing the governor.
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