The School Board's Iron Triangle

by Tony Palmeri

May 10, 2001

(Oshkosh). For a brief moment on the morning of the 9th day in the merry month of May, it looked as if the Oshkosh Area School District Board of Education might finally be ready to act with the resolve expected of governing bodies. The Oshkosh Northwestern reported that morning that at its Wednesday evening meeting, the Board would hear public comment and then deliberate a resolution to eliminate derogatory logos and nicknames at Oshkosh area schools. Perhaps now that former School Board President and CQI (Continuous Quality Improvement) consultant/guru-ette LuAnn Bird had left the Board, I thought we might be entering a new era in which the elected members of the body actually voted on controversial issues. You know, the kind of thing you thought that elected officials were responsible for.

No such luck. At the Wednesday evening meeting, it became painfully clear that the CQI-era Iron Triangle of ineptitude, obsession over process, and buck-passing still holds sway over the Board. As if the Board's multi-year, parental anxiety creating fest known as the "boundary" discussion wasn't enough, we are now as a result of Wednesday evening's meeting looking at a minimum of a year's worth of contentious battle over the Oshkosh West nickname.

In the ineptitude column, we have Susan Werblow and the District Administration. Now, Mrs. Werblow should be commended for bringing forth a resolution to eliminate discriminatory names from the schools. But when she placed "Spartan" and "Trojan" in the same category as "Indian," she allowed for a complete obfuscation of the major issue, which is of course the appropriateness of the use of the Indian name and mascot. By the time Werblow recognized her mistake and moved an amendment to restrict the motion to Indians, the damage had already been done. Didn't anyone in the administration recognize the problem with the resolution before Werblow filed it?

In the obsession over process column, we have Dennis Kavanaugh and Mike Stratz. Kavanaugh, usually one of the more reasonable members of the Board, could not support the amendment or the resolution because it had not gone through the CQI process first. Yes, Kavanaugh and others on the Board claim that all resolutions have to come with cost estimates and/or go before school site councils before the board can look at them. Even Patrick Kogutkiewicz, usually one of the Board's most vocal CQI opponents, in this case supported CQI because he saw that it could result (as it does with most issues) in at least short term delay or defeat of the motion.

Can you imagine if Harry Truman had to deal with a group like this before he decided to give the order to desegrate the military?

President Truman: "Racism has existed far too long in this country and has even polluted our military. I am going to order that the Black man be given the same treatment as his White brothers in our military."

General C.Q. Inertia: "But sir, we have not done a cost estimate of letting the Negro in the armed forces. If we stop treating them in a racist way, then more might enter the military. We might have to buy more uniforms. Besides, we have not let our Army site councils in Montgomery, Alabama; Little Rock, Arkansas; or Oxford, MS look at this yet."

As Native-American professor Judith Hankes said at the meeting, it is a shame and a tragedy that we would allow market economy concerns to be placed above social justice and fairness.

And in the buck-passing column, well, once again the board succeeded in putting off a vote and instead sent an issue off for further discussion. This time, Mr. Kavanaugh moved to bring the issue to the site councils across the district. Each council is being asked to report back to the Board in July of 2002.

There is nothing inherently wrong with school site councils. Indeed, the purpose of such councils is to encourage grassroots involvement in decision making by parents, students, teachers, and all others affected by school policies. The best site councils, however, are those that are diverse not just in terms of representing many different opinions, but also in terms of representing a variety of ethnic and racial groups. Since there are very few Native American students in the Oshkosh Area School District, the Native perspective on naming and mascot issues will have to argued by parents and students who are well-intentioned but simply have not "lived" the issue as the Native-Americans have. Worse, the site councils will be amply represented by the Patrick Kogutkiewicz's and Mike Stratz's of the district--nice people who just cannot seem to understand the pain that continued use of the Indian name causes.

Werblow made an excellent point at the meeting, to the effect that the Board would be acting irresponsibly to send this issue to site councils for what will probably be an ugly, contentious struggle. She might have added that such struggles usually do not change minds as much as they create a kind of "hunker down" mentality among those who oppose change to what they perceive as a worthy tradition. As a result, School Boards have to show leadership on such issues lest they run the risk of creating massive division in the community.

Unfortunately, the Oshkosh Area School District as of late has developed a reputation for not demonstrating responsible leadership. Werblow, Karen Bowen, and Theresa Theil tried as best they could to get the Board to take a stand on the Indian naming issue, but their efforts were not enough to overcome the years of Iron Triangle Conditioning that each of them has had a role in creating. Ineptitude, Process Obsession, and Buck-Passing once again prevailed.

The great American Revolutionary Thomas Paine wrote that " . . . a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom." Too bad the Oshkosh School Board did not have the courage to act in the spirit of Paine and lead the community out of this bad habit. Instead, the Board chose to ignore the pain of those victimized by stereotyping and to create pain for the community by passing this issue on to site councils.

Tony Palmeri welcomes your feedback

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