Results Don't Matter, Only Intent Matters

One of the benefits of my recent conversion to liberalism is the freedom from having to demonstrate positive results for anything; as long as I have good in my heart--and what liberal doesn't?!--I'm considered a good person.  As an example, just a couple days ago I wrote this post about closing the achievement gap by giving members of certain racial and ethnic groups A's.  Then today I read about this school principal, whose intelligence, righteousness, and caring I can only dream of reaching someday:

It’s not surprising Portland schools need more money. The district sent 93 teachers, principals and administrators to San Antonio for a five-day conference on “Courageous Conversations” about race, reports the Portland Tribune. More teachers were sent for five days of equity training in Oregon. All this is run by the Office of Equity, which has grown from one to seven employees in the past year.

At Harvey Scott K-8 school, 20 current and former teachers and staff members told the Tribune that Principal Verenice Gutierrez’s focus on race has created a “hostile environment” for students, staff and parents. Fearing a Courageous Conversations backlash, they all asked to be anonymous...

Scott’s “kids of whiteness” feel excluded, one teacher said.

This is because they don't accept their white privilege.

One would expect that this principal, who is bringing utopia to earth before our very eyes, would be proud of her achievements.  But why should she be?  She's only doing what she thinks is right and good, she's only doing what should be done--no reason to reward that.

But now that things are as they should be, how is the school doing?  How are the students doing?

Teachers have filed grievances with their union — or just quit. Twenty-six teachers — about half the staff — left after Gutierrez’ first year at Scott. Eight left the following year. The principal vowed to hire only bilingual teachers who are native speakers of Spanish. She wants to turn Scott into a bilingual immersion school...

Enrollment is dropping, which Guitierrez blames on “white flight.” Scott’s enrollment is 52 percent Latino, 20 percent white, 13 percent black (mostly Somali) and 8 percent Asian (mostly Vietnamese). The school scores in the bottom 15 percent statewide...

So far, asking kids about their skin color isn’t working either, according to district data. Scott’s math and reading scores seem to be declining. The school made adequate yearly progress in seven of eight years before Gutierrez took over, but has failed AYP since.

Institutional racism. The Dominant Local Culture (I've learned it's much more effective if you Capitalize Important Words) doesn't want this school to succeed, which just shows why we need even more effort put into the types of programs that Principal Gutierrez promotes.  There's so much more work to be done.

 Update, 11/15/12:  It was all a joke, I didn't really turn liberal :-)