I don’t know how to say this nicely, so I’m going to say it bluntly: Stupidity and arrogance are a destructive combination. You see the consequences of this combination every day in the actions of the Trump administration.
And stupidity and arrogance were on display in the Denver school board’s decision Thursday night to extend Superintendent Alex Marrero’s contract by two years.
To be clear, I am not calling any individual member of the school board stupid. But the collective action they took is about as dumb (and disingenuous) as it gets for a number of reasons.
Unfortunately, the five-member majority that voted for the extension, exemplified by bloviating board member Scott Esserman, displayed an arrogance that made members blissfully unaware of the idiocy of their action and the transparent dishonesty of their stated rationale.
The people who are paying attention are the people who vote. If the three incumbents are swept from office in November, look back to May Day as the beginning of their end.
Let’s dispense with one canard repeated ad nauseam by Esserman and some of his colleagues. Most people opposed to the contract extension were not calling for the firing of Superintendent Alex Marrero. Opinions on Marrero’s performance and character vary widely among those who fought against the extension.
Opposition focused on the suspect timing of the extension. Why now? Weak excuses about eliminating a bonus provision (a particular flash point for the Denver Classroom Teachers Association) and needing a strong leader to fight the predations of Trump and his minions (a legitimate concern) convinced no one.
All you need to know about the real reason for the extension rests in one of the contract’s new provisions. The superintendent can now only be fired by a super-majority (five votes) rather than a simple majority (four votes) as had been the case in all previous contracts of which I’m aware.
Five members of the school board (how disappointing was Marlene de la Rosa’s vote with the majority?) voted to extend the contract because they wanted to make it as painful as possible for a future board to decide Marrero has to go.
The new contract requires a buy-out payment of one year’s salary ($346,529) if the board removes Marrero. That can be a tough sell as a use of taxpayer dollars.
In a seven-minute tirade that at times channeled the delusional and dishonest rantings of Trump minion Stephen Miller, Esserman dismissed community concerns, questioned the motives of opponents, and inaccurately said they had no data to back up their objections.
Apparently, in Esserman’s view, Marrero is the only person who can stand between vulnerable students and staff and the jack-booted ICE agents who will otherwise storm into schools and snatch children.
While I share his concerns about fascist federal overreach, suggesting that without Marrero standing guard chaos will ensure is ludicrous on its face.
Esserman falsely stated that there wasn’t a single “vision” expressed about what should be done with Marrero’s contract. More than one speaker laid this out plainly. Wait for the the first evaluation using board-approved criteria to emerge this fall before rewarding the superintendent with an extension.
That’s simple common sense.
Esserman also falsely stated that no one presented any data casting doubt on the performance of Denver students during Marrero’s reign. At least one speaker referred to recently released national test score data showing that Denver’s most vulnerable students are faring very badly indeed.
Marrero’s supporters on the board disingenuously trumpet the results of NAEP assessments that show Denver near the top of the list of large urban districts. They conveniently overlook the fact that most of the gains come from more affluent students, while low-income students of color perform worse than their counterparts in other cities. See this article for more details.
Just before the vote, Board President Carrie Olson, doing her best impersonation of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (always concerned, always votes the wrong way) tried to assure people opposed to the extension that “I hear your concern…I want to assure you that I will take all of these into consideration when the board undertakes the superintendent’s evaluation in the fall.”
That’s cold comfort. Thursday’s vote leaves the DPS community more deeply divided than ever, at a time, as Esserman correctly noted, that we need to be united against serious threats from outside.
There’s only one side to blame for this.
