Did I Tell You My Theory?
I am not customarily a conspiracy theorist. But sometimes, there is nowhere else to go to explain what has transpired.
It appears to me that there is a campaign going on within the media to boost/protect Seattle Public Schools.
What prompted me to want to write about my theory is the puff piece on Superintendent Brent Jones that was in the Friday Seattle Times. In short, he's "listening "(kinda like what Frasier used to say on his radio show). Which is great but it tells us near nothing about the future of the district.
Nothing about what he will do about transportation.
Nothing on the loss of 3,000 students (and the district's projection that next year, the number of students in SPS will fall below 50K).
Nothing about how boundaries will have to change when the district revamps HCC.
All these things affect nearly every student and family in this district.
But sure, let's hear what his good friend, Mayor Bruce Harrell, has to say. Or perhaps a friend from King County where he used to work. But why not internal SPS voices (and I'm not counting yet another friend, Director Chandra Hampson)? Why no one from HR where he was the manager and some not-so-great things were happening?
Why? Because somehow, someway, someone up the food chain - and I don't mean SPS food chain but within Seattle powers that be - convinced a lot of media to talk about the district with kid gloves.
Most of you are probably too young (and I am, too, but my mother was part of the Greatest Generation), but there was a song in the '40s - "You got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative." In this case, that last line would be "don't talk about the negative in SPS."
So we have the Seattle Times, the local NPR station, KUOW, the online news sources of Crosscut and Post Alley and The Stranger all ignoring the HIB story. ALL those media outlets employ real journalists and this was a real story and yet no one covered it but me. (And a couple of right-wing radio shows like and good for them. They may have had different reasons to cover it than me but at least they did so.) I'd be willing to bet if KUOW or the Times or even The Stranger had covered this story, it might have gotten to become national news.
I'm fairly sure this didn't come from within the district but likely the Alliance for Education or some other group up the Seattle food chain. I don't think it was some big group meeting but slowly and surely, someone got the media outlets to sign on.
I think this because:
- While the Times' Editorial Board did speak out about the lack of vetting/engagement in the hiring of Brent Jones, they have mostly been all in. It seems odd that no media source has asked about his time at SPS, particularly when he was a department head. Meaning, the media has the ability to do their own vetting but no one did.
- The HIB investigation. Kids, I'm fairly certain it has missed NO adult's attention that race and equity are major topics in our country, across the spectrum of subjects.
This investigation was not based on gossip. It was based on two senior Black staffers, so offended and desperate to get two Native American Board directors to stop bullying them, that they took the step of submitting a formal letter of complaint to the Board.
As I have said previously, these two bright women failed to consider what it might mean to not only accuse the directors of HIB but also call their actions racist. For any elected official, those are fighting words. And so, the two directors fought back by demanding an investigation.
We all know how that went. And now one of the directors, Chandra Hampson, has launched a lawsuit against the district for their use of a Board policy to support the investigation. As if a finding from the court against the use of the said policy would clear any of what she said and did.
I suspect that the two SPS staffers did not want all this to be public and certainly didn't want their names attached. The hubris of Hampson and DeWolf and their demand for an investigation did backfire on them. I'm sure they wanted this to go away as well. I can understand all that but again, news IS news.
None of this was worth reporting?
I rest my case but I sure am open to any other ideas.
Comments
Upstairs Called
The mayor and local media outlets tend to have a "Chamber of Commerce" mindset -- even the lefty progressive ones, since their financial survival all depends on the local economy. I am sure what the grown-ups are worried about is how the decline of SPS affects local business, property values, development prospects, etc. So far so good -- housing prices are rising faster than ever despite the collapse of academic standards in the public schools. But probably over the medium term the powers that be are indeed concerned about how SPS dysfunction would affect the city's image.
Perhaps in inner circles it has become a baseline assumption that the people who matter will use private schools or stick with dogs, and public schools are for the little people, and it's primarily a PR matter which can be handled with puff pieces in the Seattle Times. I wouldn't expect the decline of SPS to be stopped, much less reversed. But maybe no one cares anymore.
Times: they are clearly determined to protect Chandra and her agenda, because they correctly understand she is helping privatize public schools in Seattle. Whether this is Chandra's actual goal is unclear, but it ultimately doesn't matter, since her agenda has the effect of driving parents away from SPS. Notice that in SF, the Chronicle gave headline coverage to school board member Alison Collins suing her own district in a very similar situation to what Chandra has done - but that's because the Chronicle wanted Collins out. The Times' silence is deliberate. I would not be surprised if Dahliah Bazzaz has tried to write about this but been vetoed by her editors, who are the ones who enforce the paper's ideological agenda.
KUOW/Crosscut: Similar to the Times, their leadership seems to be on board with the privatization agenda. Here again I wouldn't be surprised if Ann Dornfeld tried to do a story on this and got shot down by editors. Also, Crosscut seems to be moving away from news stories and more toward human interest coverage. Their partners at KUOW still seem focused on news. They're probably less deeply invested in the Gates Foundation agenda than the Times, but still don't feel the need to challenge it, even when Chandra is guilty of being deeply racist and anti-black.
The Stranger: I suspect the main reason is they just don't really cover public education all that much, which is a huge oversight on their part. The Stranger did endorse Chandra in 2019, a colossal mistake on their part, and it's possible they are trying to cover for her, but I don't think they are all that wedded to her agenda - I don't think it's a priority.
Post Alley: someone forgot to wake them up from their nap so they could complain about all the whippersnappers on their lawn.
Paper Boy
Taken from the Seattle Times article:
"Chandra Hampson said she had Jones in mind for the job even before she was elected to the board."
The Seattle Times Editorial Board was correct to call out the board for failing to have a public process when Jones was hired for Interim Superintendent. It appears Hampson had a working relationship with Jones while serving on the SCPTSA. Hampson was quite effective in acquiring a vast amount of power when Jones was hired; it is clear they were aligned on...who knows what.
Hersey would not allow for public comment when Jones was offered the position for permanent superintendent.
Jones vision for the district is unclear. What is clear: The district is failing tens of thousands of students and they keep asking for more money. Take for example, 95% of students are failing math at a south end elementary school. 90% of Rainier Beach High school students are failing math. We hear a lot of self praise, but, the district is failing to provide it's most basic function- provide education. Per pupil funding for many low income schools is $20K per student.
According to the Seattle Times, transportation will cost approximately $1K per day per bus. Not a word on transportation reform.
I don't expect anything to change.
Paper Boy, good thoughts but I will disagree on the Times. Th Editorial Board has twice now called out Hampson on certain things; I don't think they will endorse her again. And they have given a warning to Hersey so if he continues to do things that appear unethical, that's gonna be a problem for him.
No, I think the whole effort is to shore up Brent Jones.
https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-public-schools-to-pay-former-student-3m-after-sex-abuse-lawsuit
SP