Hiring Board: Well, you know we can't ask you about.
Candidate: I understand... That would be completely inappropriate. **Then pulls out a Chick-fil-a sandwich, and takes of jacket revealing an "All lives matter" shirt.** You know I never liked rainbows.
Some of the most mean-spirited, bigoted, and intolerant people I have ever known, never missed church. You don't have to get very far into the bloody, gory history of Europe to realize 'Christian' is definitely not a synonym for moral. It's pretty clear what this board is looking for, and it will scare away a lot of well-qualified people.
That reminds me about my time as a pupil when I was a child. In Norway back then we were forced to say a prayer before allowed to eat lunch. Our teacher forbid us to eat of we hadn't joined the prayer. He was especially focused on the one pupil that he knew was not xian. I was 10 and got so mad that I screamed to the teacher "He is not even xian, you can't force him to say a xian prayer.". The teacher had a talk to the school boss (principal?) and we never had to say a prayer in school again.
When I was in 8th grade in a Lutheran school, we were often dragged over to the adjacent church to sing for various gatherings such as the Ladies Club. We all hated this and usually sang in a dispirited manner, which is what the adults seemed to expect and which we never got in trouble for. Clearly the objective was to make us do something we didn’t want to do to drive home the idea of authority. One day yours truly (son of the pastor and the oldest student there) quietly got everyone to agree as we were dragged to the church that we should be EXTRA enthusiastic. We were. Afterwards we were chastised for our insolence. We were also rarely dragged to the church again.
It is never the job of the public schools to backstop anyone's religion, and since public schools are operated by the government they are Constitutionally prohibited from choosing one religion over another.
The Christian nationalist types are having a hissy fit because they feel their privileged place in our culture slipping away. They are attempting to accomplish through the courts and legislatures what they have failed to achieve from their pulpits.
Exactly. Like my drunkard grandpa who would be drunk six days of the week, then Sunday morning kick our door telling us to get up for church. He could not hold down a job, my grandma essentially raised six kids by herself working two jobs. Grandpa went to Catholic church every Sunday so he was absolved, then come Monday morning he was an asshole again.
I was raised in an extended family of self-loathing Catholic alcoholics. The church and I went our separate ways when I listened to an idiot priest in Vietnam give us what we came to call the "Kill a Commie for Christ" pep talk.
How do they know that conservative Christians makeup the majority in the community? Or makeup the majority of the parents sending their children to school in that community. Just because that’s who gets elected to the school board doesn’t mean that’s who is living there. School board elections are generally held in April, low voter turnout is the defining feature of the non-November elections, the candidates rarely every debate or speak to the public in a way that voters can determine their true colors, the candidates create bios and make statements to the press that are vague and unclear, talking mostly about fiscal responsibility and any dog whistles are missed by the majority of voters unless they desire them, and the toxic bs editorials the candidates write and spread online are left anonymous for those who agree to recognize. I know about things like this because I have the time and interest to do research on things, but parents of school aged children often are overwhelmed and don’t understand the implications of what is being disseminated. I know “family values” is really code for “I hate LGBTQ people” but a tired mother of four children active in different extracurricular activities each night, may not have the time to dissemble the codes. This last election one school board candidate in my village actually said the quiet part out loud, but if there hadn’t been vigilant folks connecting his past statements to what the paper printed, no one, or maybe just not enough voters, would have noticed his toxicity. (He lost by a major landslide) So often folks will just vote for the incumbent because they already are there and know what to do. Or whichever candidate spends more to get the fliers into the homes. One candidate on my ballot walked the neighborhoods leaving fliers while the other mailed them multiple times, there was a difference in the quality of the fliers as well. Looking at Wisconsin’s senate race, Tammy Baldwin vs. Eric Hovde, Hovde is a fecking billionaire, shipped in from California, promising to donate his congressional salary to charity claiming he can’t be bought. Baldwin has been legislating with progress as a goal. Hovde may not be bought, but he certainly can buy his seat, (only if we let him, I won’t sit down for it). But when it comes to the little local elections, they’re far more difficult to decipher, and it comes down to name recognition and cash expended. I highly doubt the community is as conservative or Christian as the school board claims, even in the Sheboygan area.
