(NAME-MCE) If principal was fired over race, it wouldn't be the first time

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Local school councils have history of race-based decisions

Two members of a Chicago local school council have accused their
colleagues of firing Curie High School's black female principal so she
can be replaced with a Hispanic. Under current law, school boards do
not have to have a plausible reason to get rid of a principal.

Complete story below.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/294438,CST-NWS-mitch13.article

If principal was fired over race, it wouldn't be the first time

March 13, 2007
BY MARY MITCHELL
Chicago Sun-Times Columnist

There are two ways to look at the ouster of Curie High School
principal Jerryelyn Jones: Either the longtime educator was wrongfully
fired, or it was just time for her to move on.

Yet, it's difficult to figure out why Jones got booted, since local
school councils don't have to have a plausible reason to get rid of a
principal. Jones has been at Curie for 25 years -- eight of them as
the principal. But under school reform, Jones' long tenure doesn't
count for very much.

Over the years, that shortsighted policy has sparked controversies at
other schools.

But Jones' firing -- which has the whiff of employment discrimination
-- has even Mayor Daley upset. And, it is not clear that the LSC was
operating with clean hands, since Jones had previously accused the
council's chairman, Tom Ramos, of taking bribes.

Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible
Education (PURE), an advocacy group that provides training for local
school councils, blames the headline-grabbing controversy on the
Chicago Board of Education's general lack of support for local school
councils.

"The board needs to be much stronger in valuing the role of the local
school councils," Woestehoff said. "The department that exists to
support LSCs are made up of people who are inept, and when the board
comes in, it comes in to interfere with the LSC and to undermine
them."

Still, you can't ignore the role race plays in this controversy.

'Can't change who you are racially'

Jones is an African-American principal at a school that is 65 percent
Hispanic. The six local school council members who voted her out were
Hispanic. There's only one African American on the council, and two
council members have accused their colleagues of firing Jones so she
can be replaced with a Hispanic.

If that's true, it wouldn't be the first time an LSC has ousted a
principal to hire someone who reflects the school's majority
population. In fact, a wave of white principals at predominantly black
schools were let go when councils were first empowered to hire and
fire principals.

Woestehoff remembers those days.

"What's discrimination to one person is cultural insensitivity to
another," she said. "That's what happened at Keller School when a
fairly elderly Jewish principal was fired. Parents thought he didn't
get it. He didn't get the kids. There was a huge uproar when he was
replaced with an African-American woman."

Since it is illegal to fire a principal based on race, these decisions
are likely couched as another issue entirely. At Curie, the LSC wanted
to know if the ability to speak Spanish could be used as a criteria
for hiring a principal, Woestehoff told me.

"You can ask for somebody who speaks Spanish because African Americans
can learn Spanish, but you can't change who you are racially -- there
is a difference," she said.

Yet, that caveat would have barred Jones from a job she's apparently
done very well.

Opportunity knocks

But before this disintegrates into a racial conflict, consider this:
Hispanic parents are trying to figure out what's best for their kids
just like black parents did earlier. And you know what? Some of us
learned the hard way that having a black principal didn't necessarily
mean that our children got a better education.

Clarice Berry, president of the Chicago Principals Association, said
much of the race-based hiring and firing has washed out of the system.
Still, what happened to Jones exposes a flaw in the school reform law.

"You don't have to have one rational reason to fire a principal,"
Berry said. "That leaves the running of a school subject to political
forces, bad judgment and racial problems."

Berry said she is "very, very disappointed."

"[Curie] made a bad first decision, and now they see themselves in a
power struggle with the city rather than taking a look at what's best
for the school," said Berry. "This is a school council that has lost
its way."

Local school councils have the power to end a principal's career, and
that's not a power that should be taken lightly. After 25 years of
serving Chicago's children, Jones deserved better.

But if she is as good as her supporters say she is, Curie's loss will
be another school's gain.