Seattle Schools Community Forum

Wow, just wow.  This from Publicola in its coverage of the Seattle marches related to the Ferguson decision (bold mine).  At the press conference prior to the arrests Murray said: "Bike officers do a great job. Officers will be out there [tonight] on bicycles." He added, "We're not Ferguson," citing the lack of African Americans on the Ferguson police force ["only three," he claimed] saying Seattle had "a number of African American officers." However, saying there was "an enormous gulf of mistrust" between African American communities and the police, he added that, "race remains our greatest challenge. We have to confront the challenge painfully again and again." He said there was "tremendous hurt in the African American community" about the grand jury's decision in "the murder of Mr. Brown." Murray boiled the issue down to the Seattle school system. "We are failing our young...

In one of the most shameful and disrespectfully written editorials I've ever read in the Times, they urge the Mayor and the City Council to make taking over the majority of the Seattle School Board positions a top legislative priority. It's a funny thing because I JUST today wrote the Board about a couple of other issues but warned them of this.  Now we all know there is no love between me and the Times so no one gave me a heads up.  You could have seen this coming from the signs put out by Burgess and Murray a mile away. Here's what I just told the Board in an e-mail: No, I'm not clairvoyant - I just can see where Mayor Murray and Councilman Burgess are heading. This from the Seattle Times: But the value of a city department of education is diluted as long as the Seattle school board (sic) remains mired in dysfunction.  With the elected board whipsawed by ideologies and personalities, Seattle is now looking at its fifth superintendent in a decade.  It i...