Worth reiterating that the SB hired an outside consultant firm to run focus groups. I am completely willing to believe that conservative Christians made up the majority of locals who volunteered to attend the focus groups. Use a skewed study design, get a skewed result.
I agree with that, it was on my mind but missed in the comment. That the folks offering input are folks with the time and inclination, and most likely an agenda, to participate in the focus groups. My school district just hired a new superintendent also, and now we’re being asked to complete a survey to help the new super do their job. I don’t recall doing a survey to help in finding the candidates though.
I for one appreciate the wall of text! Far too few people spend the time and energy to make an actual, nuanced, well thought out point!
Regarding the community values. Sure it was a focus group, but what were the focus group actually saying? If it's just that they want a candidate that shares their values, which I think is pretty normal, then to twist that all you have to do is make sure you sample christians very heavily. Or just put the points together yourself: People want a candidate that shares their values. Most people in the community are christian. Therefore...
And what do they mean by conservative? Conservative like a careful, incrementalist? Or conservative as in a social conservative like those running the school board that created the environment that caused that poor kid in OK to take their life recently?
I think it is quite possible that some of the focus group members could have meant the less sinister version of those terms, but that leaves the school board open to interpret such terms however they please.
Just to be clear, very few people believe Nex took their own life, the fight caused them to black out and the emergency call indicated they were suffering from the traumatic brain injury endured the day before.
I only said something because I don’t want the incident to be remembered as the people responsible for their death wants it to. They’re covering up a murder that, as you said, started at the state superintendent’s violent bigotry.
Whether Nex actually did the deed theirself or the ME lied about it not being related to their injuries, they were murdered. Intentionally driving someone to take their own life is murder in my book.
Whether or not they removed the words “Christian” & ”conservative” from the list of requirements, it’s hard to believe they won’t be hiring based on them. So tired of these damn school boards
“Excellent problem solving and looking to the future, thinking outside the box to create a positive change and approach…”
This requirement is mutually exclusive to “conservative politically and fiscally” as well as the conservative Christian expectation. Thinking outside the box and considering the future are the antithesis of conservatism. Besides, you cannot solve problems when you are the problem.
"𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘴" ...yeah, unfortunately those are gonna be antithetical to... literally all of the other shit down the list from this shit.
"𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯" ...is the last damn thing any conservative these days would be caught dead doing. Except, perhaps, by destroying anyone or anything they're in conflict with.
"𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨" ...that sounds an awful lot like talking about your 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. Don't go all mushy on me now!
"𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘹 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦" ...we're on the verge of an actual revelation, here. Keep going, we'll get there yet!
"𝘍𝘭𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦" ...I dunno, guys, this list is sounding awful 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦 to me. Which brings us to the last thing on your list- and I gotta be honest, I was 𝘯𝘰𝘵 expecting to ever hear this line from a conservative, because...
Yes, it occurred to me that there were certain contradictions in those requirements. But some of them are just cookie-cutter stuff that they probably got off some sort of template for questions to ask potential employees. It does show certain lack of thought in that regard.
I do not give any credence to the good faith argument. The Board got caught is the only reason they backed down. Secretly the Board is still looking only at christians.
Are you sure? Your text says the SB hired an outside firm, who then conducted 12 focus groups with community members. Those focus groups are going to be voluntary and self-selected. Which often (but not always) means the weirdos with an axe to grind volunteer their time, while the normal folks with lives don't bother. Consider that this could very much be like textbook selection - the community members who get highly involved are typically the ones with a (religious) agenda, not anyone who thinks "hmmm, the last edition of that textbook was great. So I'd better volunteer many hours of my family time to make sure this one is too."
I suspect here that the outside firm did not make any mistakes. I suspect they provided an accurate summary of the focus group results to the SB. "Christian" is what the focus groups said they wanted, and it's the firm's job to communicate that to their employers.
