FWCS Race Baiting Abound
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 10/27/08 @ 9:25 am - Filed Under 2008 Local Elections, Featured
From day one Fort Wayne Community Schools has leveled the racism charge against anybody that was opposed to their ridiculous half a BILLION dollar tax increase to remodel the district’s buildings. Seeing how the plan was defeated 7 to 2 they must think we have a lot of racists in this community. Here was superintendent Dr Wendy Robinson last year:
Wendy Robinson wonders whether opposition to the district’s proposed $500 million building project is really about raising property taxes or balking at providing better schools for inner-city kids.
“Below the surface, it’s, `Those kids don’t deserve better buildings’.
Now in the latest Fort Wayne Reader board president Mark Gia Quinta picks up on the same tired smears:
“I don’t understand a platform that says you’re going to return to the 1950s,” says Mark GiaQuinta, president of FWCS board. “I don’t understand how you can educate and prepare people for 2050 by going back to 1950. The 1950s was a racist decade in this country. That gave us Brown vs. Board of education. What exactly do you want to go back to, Evert? What about the 50s is it that you want to see?
I thought it was unanimous that Brown v Board of Education was a good ruling - you know, the one that overturned segregation in our schools? I’m not even sure what GiaQuinta is ranting about here - it’s just race-baiting nonsense pure and simple. But GiaQuinta doesn’t end there, he leaves us this supremely ironic gem:
“(Mol) builds himself up by tearing other people down. He’s just a very bitter person who can’t see the benefit of working with people.”
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. And since they were feeling left out of the race-baiting game our own local newspaper editorial staff piles on:
He has publicly questioned the use of the district’s effective Racial Balance Fund and in an e-mail to The Journal Gazette two years ago, he remarked on TV news coverage of a teachers’ strike in the predominantly black Gary school system: “Judging by the newsreels of the picket lines, it looks like Gary has done quite well recruiting minority teachers. How’s that working out for them?”
Needless to say that is a distortion of Evert Mol’s position and the quote was taken completely out of context. You can read Mol’s response here if you wish. Another interesting observation, if the paper’s editorial staff were capable of such things, would be that the board’s only African-American member, Kevin Brown, isn’t out in public calling people racists. At times he too has been extremely critical of FWCS and the lack of academic progress.
The school board and the administration aren’t capable of solving the issues facing our schools because none of them will even admit there’s a problem. They are all still stuck in the denial phase and think good public relations can save the day. It can’t and it won’t. If we don’t make significant changes in this school district now then it will fail.
It will fail as miserably as Gary and Indianapolis have. If I didn’t know better I would almost assume that’s what these mindless FWCS automatons/cheerleaders want. Here’s the bottom line, more of your property tax dollars go to our schools than anything else by far. Do you feel like you’re getting bang for your buck?
When a governmental body is wildly off track it is our democratic duty as citizens to right the ship by voting for leadership that will apply rational problem solving skills to improve the situation. The only choice that will make a difference is to vote for Oligner, Mol & Schaab - a vote for anyone else is a vote for the status quo…
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8 Responses to “FWCS Race Baiting Abound”
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I was truly stunned by the JG’s statements. For some people, I guess, any means are justifiable if they think their goal is sufficiently important. How sad for the JG editorial staff.
Mr. Giaquinta’s remarks are simply bizzare. Mr. Mol is one of the least “bitter” and most self-effacing gentlemen I’ve ever met.
Go Evert!
I agree…
with BOTH of you.
MGQ’s comments must have been the result of some weird interaction with prescription meds…there’s just NO other explanation.
(maybe he needs a remedial arithmetic course so he CAN “do the math”).
Evert has ALWAYS expounded the need to educate the children FIRST and foremost.
He truly “gets it”.
Distortion of Mol’s commentary doesn’t even begin to explain it.
You’re being too kind, Jeff.
Sure glad we have bloggers like YOU that know the difference between getting to the TRUTH of a matter…and just trying to blow smoke up someone’s alimentary canal.
Thanks.
B.G.
