Boycott won’t help our schools

By Promise King

The Portland Tribune, Jan 29, 2002, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The news is in, and it is troubling. The Education Crisis Team Ñ a coalition at odds with Portland Public Schools over the low academic achievement of low-income and minority students Ñ is threatening to ask parents to pull their children out of public school next month if the district leaders refuse to adopt the report that came out of their mediation efforts. There is nothing legitimately wrong with such a protest, but I think the timing is ill-advised.

Crisis team leaders such as Ron Herndon, Tony Hopson, Halim Rashan and state Sen. Avel Gordly have put such a considerable amount of time into the issue of low academic achievement, specifically among African-American kids, that it is almost unconscionable to ask them for some restraints. There are plenty of valid reasons to throw around, but still, any boycott now is a harbinger of more schisms, shenanigans and mindless activism.

Here’s why.

The mediator’s report that the crisis team wants the school board to adopt does not have the support of the teachers union. It needs the union’s backing to successfully abrogate restrictive personnel rules. The school board is preparing to negotiate this crucial issue with the union beginning in March.

More broadly, the crisis team needs teachers’ support to implement some of the operational and procedural agreements it may reach with the school board in the future.

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