***
Though what amazed me the most is that there are no technical qualifications listed at all. Masters or PhD in education? Past experience running schools or business experience running businesses? Prior SB experience (since they're looking for a SB *leader*)? Nope, nope, nope. For sure, communication and leadership etc. are important skills, but they need to be demonstrated in use by past relevant experience. Yet there is no past relevant experience called for. Weird.
They did mention, and this has to do with Tinker’s comment as well, that the candidate should have experience with charter schools in the original list. I bring it up as a red flag because charter schools dress up as a public alternative to the status quo education, however, they are just another way to defund the public school system and put up obstacles for the disabled, poor, and troubled students to access the services they need to succeed in education. The school board is signaling that they’re trying to break the public school district as Tinker describes below.
Excellent point. As is the comment above regarding experience. Just for the sake of brevity: public schools are not businesses. A school district is not a business. Administrative experience would be important. Experience running a business, possibly less so.
Yes. And I wonder why the charts keep mentioning stakeholders. It is very much a business term that has very little to do with a public school. Who has stakes in the schools? Parents do, teachers do, students do, community members who value living in an educated society do. But that’s not the type of stakes the phrases used are referring to. They make me think of the investors. While you can claim the taxpayers are the investors, this reeks of outside money influencing the system.
Lordy, does it! I've noticed that sort of language, and lots more, in contexts that--at least to my mind--it does NOT belong. I keep wondering if it's just me being extra-sensitive to Late Stage Capitalism and its varied manifestations here. Glad somebody else noticed as well. (I should say that I'm probably missing a lot. Not a lawyer. Never took any BizAd courses.)
It may be because the board hired this outside firm to find the candidate and this firm specializes in private companies so it’s only using the language it’s used to. Or there are influences that are involved for shady dealings. Because of the controversy it’s difficult to assume the latter. They lost the benefit of the doubt.
Yup. If you don't want to get a "business-friendly" clone, you gotta put in some time and effort to NOT get that. That brings to mind something a friend of mine ran into 40-ish years ago, when he was doing a grad degree in Economics. He interned with a company here in the SF Bay Area that specialized in recommending investments for their clients. The guy who owned the company began tracking the economists who worked for him and he found out something shocking: the economists who were trained and functioned as good little capitalist clones consistently did worse at forecasting what investments would be best (read: most profitable) for clients than his economists who were Marxists. So he began travelling around each spring specifically looking to interview grad students who had some training in Marxist economics. Which is how he met my friend and offered him first an internship, and then a permanent job. The way the owner of this company put it was: the econ grad students who were trained in Marxist economics understood how the capitalist system worked and why. The grad students who didn't have the benefit of such training expected the capitalist system to work like their textbooks said it ideally would and ended up fucking up big time. (I'm all but certain that this is *not* what that school board listing meant about "thinking outside the box.") Not my field, obviously, but I've never forgotten that anecdote.
How different things are in the UK*. For a long time the official position has been that the last people who can be trusted to run schools properly are local authorities. Schools have been parcelled off to businesses, usually controlling multiple schools and to churches because.... sorry, I can't think of a good reason.
* Because of the state of the "United" Kingdom, conditions are different in each of the constituent countries. My experience is with England.
That makes me wonder if they really meant to say the quiet part out loud. In years past the 'conservative agenda' regarding public education was to ensure that kids got a good education so they could go on to be productive citizens without wasting taxpayer resources. Today the so-called 'conservative agenda' seems to be breaking our public education system so they can point to it and claim it's broken. By not listing qualifications for the job but qualifications for the politician they want in the job they are tipping their hand.
That first priority was fifty years ago though. The republicans have been defunding public schools nearly as long as I have been alive, although the grifty 'charter schools' took it up a notch.
"I would add, however, that those were the “desired characteristics” identified by the SCHOOL BOARD. There are SEPARATE CHARTS in the document identifying requests made by the COMMUNITY, STAFF, and STUDENTS, and they’re all generally fine. That makes it much harder to blame this issue on random kooks in the community."
