Do ‘candidates for change’ want to save KC public school district — or tear it down?

Voters in the April 6 election that will decide who should sit on the Kansas City Public School Board will be choosing between two vastly different approaches.

They can stay with an incumbent who argues that through a redesign of administrative systems, changes in curriculum and a focus on hiring more teachers of color over the last four years, the board is making slow but steady progress toward improving student achievement in a district that’s been labeled as failing for more than two decades. That incumbent is Pattie Mansur.

Or, they can choose newcomers who advocate a more aggressive approach. Those newcomers, Tanesha Ford, who is running against Mansur, and Kandace Buckner, who is up against another first-time candidate, Bruce Beatty, are promising a more radical course.

Ford and Buckner are Black mothers with backgrounds in education who accuse the current board of not being transparent, not engaging with parents and lacking urgency when it comes to focusing on delivering a better education for children of color.

This isn’t Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders. But like that contest, this election, too, is really an argument between those who think that incrementalism will bring the best results, and maybe even the most change, and those who say no, what hasn’t worked in the past won’t work in the future, either.

Even a voter who’d sat through the half-dozen or so candidate forums hosted, via Zoom, by civic organizations and local education advocacy groups, might not realize that the choice really comes down to whether to stay the course or try something new.

Mansur, the current board president, and Ford are vying for an at-large seat. Buckner and Bruce Beatty, both seeking their first seat on the board, are running in Sub-district 5. Incumbents Rita Cortes and Manuel Abarca are uncontested.

KCPS board races are usually tame, but the competition for seats this year is intense, with Buckner and Ford getting support from a nonprofit operating as a quasi-political machine that began working in the city last year.

Abarca, who is Latino, doesn’t have a challenger himself but set off an explosion when he referenced race in a recent public forum, telling nonwhite Kansas Citians that candidates “who look like you may not be for you.”

That led a Ford and Buckner supporter to Abarca’s doorstep and to a social media back-and-forth that had nothing to do with educating children.

With charter schools, KCPS enrollment down by half

Every candidate says they’re putting children first. But none has explained in any detail how they’d do something better than what has been done.

Focus more on student achievement, Ford and Buckner say, and engage parents more.

“We have accepted less than mediocrity in this district for far too long and we need to press turbo on student achievement,” said Buckner, a teaching coach for Kansas City Teacher Residency. She has two children, one attending a charter and the other in a district school.

“I want to promote a culture of transparency with sharing data around student outcomes,” said Ford, who is the executive director of Kauffman Scholars and the mother of a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old.

Some who support the incumbents counter that the challengers want to diminish district control and strengthen school choice and charter school expansion efforts.

Ford, Buckner and their supporters vehemently deny that. They call that narrative a distraction from the real issues — low test scores, low graduation rates and a district where 80% of students are behind grade level in math and science. One where only 38% of teachers are people of color in a district where 90% of students are Black or brown and all of them qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches.

Their goal, they say, is to disrupt the status quo and set higher expectations for district students.

With the growth of charter schools over the last two decades, Kansas City district enrollment fell by half, to 14,000 students, forcing the closure of dozens of schools. KCPS lost state accreditation because of poor student attendance, bad grades, low graduation rates and more. It has been fighting ever since to get its accreditation back. It’s come close a few times in the last four years under Superintendent Mark Bedell and is still close now. State educators are reviewing data and promised a decision this year.

That’s one reason, Mansur says, that after seven years on the board, she wants more time. “I want to support the district in securing full accreditation and keep the focus on academic growth for every student. I also believe KCPS students are bright and talented and should be the talent pipeline for this region’s future industries and careers.”

Accreditation could save the district from the enrollment drain that sucks money from KCPS. When students leave, state dollars go with them. Half the students living in KCPS boundaries attend public charters.

Missouri lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow more charters around Kansas City.

That, plus suspicion that some candidates are being helped by a group that favors school choice, has district leaders on edge going into this election.

Kauffman, Hall foundations support candidates

“There are people who want to see the district fail and they are backing some candidates for this board,” Abarca told The Star. “I think that people who care about KCPS and want to see a successful school district need to know that.”

Here’s what he’s talking about: A group connected to the nonprofit supporting candidates Ford and Buckner has been funded by The Kauffman Foundation and The Hall Foundation.

Seven years ago those foundations backed a plan to unravel and reshape the public school system in Kansas City. The effort, led by an Indianapolis organization called CEE-Trust, failed.

In 2017, SchoolSmart KC, which supports improving district and charter schools in Kansas City, was started with Kauffman and Hall funding. While not connected to the Indianapolis group, its ideas are similar.

Its plan lets families choose among schools that are judged by their students’ success.

Cities that have embraced this approach, such as Denver and New Orleans, have seen an increase in charters. The Denver Public School District has also seen an increase in competition among schools.

Has the model been a success? It certainly hasn’t closed the achievement gap between Black and white students. In fact, Denver has the third largest achievement gap in the country. Now Denver is considering taking another look at its structure.

The SchoolSmart framework aims to get the community invested in establishing a landscape of high performing charter, district neighborhood and signature public schools and let parents choose the school they believe best meets their child’s needs.

Nonprofit BLAQUE won’t disclose donors

“We need to rebuild, need families to partner with educators,” said Awais Sufi, president of SchoolSmart. “There is no way to sustain change without a community engaged and excited about the system.” After decades of low performance, “many in the community did not believe in the school system.”

While SchoolSmart doesn’t give money to candidates, it does contribute to BLAQUE (Black Leaders Advancing Quality Urban Education) a nonprofit formed in 2020. Its CEO and founder, Cokethea Hill, previously worked for SchoolSmart. Through its ”candidate classroom,” it identified residents willing to jump into the school board race.

BLAQUE is not saying where its money comes from, and as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, it doesn’t have to. But voters should know who’s funding candidates for a public school board.

According to its website, the group’s goal is “advancing educational equity to significantly improve the outcomes for African American children in public schools.” Everyone wants that.

Legally, BLAQUE can’t toss money into a candidate’s campaign coffers. But it can, and has, spent close to $70,000 promoting Ford and Buckner in radio and newspaper advertisements and mailers naming the two as “candidates for change.”

KCPS officials wonder why BLAQUE would spend more on behalf of these two candidates than all four challenged candidates have raised, combined.

“This has never happened before,” Mansur says. “Why now? Is it really about equity, student performance and an achievement gap, or is it something else?”

Cokethea Hill, BLAQUE CEO and founder, says the notion that BLAQUE or the candidates it supports are engaged in an effort to undermine the district is, “a misinformation campaign and scare tactics” that “serve as a proof point for why an organization like BLAQUE was formed and needs to exist.”

The choices here are slow and steady progress or an approach that opponents see as seeking to destroy the district in order to save it.

The question isn’t whether Kansas City’s children deserve change, but which approach is most likely to deliver it.

This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.