"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

You probably recognize, in the post title, the words of Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797).

He was an Irish statesman and supporter of American independence while a member of the British House of Commons,

The inscription on his statue (Bristol, England) reads: Burke 1774-1780. "I wish to be a member of parliament to have my share of doing good and resisting evil". Speech at Bristol 1780.

This blog is about education, but we're at a point where education and political activism may be running down the same track.

I'm not talking about partisan politics, I'm talking about educators taking their proper places in public life as leaders and persons of good example. We are some of those people Burke is talking about.

By now, the story of the Jena Six should be familiar to edubloggers worldwide. I posted about Lessons From Jena just a few days ago, hoping to remind teachers and administrators to bring some enlightenment about racial tolerance to their students (yes, looking to break or weaken the cycles of prejudice that infest entire families). The fallout from the Jena story makes me wonder if we ever entered the twenty-first century.

Today's New York Times carries a story about the Canarsie High School Principal, Tyona Washington, who received a package yesterday at school with a hate note and a noose. According to the article, "The Canarsie episode was at least the eighth time in the past few weeks that a noose was discovered in the New York area. In one instance, a noose was placed on the doorknob of the office of a black professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College."

The eighth time!?

And here's a story dated two days ago from the Times that deals with incidents that are on-going in Nassau County, where I spent most of my elementary and all my secondary school years. I'll be 63 years old next month, folks, and I assure you that this sort of crap wasn't going on there even in the pre-civil rights legislation days of the 50s and early 60s.

Looks like we need to do the thinking I was talking about on the move, pick the lesson plans well, and get to work now.

This is not something we can put off until our curriculum guides say it's time. The fallout is raining down now, and we have to step up to the plate.

Another reminder of our need to act comes from a poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892–1984) about the failure of German intellectuals and other public figures to respond to Nazi bullying and terrorizing of the German population. Some of you may have seen a famous filmstrip that dramatized the poem.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Speak out folks, talk about race and racial tolerance. Teach about it.

Communication: Always Trying to Get It Right

This morning the superintendent and board of directors hosted a continental breakfast for the folks we call Key Communicators. They are leaders in the community who can pass "the word" around about what's happening in the school district.

The KC guest list included a mayor, a city librarian, both school union leaders, a police commander standing in for the chief, a senior park and rec manager, a minister representing the ministerial association, the head of our county-wide Stand for Children organization, the exec director of our schools foundation (a private fundraising not-for-profit that provides various grants for programs in the district), five out of seven board members, the supe, and the assistant supe for school improvement.

I'm not sure who else was invited, but this was a pretty fair cross-section of folks with access to many more people. They are the ones we rely on to get the information straight and pass it on without having the intelligence corrupted as you might find in a game of "telephone."

Clear and accurate communication is a big goal for all organizations, and school districts are no different. Without our network, it's doubtful we could have passed a bond last year that enables us to build four new elementary schools and a replacement middle school, as well as major additions to two of our four existing middle schools, and major and minor repairs to twenty-eight other elementary schools.

After a meet-and-greet, we sat around a set of tables and the supe coordinated a ten-question survey that was designed to see how the folks in the room (our public board meeting room) felt about issues that were dealt with in the 39th Annual Gallup/Phi Beta Kappa Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools in the USA and NCLB. Not surprisingly, our attitudes were very similar to the poll results, even allowing for the tiny sample our group afforded.

We briefly discussed our points of view and the conversation served to remind me that everyone has something to say about public school education, and we'd darn well better make sure they have good information from which to form opinions, because the public is going to form opinions based on whatever information they've got.

Go ahead. Find out what America thinks of public education and NCLB.

Keeping a Promise

I told Scott Elias of Do I Dare Disturb the Universe? that I'd mention his post Use Your Blog for the Greater Good. Please check it out. Although there are a lot of commercial blogs signed up (for obvious reasons), it couldn't hurt to participate. It's on my calendar.