You've got to remember that these are just simple conservatives. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new mid-West. You know... morons.
That list was so full of corporate-speak consultant gibberish it made my eyes glaze over. I'm so glad that I'm retired so I don't have to put up with that nonsense anymore.
I’ll play a conspiracy theorist here: the district put that out purposefully to let any applicants know what the rules for candidacy are. Then pulled it once everyone knew and put the legal one out. I find it hard to believe that the district did an oopsie. Hard to imagine they don’t have an HR or legal department that vets this stuff first.
The HR department will be onboard unless legally and publicly they have no choice. Focus group volunteers are often personally invited or ‘seeded’ in the focus groups to sway the outcome. It was really stupid that they said the quiet things out loud! Shadow agendas may still sway the hiring process. I’ve seen it so many times, and been involved in it. Now happily retired.
I can’t disagree. My old office sometimes hired people that they should have seen had red flags. Those folks eventually got canned. I’m happy to be out of there and retired as well.
God, the number of fuckwits, idiots, and general nongs that some of my bosses employed, at least one against my impassioned plea, because I'd worked with her before, beggars belief. That particular woman was one of the most incompetent people I have ever worked with, and how the hell she got a reference – except one of those ones they give to people they want to get rid of – I just don't know.
And one of my incompetent bosses – possibly the second most incompetent person I've ever worked with, was eventually employed by someone else to everyone's great relief. But someone sent an email or telegram or something to everyone at the new workplace expressing sympathy. Which I was blamed for. I had to explain that I had absolutely no sympathy for them – "it was someone else's turn".
Lol, I had a heads up from a guy I used to work with about one of our more outrageous hires. I let the powers that be know, but they went ahead anyway. After she was shitcanned, one of them told me I should have been on the committee. Yep. Oh well! 😆
Mistake, huh? Maybe in the sense that it was a working document and they'd meant to go back and find other ways of stating the same thing. And this is textbook christian nationalist behavior. They think America is only for them, so it's hardly surprising that when in authority, they govern to benefit their group, only hire more of their group, and so on. It's outright incompatible with the idea of democracy and a multicultural society. I would suggest Russia for them. Christian, right wing, their kind of people. What's not to love?
They should do it! Put their money where their mouths are and show the rest of us that they are for real. Except then they would have to give up their 600K homes, 2 cars, $3 gas, white picket fences, high school football. So maybe they do like America after all. They just don't want to share it with the rest of us.
The Christofascists are trying to make their locales as unfriendly, unpalatable, and unwelcoming as they can. Their (almost) unstated goal is to push out everyone who isn't one of 'them'. They want to live in their own little bubble of like-minded people without ever a thought that their mini-Gileads are economically untenable.
Followed shortly by some flavor of NatC bigotry. More likely pushing blatant religious twaddle and most likely turning a blind eye to baby brownshits abusing and/or murdering those who their sky fairy says its ok to kill.
Hiring Board: Well, you know we can't ask you about.
Candidate: I understand... That would be completely inappropriate. **Then pulls out a Chick-fil-a sandwich, and takes of jacket revealing an "All lives matter" shirt.** You know I never liked rainbows.
Hiring Board: You're perfect!
What, no blue line flag Punisher skull decal on your lifted pickup? What are you, a commie?!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d517431ac21045a183588a8d4b9badb0f0586853131221d7aa239139c6816456.jpg
Some of the most mean-spirited, bigoted, and intolerant people I have ever known, never missed church. You don't have to get very far into the bloody, gory history of Europe to realize 'Christian' is definitely not a synonym for moral. It's pretty clear what this board is looking for, and it will scare away a lot of well-qualified people.
Their goal isn't to educate their children - it is to indoctrinate them.
That reminds me about my time as a pupil when I was a child. In Norway back then we were forced to say a prayer before allowed to eat lunch. Our teacher forbid us to eat of we hadn't joined the prayer. He was especially focused on the one pupil that he knew was not xian. I was 10 and got so mad that I screamed to the teacher "He is not even xian, you can't force him to say a xian prayer.". The teacher had a talk to the school boss (principal?) and we never had to say a prayer in school again.
