Guest Post by Ed Johnson

This post is a letter written by Ed Johnson, an advocate and citizen for improving education in the Atlanta Public Schools. This letter is especially timely in light of the consequences of the Atlanta and State of Georgia testing debacle. Although Atlanta has a superintendent, his term will end in 2014. A search committee has been formed. Mr. Johnson explains why the “next APS superintendent needs to be – no, must be – a Systems Thinker, perhaps in the style of teachings by the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming and similar others, or possibly in the style of the Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. Implicit in both these styles is ethical and moral development born of cooperation and collaboration, something that cannot possibly happen with competition and adversarialism where it truly matters.”

Ed Johnson consults as Quality Information Solutions, Inc., with a commitment to human social and cultural systems to receive quality information from information systems for the continual improvement of life, work, and play. His commitment extends to advocating the transformation of K-12 public education systems to humanistic paradigms from prevailing mechanistic paradigms. Ed also is former president of Atlanta Area Deming Study Group. He can be reached by email.

On May 19, 2013, at 8:35 PM, EdwJohnson@aol.com wrote:

Via E-mail

May 19, 2013

Dear Ann Crammer and ABE Superintendent Search Committee (SSC) Members:

Recent news that two Bunch Middle School students were honored in the “” Essay Contest underscores why your service, Ann, as SSC Chairperson represents for you, as well as for the committee members, a formidable challenge.

You, and they, may ask: “How come?” Kindly allow me to explain, or at least try to explain.

Certainly, applaud Do the Write Thing’s aim to help stop youth violence. But why would DtWT make it a contest when the aim of a contest and the aim of an act of violence usually are one and the same, which is to “win” at somebody else’s expense?

More importantly, why does such a pathological win-lose culture continue to persist within our Atlanta Public Schools as if APS’ massively systemic CRCT cheating scandal of 2009 offered no lessons to learn?

Why would anyone believe the APS win-lose culture does not transfer to other aspects of students’ lives and, in some instances, show up as youth violence?

Why does APS seem to embrace inculcating within children competition and adversarialism more so than cooperation and collaboration?

It seems the more the mostly “Black” ABE and APS top administration perceive a particular population of children to be mostly “Black,” the more likely they are to believe and provide for subjecting those children to competition as if competition offers the children salvation. It does not; it only offers more competition.

Questions about APS such as these plus the recent massacre at Sandy Hook Element School prompted my recent Open Letter to President Obama. In it, and within the context of his Race to the Top Competition, I question the wisdom of turning the many kids into essay writing losers as a way of honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, birth and legacy. I also suggest that engaging the children in an essay writing collaborative would have been a far more fitting way to honor Dr. King.

Similarly, I suggest a “Do the Write Thing” Essay Collaborative would have been a far more fitting way for Bunche Middle School kids to engage writing about youth violence. The aim could have been to annually compile and publish the kids’ essays in book form, so as to comprise a continuing anthology for study, research, and reflection, and so that each and every child could take intrinsic motivational pride and joy in having contributed to the “Bunche Middle School Anthology on Youth Violence.”

And the kids’ contributions to the anthology could have been a very long-lived intrinsic pride and joy, something each one of them could have pointed to well into the future and perhaps say: “See, this is my contribution.” Or, “See, this is my and my co-authors’ contribution.” Or, “See, this is a picture of our two classmates we chose to represent our ‘Bunche Middle School Anthology on Youth Violence’ in Washington, DC, and to present a copy to the President.”

Obviously, that did not happen, for an undeniable aim of the DtWT Essay Contest was to single out only two winner kids (“finalists”) worthy enough to be “honored” with a dinner and all the loser kids implicitly told they are not so worthy.

Just think of the loss. Just think of the horrible lesson this has likely taught both the contest winner kids and the contest loser kids. Just think that this has likely taught the kids that their worth and value must come from outside themselves. Then just think how this lesson might transfer to promoting and sustaining not only youth violence but gang membership and even “pants on the ground” and of course the “school to prison pipeline.”

Thus, Ann, this brings us to the formidable challenge you have as ABE Search Committee Chairperson.

Arguably, the DtWT Essay Contest at Bunche Middle School reflects conventional thinking on the part of the ABE and the APS superintendency; else, it would not have happened the way it did. Theirs is a conventional thinking that has hobbled APS for way too long a time. Thus the SSC you chair has the opportunity, and the obligation I dare say, to bring to the ABE those superintendent candidates capable to lead continual improvement of APS as one system of public schools. Such candidates will not be, again, the “strong CEO” types or the “experienced urban superintendent” types. And most certainly, such candidates will not be graduates of the Broad Superintendents Academy nor school reformists in the style of, or proponents of, Michelle Rhee or any other “Waiting for Superman” character.

In short, the next APS superintendent needs to be – no, must be – a Systems Thinker, perhaps in the style of teachings by the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming and similar others, or possibly in the style of the Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. Implicit in both these styles is ethical and moral development born of cooperation and collaboration, something that cannot possibly happen with competition and adversarialism where it truly matters. And it truly matters for educating today’s children with the aim of sustaining democratic ideals in service to the public good.

(By the way, that anyone would contend charter schools are public schools simply manifests a moral, ethical, and civil decadence that only recently has been established in public law. It reflects the conventional win-lose culture but among our politicians, mostly lawyers, something Dr. Ben Carson warned about recently, and something Dr. Deming warned about long before his passing in 1993, at age 93.)

So, Ann, as the ABE Superintendent Search Committee continues to survey and meet with Atlantans to learn what we want in our next Superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, the committee at those times must also inform Atlantans of unconventional possibilities, don’t you agree?

Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
edwjohnson@aol.com