As we expected, the administration got what it wanted: the Board approved the contract with Dr. Dubiel’s SEE LLC to conduct the coveted Equity Audit. There was, quite obviously, some behind the scene maneuvering: Anne Hall, the Board member who requested more time to analyze the issue, explained that she talked to the administration and some “other people” (not us, for sure), and voted for the approval of the contract without any explanations. Three BoE members who voted against approval of the contract last time, remained firm.
This vote ended the sordid saga of the Equity Task Force, which spent first eight months of its existence discussing equity definitions, but then, during the intensive phase of the Equity Audit vendor selection, skipped three out of six meetings. By sheer coincidence, this strange period started when Ruth discovered that the ETF meetings were closed to the public in violation of the Open Meetings Act, and forced Mr. Poulosky, the Board president, to open them to the disruptors.
Having won their trophy, Drs. Ivory-Tatum and Caffey moved fast. They gleefully informed the ETF meeting (convened to brief the members on the contract with SEE LLC) that they disband the body, and form a new one, called District Equity Leadership Team (DELT). The DELT will be outside the Board’s purview, and will report directly to Drs. Ivory-Tatum and Caffey. That means, in particular, that the meetings won’t be open anymore. The DELT (like the ETF, staffed predominantly by the direct reports of Dr. Ivory-Tatum) will map the path towards an equitable and diverse USD 116.
And boy, don’t we know where that path leads. Dr. Dubiel’s prescriptions never change, and if you want to see a year ahead, our sister McLean county Unit 5 school district shows us where this all goes. There will be training of the trainers who will then Identity Train everyone else (because teachers’ personal biases, in Dr. Dubiel’s world, are the main obstacle standing between our underserved kids and good education). Innumeracy? Affinity groups will be the answer. Dyslexia? Forget about it, teachers don’t have time to learn modern techniques to address it, too busy with Dr. Dubiel’s seminars. After-school support? Eh, we’ll “execute<…> the communication plan to recruit students for SEAT.” And no doubt, ever more resources will be shifted to the administration (what underpaid teachers? when the district got some money to help homeless families, – they decided to spend 2/3 of it on hiring a manager)…
So, yes, for now, our battle is lost. School bureaucracy won. Our fight to make USD116 policies fairer, more responsive, more efficient suffered a setback.
But this is already yesterday’s news. We have to think about tomorrow. We will keep focus on the Equity Action Plan as it unfolds in our district. We will make their waste visible. We will expose this particular variety of systemic, institutional indifference to our most vulnerable families.
Stay tuned.