When I was in 8th grade in a Lutheran school, we were often dragged over to the adjacent church to sing for various gatherings such as the Ladies Club. We all hated this and usually sang in a dispirited manner, which is what the adults seemed to expect and which we never got in trouble for. Clearly the objective was to make us do something we didn’t want to do to drive home the idea of authority. One day yours truly (son of the pastor and the oldest student there) quietly got everyone to agree as we were dragged to the church that we should be EXTRA enthusiastic. We were. Afterwards we were chastised for our insolence. We were also rarely dragged to the church again.
Excellent job standing up for others!
Good for you! Children get it better than adults do
It is never the job of the public schools to backstop anyone's religion, and since public schools are operated by the government they are Constitutionally prohibited from choosing one religion over another.
Yes, but they are out to change that!
The Christian nationalist types are having a hissy fit because they feel their privileged place in our culture slipping away. They are attempting to accomplish through the courts and legislatures what they have failed to achieve from their pulpits.
Yeah, it does not look good.
🎯Bang on!
Scaring away well-qualified people is the point. They aren’t looking for educators.
They’re looking for indoctrinators.
Exactly. Like my drunkard grandpa who would be drunk six days of the week, then Sunday morning kick our door telling us to get up for church. He could not hold down a job, my grandma essentially raised six kids by herself working two jobs. Grandpa went to Catholic church every Sunday so he was absolved, then come Monday morning he was an asshole again.
I was raised in an extended family of self-loathing Catholic alcoholics. The church and I went our separate ways when I listened to an idiot priest in Vietnam give us what we came to call the "Kill a Commie for Christ" pep talk.
How do they know that conservative Christians makeup the majority in the community? Or makeup the majority of the parents sending their children to school in that community. Just because that’s who gets elected to the school board doesn’t mean that’s who is living there. School board elections are generally held in April, low voter turnout is the defining feature of the non-November elections, the candidates rarely every debate or speak to the public in a way that voters can determine their true colors, the candidates create bios and make statements to the press that are vague and unclear, talking mostly about fiscal responsibility and any dog whistles are missed by the majority of voters unless they desire them, and the toxic bs editorials the candidates write and spread online are left anonymous for those who agree to recognize. I know about things like this because I have the time and interest to do research on things, but parents of school aged children often are overwhelmed and don’t understand the implications of what is being disseminated. I know “family values” is really code for “I hate LGBTQ people” but a tired mother of four children active in different extracurricular activities each night, may not have the time to dissemble the codes. This last election one school board candidate in my village actually said the quiet part out loud, but if there hadn’t been vigilant folks connecting his past statements to what the paper printed, no one, or maybe just not enough voters, would have noticed his toxicity. (He lost by a major landslide) So often folks will just vote for the incumbent because they already are there and know what to do. Or whichever candidate spends more to get the fliers into the homes. One candidate on my ballot walked the neighborhoods leaving fliers while the other mailed them multiple times, there was a difference in the quality of the fliers as well. Looking at Wisconsin’s senate race, Tammy Baldwin vs. Eric Hovde, Hovde is a fecking billionaire, shipped in from California, promising to donate his congressional salary to charity claiming he can’t be bought. Baldwin has been legislating with progress as a goal. Hovde may not be bought, but he certainly can buy his seat, (only if we let him, I won’t sit down for it). But when it comes to the little local elections, they’re far more difficult to decipher, and it comes down to name recognition and cash expended. I highly doubt the community is as conservative or Christian as the school board claims, even in the Sheboygan area.
Sorry for the wall of text.
Worth reiterating that the SB hired an outside consultant firm to run focus groups. I am completely willing to believe that conservative Christians made up the majority of locals who volunteered to attend the focus groups. Use a skewed study design, get a skewed result.
