HAMILTON: Bianco, Pridgen and Weller need to see the principal

Columns

Related Photos

June 11, 2009

By Ken Hamilton The Niagara Gazette Thu Jun 11, 2009, 07:49 PM EDT

Lewiston-Porter school board president Robert Weller has been sending racist and sexist e-mails for friends and colleagues, and seemingly doesn’t truly understand what is wrong with doing so. Former Buffalo school board member the Rev. Darius Pridgen, a community-activist preacher, planned on bringing members of his True Bethel Baptist Church, located on Buffalo’s eastside, northward to Lewiston to protest Weller’s actions, unless Weller apologizes for those e-mails.

Any reasonable person would find a school board president doing such to be reprehensible, and Pridgen is right to be indignant; however, I am uncomfortable with this one on many fronts.

It is unlikely that a whole lot of True Bethel’s members know where Lewiston is, or have ever been there. Business First Magazine has rated Lewiston-Porter school district as the 11th of the 97 districts in Western New York. As racist or sexist as their school board president may seem to be, the black kids — as few as there are — and the white female students are getting a good education and can one day either escape Lewiston’s prosperity and create greater prosperity elsewhere.

But the magazine has rated Buffalo’s school district, even after Pridgen’s stint on the board, as once again the worst in Western New York; and because their school board president hasn’t sent any racist or sexist e-mails to their friends and colleagues, no one seems to be protesting that?

While someone should be up in arms about Weller, it is not Pridgen or True Bethel: it is the few black parents that send their children to that school district and the many white parents who send their daughters there.

But while Weller is sending his e-mails that suggests that black men don’t want to work, Chelsea Clinton being upset that her mother was getting beaten by a black man (Obama), and that women are supposed to take a subservient role to men and be in the kitchen cooking all of the time, their school board still see their students as “the apple of their eye.”

Not so in Niagara Falls. Business First rated the Niagara Falls School District at only 5-points above Buffalo’s at the 92nd position. That is 81 points behind Weller and his Lew-Port district. Eighty-one!!! And as Lew-Port is actually educating their “apples,” because that is what a school district is supposed to be doing, Niagara Falls schools superintendent Cynthia Bianco defended the district’s poor showing by saying that the magazine is comparing “apples to oranges.”

Apples to oranges!!!

As Weller was sending bigoted e-mails to his friends and colleagues, Bianco was telegraphing to the world that the kids in Niagara Falls were somehow different and learning impaired. Apples to oranges in this case sounds more like she‘s really trying to say, ‘marshmallows to chocolate chips.’ What is she saying that is different than what Weller is doing?

E-mail to Bianco, let me school you on something — and this is no joke — they are all kids, all of them, and they can all learn. And some of the schools in the district are doing a pretty good job teaching them. Geraldine J. Mann Elementary School finished a respectable 66 out of the region’s 292 elementary schools. Henry Kalfas, 79th and Hyde Park schools finished ahead of Prince of Peace and while not great Niagara Street and Harry F. Abate finished at least 55 points from the bottom. Our new state-of-the-art high school, a model for the rest of the state, finished 117 out of 131 high schools.

Perhaps, right after Pridgen finishes making Weller apologize (and well he should), and protesting the poor results that his Buffalo school district is getting, he can come back to Niagara Falls and organize a protest of our unapologetic school superintendent, who apparently believes that the poor, dumb, kids in her district can produce no better results than are the grades on her stalled and segregating HOPE-VI Project. One may actually keep the other exactly where they are.

Here’s a simple principle of education. For the most part, kids do what you expect them to do. If Lew-Port is able to provide an excellent education to prepare its children to expand their prosperity, even though its board president is sending bigoted e-mails to friends and colleagues, then perhaps our board and superintendent should come straight out and send bigoted e-mails to each other, rather than saying that our kids are different from other kids, then under-educating and sending them into a posh, public housing projects, unable to escape their poverty.

Perhaps Bianco, Pridgen and Weller all need to go see the principal.

Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. Contact him at kenhamilton930@aol.com.

Text Only | Photo Reprints

Columns

HAMILTON: Dandelions, parades, broken poles and people
There are still those remnants of the fading bouquets of floral tributes that still hang at that base of a tree on city hall’s lawn. It is near where, last year, from his shiny silvery cart, Melvin Johnson sold hot dogs and sausages to both city employees and passerbys while his tiny white dog excitingly yelped at anyone that came near.

May 24, 2012 1 Photo
No Headline Provided
May 24, 2012
GLYNN: Gillibrand seeks help for prime bread-winners
A recent report shows that working mothers across the Empire State earn nearly 15 percent lower pay for the same work as men.

May 23, 2012 1 Photo
BRADBERRY: There really are spirits in the water
Over the centuries since it was “discovered” hundreds of millions of people have traveled from every corner of the world to visit Niagara Falls making it the most visited of the great waterfalls on the planet.

May 22, 2012 1 Photo
CONFER: The reality of rationed health care
The ongoing debate over Obamacare has brought to light the concept of rationed healthcare. Opponents of health care reform keenly point out that while the bill never explicitly calls out rationing, it features certain provisions that will lead the markets to adjust to strict federal demands and, therefore, dispense certain procedures in smaller amounts or not at all. Because of it being the first time that the subject has really come up in public circles, most people, especially on the right, believe that rationing is something new. It’s not. The free markets have been practicing that for quite some time. I should know; with a 4-inch long, 1-inch wide scar running south of my belly button – and a couple of related scars around my groin – I could be the poster child for rationed health care.

May 21, 2012 1 Photo
CITY DESK: A regrettable error
We owe Carol Sensabough an apology.

Several weeks ago, the long-time reader and Niagara Falls resident sent a letter to the editor explaining that she took offense to some of the things written by a syndicated columnist, Stephen Dick.

May 21, 2012 1 Photo
HIGGS: Niagara Falls' own West Side story
Trusello’s Bakery was on Elmwood behind the family home at 840 19th St. The family, Richard, William (Billy) and Sam along with two sisters, lived in the house.

May 21, 2012 1 Photo
GLYNN: Falls, Ont., rolls out red carpet for Wallenda
Before Nik Wallenda even started practicing his high-wire routine in downtown Niagara Falls, state Sen.George D. Maziarz, R-Newfane, had noted the warm welcome the tightrope walker received across the river.

May 20, 2012 1 Photo
HAMILTON: Civic ‘ParticipAction’ can work too
Back in the 1970s, our Neighbors to the North ran a national campaign called ParticipAction to encourage Canadians to get off their butts and do things for the sakes of their bodies.

May 17, 2012 1 Photo
GLYNN: Graduates find they’re in staggering debt
Countless senior citizens often gripe about something, sometimes even with good reason. Perhaps they should consider themselves fortunate, compared with the younger generation.

May 16, 2012 1 Photo
More Columns Headlines

Columns

Search Results

Related Photos

HAMILTON: Bianco, Pridgen and Weller need to see the principal

Site Map

Contact Us