The browning of reform

By Dr. Andre M. Perry
Contributing Columnist

Last week in education news, the Board of Elementary and Secon­dary Education confirmed long time educator Patrick Dobard as the latest Superintendent of the Recov­ery School District. Dobard is the third person to hold the position in a year. Still, the political journey to his selection would have been probably seen as pedestrian if it were not because he’s a black man from New Orleans. It’s a sad testament that Dobard’s hiring merits applause in that school reform has unnecessarily projected a Lone Ranger narrative that makes a not so implicit statement of who should be responsible for bringing moral character, discipline and justice to educational peril and inequality.

This time the Lone Ranger is black. Will the black community embrace the hiring? Will reformers embrace a Black Lone Ranger?

Reformers are and should be as diverse as the city, but that hasn’t jibed with the narrative that everything resembling the old system should be discarded. Evidently the storyline grossly includes local and black teachers, administrators and advocacy groups. The reform narrative has been so effective that terms “local” and “black” have become synonymous. Consequently, the fight for local control has been insidiously pitched as black rage against the noble machine of change.

I hope the hiring of Dobard reveals that anyone can embrace reform philosophy including local, black people. Likewise, anyone can be conservative, liberal, market-driven or community-centric. We should expect a browning of reform. Kira Jones’ winning BESE campaign is evidence that diversity within reform-minded camps does exist. Therefore, we should embrace Dobard’s hiring as a positive sign that the Lone Ranger narrative is flawed.

Therefore, we must also challenge Dobard, Jones and everyone else in reform that inclusion of our durable community members should be a central focus of reform. We should not challenge Dobard and Jones in particular because they’re black; we should challenge them to fight for locals because it’s the right thing to do.

A day after Dobard’s confirmation, the Coalition for Community Leadership in Education, a consortium of community advocates, public school alumni groups, educators, parents and professionals held a press conference to highlight that in the last round of charter school applications, none were granted to any of the nine community groups that applied. The Coalition stated, “We are concerned that being community-led and community-driven organizations is a scarlet letter.”

New Orleans needs new voices, ideas and people in education, but reformers can’t continue to make the mistake of assuming that new voices must come from the outside. We have young professionals, career changers, college graduates as well as veteran teachers who support reform and radical change.

Demands for inclusion are not cries against education reform. Accordingly, hiring and then trusting the Black Lone Ranger from New Orleans is not an end; it should be evidence that locals can be their own heroes.

This article was originally published in the January 23, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper