[Mpls] School Closings

[Steve Cross]

As was shown in a posting earlier by Steve Brandt, the February list of
schools to be closed is substantially the same as the list of schools that
the consultants now propose to close.  It would be easy, I suppose, to say
that the new result is what was intended from the beginning.  Last February,
the closings were to be accomplished in a quickie fashion.  It looked
suspiciously like an effort to accomplish the closings before anyone could
effectively mobilize against it.  When mobilization was accomplished anyway,
the suspicion was that the intent was to go to "Plan B."  And that plan was
to go through a show of open consideration that arrived at the same
pre-ordained conclusion.  Now, with the conclusion in the consultant's
proposal substantially in accord with the original proposal, the cynical
conclusion that what's been going on since February wasn't a "real" process
seems justified.

The new consultant's report is complete with magnificent color and seemingly
scientific charts.  Despite that, the problem remains as it did from the
original process.  That is, there is no transparency as to why the
particular schools were selected for closing.  It still looks as if someone
somewhere picked schools that he or she didn't like based on no particular
reason and those became the schools to be closed.  The only difference
between last February and now is that the conclusions come with magnificent
color and seemingly scientific charts.  The only thing that is really new
seems to be a sop to the masses is a hope that maybe, somehow, some of the
buildings will be used for something else sometime in the future.

The whole exercise reminds me of the story by Tom Wolfe called, "Mau-Mauing
the Flak Catchers" that was originally published, I think, back in the
1960s.  In it, Wolfe tells of how inner-city communities found that by
raising a crowd and going to city hall together and basically raising hell,
that they actually started to get action on the problems that affected them.
They called the action, "Mau-Mauing."  Then there was a subtle change.  The
crowd doing the Mau-Mauing was met by someone who listened closely, smiled a
lot, cried with them, wrote careful notes and took names, and generally
caused the crowd to leave city hall with a feeling of accomplishment.  But
nothing ever happened.  It turned out that the folks doing the Mau-Mauing
had been dealing with a "Flak Catcher."  The Flak Catcher's job was to
listen, smile, cry, write, and sympathize but to do nothing.  The Mau-Mauing
had been effectively parried by the appointment of the Fack Catchers.

Do you suppose that KKE Architects are the appointed Flak Catchers sent by
the School Board to protect it from the Mau-Mauing by the parents and the
kids in the schools? 

Steve Cross
Prospect Park