I agree with that, it was on my mind but missed in the comment. That the folks offering input are folks with the time and inclination, and most likely an agenda, to participate in the focus groups. My school district just hired a new superintendent also, and now we’re being asked to complete a survey to help the new super do their job. I don’t recall doing a survey to help in finding the candidates though.
I for one appreciate the wall of text! Far too few people spend the time and energy to make an actual, nuanced, well thought out point!
Regarding the community values. Sure it was a focus group, but what were the focus group actually saying? If it's just that they want a candidate that shares their values, which I think is pretty normal, then to twist that all you have to do is make sure you sample christians very heavily. Or just put the points together yourself: People want a candidate that shares their values. Most people in the community are christian. Therefore...
And what do they mean by conservative? Conservative like a careful, incrementalist? Or conservative as in a social conservative like those running the school board that created the environment that caused that poor kid in OK to take their life recently?
I think it is quite possible that some of the focus group members could have meant the less sinister version of those terms, but that leaves the school board open to interpret such terms however they please.
Just to be clear, very few people believe Nex took their own life, the fight caused them to black out and the emergency call indicated they were suffering from the traumatic brain injury endured the day before.
But I see your point.
I'd somehow missed that. Thanks for clarifying. That makes worse than I'd even realized.
I only said something because I don’t want the incident to be remembered as the people responsible for their death wants it to. They’re covering up a murder that, as you said, started at the state superintendent’s violent bigotry.
Whether Nex actually did the deed theirself or the ME lied about it not being related to their injuries, they were murdered. Intentionally driving someone to take their own life is murder in my book.
Whether or not they removed the words “Christian” & ”conservative” from the list of requirements, it’s hard to believe they won’t be hiring based on them. So tired of these damn school boards
“Excellent problem solving and looking to the future, thinking outside the box to create a positive change and approach…”
This requirement is mutually exclusive to “conservative politically and fiscally” as well as the conservative Christian expectation. Thinking outside the box and considering the future are the antithesis of conservatism. Besides, you cannot solve problems when you are the problem.
That last line...*bows in your general direction*
What a load a bs. There's no way to quantify that JD...
"𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘴" ...yeah, unfortunately those are gonna be antithetical to... literally all of the other shit down the list from this shit.
"𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯" ...is the last damn thing any conservative these days would be caught dead doing. Except, perhaps, by destroying anyone or anything they're in conflict with.
"𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨" ...that sounds an awful lot like talking about your 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. Don't go all mushy on me now!
"𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘹 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦" ...we're on the verge of an actual revelation, here. Keep going, we'll get there yet!
"𝘍𝘭𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦" ...I dunno, guys, this list is sounding awful 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦 to me. Which brings us to the last thing on your list- and I gotta be honest, I was 𝘯𝘰𝘵 expecting to ever hear this line from a conservative, because...
"𝘌𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘱𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴" ...good job, y'all! You 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 managed to define "𝘄𝗼𝗸𝗲."
Yes, it occurred to me that there were certain contradictions in those requirements. But some of them are just cookie-cutter stuff that they probably got off some sort of template for questions to ask potential employees. It does show certain lack of thought in that regard.
Well, in that case, it's perfect- thought is the 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 thing conservatives want involved in education!
I do not give any credence to the good faith argument. The Board got caught is the only reason they backed down. Secretly the Board is still looking only at christians.
🎯It is known...
𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑚 𝑘𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦.
Are you sure? Your text says the SB hired an outside firm, who then conducted 12 focus groups with community members. Those focus groups are going to be voluntary and self-selected. Which often (but not always) means the weirdos with an axe to grind volunteer their time, while the normal folks with lives don't bother. Consider that this could very much be like textbook selection - the community members who get highly involved are typically the ones with a (religious) agenda, not anyone who thinks "hmmm, the last edition of that textbook was great. So I'd better volunteer many hours of my family time to make sure this one is too."
I suspect here that the outside firm did not make any mistakes. I suspect they provided an accurate summary of the focus group results to the SB. "Christian" is what the focus groups said they wanted, and it's the firm's job to communicate that to their employers.