((Some folks need to remeber that:
“DENIAL ain’t just a river in Egypt”
~ Mark Twain))
The “remark” I made about the situation in Gary was actully a question I posed to Karen Francisco. She didn’t answer it (the answer is that nothing is working in Gary) but she did keep the e-mail to cut and paste.
I think that Mr. Giaquinta destroyed alot of his brain cells while serving on the city council.
In the recent court ruling which ended “Brown vs Board of Education” busing in Louisville and Seattle, Chief Justice Roberts said: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
In an article entitled “Race and the Roberts Court”, the WSJ observed:
Louisville and Seattle sound very much like the circumstance that existed here in Fort Wayne back in the ’70s. In any case, we could cut way back on operating costs at FWCS by adopting a non-busing policy and eliminating the busing wrought by “magnet” schools.
We could have built many school buildings for the cost involved in 30 years of unneeded busing. Folks, I just solved the school budgetary crisis and the energy crisis in one fell swoop.
I wrote this elsewhere but it’s worth sharing here.
The Journal Gazette has hit an all time low.
Read the section on their endorsement of Corona and their take down of Mol.
I especially love this sentence, “Mol, who appears to have it in for FWCS….” REALLY?!
Karen F. - you haven’t a clue. And when you grow up and learn how to write an endorsement for a political candidate (one that doesn’t read like it was written by a pouty 13 year old), give me a call.
Dear Steve Corona - comparing yourself to Dick Lugar is like Quayle comparing himself to Kennedy.
Thanks for a side-splitting laugh so late in the evening. I hope that all of the back slapping and palm pressing that you’ve done with contractors, JG, the rest of the good ole boy network and of course Wendy - doesn’t interfere with your ability to get to heaven.
You’ll have to admit to your higher power that you screwed over the students of FWCS - a honesty/truth you haven’t been able to admit publicly over the course of 28 years.
With every superintendent that has come and gone, you have supported each one - unquestionably - and then, once they leave, you make excuses for their behavior. The thing is STEVE - you endorsed their behavior because obviously, it was a lot easier to do. Much easier than standing up for the students and for the citizens in the Fort Wayne community.
You are SO not in touch. Not with the parents. Not with the students. Not with the people who have a sentimental attachment to FWCS. But seeing as you never attended the great place that I did (or Evert), and your kids went elsewhere (or maybe one went for a year or two and then switched to private??), it kind of make sense how you don’t get it. 28 years of not getting it is long enough. Too bad that you’re not dialed into the cluefarm. They’re passing stuff out right and left there.
P.S. If I lived in Fort Wayne, I would be running against you. Seriously. You have done more damage to the school system that I love then anyone in the history of FWCS. Don’t worry, with enough time and more academic failures, Giaquinta might catch up with you. If you return to the school board and you and Giaquinta switch positions again (you know - where you get to be “Prez” and he is your side kick), plan on seeing a lot more of me.
Lucky for me that my work situation is going to allow me to be in Fort Wayne approximately 1 week every month. Bonus - I get to see my family more and visit school board meetings.
Oh - and if you’re gonna pull the racist card on me. Think twice. Technically, I could be labeled a racial minority. I chose though, to be labeled just a concerned chick.
[...] yesterday’s post I said that one local paper’s race-baiting editorial took Evert Mol’s quote out of [...]
If Karen and Krista come back to read this - here’s some other thoughts - or as I call it - OBVIOUS QUESTIONS they never asked the candidates running for school board.
Why has FWCS “special education” student population skyrocketed over the past seven years?
I was thinking that the current figure is somewhere around 20% (of the population falls into this category).
Second obvious question.
What is the administration and the school board doing to address the needs of this population?
Are they diverting funds from one bucket to another to take care of this population’s needs?
And what is their strategy given that the numbers for this population continue to increase? Creating magnet high schools won’t address their needs. I can guarantee this. If Steve or Krista or Karen wants to know how I know - have them email me.
Someone ask Steve Corona and see what he says. I’m curious what his answers are to my questions.