***
Though what amazed me the most is that there are no technical qualifications listed at all. Masters or PhD in education? Past experience running schools or business experience running businesses? Prior SB experience (since they're looking for a SB *leader*)? Nope, nope, nope. For sure, communication and leadership etc. are important skills, but they need to be demonstrated in use by past relevant experience. Yet there is no past relevant experience called for. Weird.
They did mention, and this has to do with Tinker’s comment as well, that the candidate should have experience with charter schools in the original list. I bring it up as a red flag because charter schools dress up as a public alternative to the status quo education, however, they are just another way to defund the public school system and put up obstacles for the disabled, poor, and troubled students to access the services they need to succeed in education. The school board is signaling that they’re trying to break the public school district as Tinker describes below.
Excellent point. As is the comment above regarding experience. Just for the sake of brevity: public schools are not businesses. A school district is not a business. Administrative experience would be important. Experience running a business, possibly less so.
Yes. And I wonder why the charts keep mentioning stakeholders. It is very much a business term that has very little to do with a public school. Who has stakes in the schools? Parents do, teachers do, students do, community members who value living in an educated society do. But that’s not the type of stakes the phrases used are referring to. They make me think of the investors. While you can claim the taxpayers are the investors, this reeks of outside money influencing the system.
"Stakeholders" = "far right fascists who want to dismantle public education and make schools the exclusive domain of the church".
🎯🎯🎯
Lordy, does it! I've noticed that sort of language, and lots more, in contexts that--at least to my mind--it does NOT belong. I keep wondering if it's just me being extra-sensitive to Late Stage Capitalism and its varied manifestations here. Glad somebody else noticed as well. (I should say that I'm probably missing a lot. Not a lawyer. Never took any BizAd courses.)
It may be because the board hired this outside firm to find the candidate and this firm specializes in private companies so it’s only using the language it’s used to. Or there are influences that are involved for shady dealings. Because of the controversy it’s difficult to assume the latter. They lost the benefit of the doubt.
Yup. If you don't want to get a "business-friendly" clone, you gotta put in some time and effort to NOT get that. That brings to mind something a friend of mine ran into 40-ish years ago, when he was doing a grad degree in Economics. He interned with a company here in the SF Bay Area that specialized in recommending investments for their clients. The guy who owned the company began tracking the economists who worked for him and he found out something shocking: the economists who were trained and functioned as good little capitalist clones consistently did worse at forecasting what investments would be best (read: most profitable) for clients than his economists who were Marxists. So he began travelling around each spring specifically looking to interview grad students who had some training in Marxist economics. Which is how he met my friend and offered him first an internship, and then a permanent job. The way the owner of this company put it was: the econ grad students who were trained in Marxist economics understood how the capitalist system worked and why. The grad students who didn't have the benefit of such training expected the capitalist system to work like their textbooks said it ideally would and ended up fucking up big time. (I'm all but certain that this is *not* what that school board listing meant about "thinking outside the box.") Not my field, obviously, but I've never forgotten that anecdote.
How different things are in the UK*. For a long time the official position has been that the last people who can be trusted to run schools properly are local authorities. Schools have been parcelled off to businesses, usually controlling multiple schools and to churches because.... sorry, I can't think of a good reason.
* Because of the state of the "United" Kingdom, conditions are different in each of the constituent countries. My experience is with England.
That makes me wonder if they really meant to say the quiet part out loud. In years past the 'conservative agenda' regarding public education was to ensure that kids got a good education so they could go on to be productive citizens without wasting taxpayer resources. Today the so-called 'conservative agenda' seems to be breaking our public education system so they can point to it and claim it's broken. By not listing qualifications for the job but qualifications for the politician they want in the job they are tipping their hand.
That first priority was fifty years ago though. The republicans have been defunding public schools nearly as long as I have been alive, although the grifty 'charter schools' took it up a notch.
"I would add, however, that those were the “desired characteristics” identified by the SCHOOL BOARD. There are SEPARATE CHARTS in the document identifying requests made by the COMMUNITY, STAFF, and STUDENTS, and they’re all generally fine. That makes it much harder to blame this issue on random kooks in the community."
Emphasis mine.
You've got to remember that these are just simple conservatives. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new mid-West. You know... morons.
😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_krntMHJIas
That list was so full of corporate-speak consultant gibberish it made my eyes glaze over. I'm so glad that I'm retired so I don't have to put up with that nonsense anymore.
Maybe it was listed elsewhere, but I don't see any requirement for an advanced education in, you know, education.
Almost as if that is not their priority!
I’ll play a conspiracy theorist here: the district put that out purposefully to let any applicants know what the rules for candidacy are. Then pulled it once everyone knew and put the legal one out. I find it hard to believe that the district did an oopsie. Hard to imagine they don’t have an HR or legal department that vets this stuff first.
The HR department will be onboard unless legally and publicly they have no choice. Focus group volunteers are often personally invited or ‘seeded’ in the focus groups to sway the outcome. It was really stupid that they said the quiet things out loud! Shadow agendas may still sway the hiring process. I’ve seen it so many times, and been involved in it. Now happily retired.
I can’t disagree. My old office sometimes hired people that they should have seen had red flags. Those folks eventually got canned. I’m happy to be out of there and retired as well.
Dammit, your post has gave me flashbacks. :)
Apologies!!! 😉
God, the number of fuckwits, idiots, and general nongs that some of my bosses employed, at least one against my impassioned plea, because I'd worked with her before, beggars belief. That particular woman was one of the most incompetent people I have ever worked with, and how the hell she got a reference – except one of those ones they give to people they want to get rid of – I just don't know.
And one of my incompetent bosses – possibly the second most incompetent person I've ever worked with, was eventually employed by someone else to everyone's great relief. But someone sent an email or telegram or something to everyone at the new workplace expressing sympathy. Which I was blamed for. I had to explain that I had absolutely no sympathy for them – "it was someone else's turn".
Lol, I had a heads up from a guy I used to work with about one of our more outrageous hires. I let the powers that be know, but they went ahead anyway. After she was shitcanned, one of them told me I should have been on the committee. Yep. Oh well! 😆
Mistake, huh? Maybe in the sense that it was a working document and they'd meant to go back and find other ways of stating the same thing. And this is textbook christian nationalist behavior. They think America is only for them, so it's hardly surprising that when in authority, they govern to benefit their group, only hire more of their group, and so on. It's outright incompatible with the idea of democracy and a multicultural society. I would suggest Russia for them. Christian, right wing, their kind of people. What's not to love?
Umm, lke that Canadian family that relocated to Russia because their "values" aligned with those of their new country?
I just wish they would take more with them, of the USian variety.
They should do it! Put their money where their mouths are and show the rest of us that they are for real. Except then they would have to give up their 600K homes, 2 cars, $3 gas, white picket fences, high school football. So maybe they do like America after all. They just don't want to share it with the rest of us.
The Christofascists are trying to make their locales as unfriendly, unpalatable, and unwelcoming as they can. Their (almost) unstated goal is to push out everyone who isn't one of 'them'. They want to live in their own little bubble of like-minded people without ever a thought that their mini-Gileads are economically untenable.
Mike Richie says it was mistake. Uh, sure Jan...er, Mike.
Sounds like someone got caught and is now doing damage control.
100%
I'm not so sure. With so many of them saying the quiet part out loud, it might be them pushing the boundaries hard to see what they can get away with.
I foresee a future article by Hemant detailing how the Cedar-Grove Belgium School District did indeed hire a conservative Christian as Superintendent.
And that Superintendent's name will be Albert Einstein.
Followed shortly by some flavor of NatC bigotry. More likely pushing blatant religious twaddle and most likely turning a blind eye to baby brownshits abusing and/or murdering those who their sky fairy says its ok to kill.
That, and they are so used to being in their echo-chamber, where everyone watches Fox and agrees with them.
So they want rapist insurrectionists for the position?
Definitely looks like it, as long the predator is xian.