Mark Bedell’s energy spurred change in Kansas City schools. I was his fan at ‘hello’
Candidates for high-level jobs usually don’t respond to reporters who they think might be digging for dirt. But in unconventional fashion, Mark Bedell returned my call that day six years ago. An assistant superintendent working in Baltimore, Bedell was eager to share his story and hopes for changing the trajectory forward for Kansas City Public Schools, where he was shortlisted for the superintendent job.
So, to steal a phrase from a popular movie, he had me at hello. At the time I’d been an education writer in Kansas City for nearly 20 years. Seen superintendents come and go. And, yes, I liked this guy’s energy.
On his first visit, he spoke to a packed house at Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts high school, full of parents, teachers, community members, civic leaders and area education advocates. I watched heads nodding in acceptance as he talked about having grown up poor in an urban setting and an unstable household. At one point, he said, he’d been homeless. He talked, too, about how he’d survived and indeed soared above those circumstances with the help of adult mentors who encouraged him, supported him. He would do the same for KCPS students. In fact, one of his first moves was to create a community-to-student mentoring program, which he himself participated in.
Bedell made it clear that he already knew a lot of the students he would encounter in Kansas City, because he had been one of them.
With his credibility growing on the audience that night, he said that he would fight for the kids. “I’m willing to be a martyr for the kids,” he said. If the district said yes to him, which it ultimately did, he promised he would not be leaving, as too many others before him had, after two years on the job. Last week, he announced he’s leaving for a superintendent’s job in Maryland. He’s been in Kansas City six years, the longest of any superintendent here in 50 years.
In 2016 when Bedell signed that first three-year, $225,000-a-year contract, district enrollment was shrinking, student achievement lagged behind overall state numbers, and KCPS still had not regained the state accreditation lost in 2011. Moreover, the district had a long-standing reputation for failing.
This was Bedell’s first superintendent job and the promise he made coming through the door to take the district to full accreditation seemed too daunting to me. But, like the competitive athlete he’d been in college, he stepped on the district’s court and took a shot.
Just a few months into his job, the district celebrated its highest state scores in 30 years and was in line for full accreditation. Bedell knew getting there hadn’t been his doing. And as it turned out, that was a good thing. He would learn his predecessor had cheated on attendance records to get those scores. The day Bedell disclosed that deception was the first time I would see him angry. That misdeed cost the district money and ground on its road to accreditation.
Students treated him like a celebrity
By the way, basketball references are appropriate in Bedell’s case because that’s one of the ways he connected with young men in Kansas City, playing pickup ball on the weekends on courts around the city. He also spent a lot of time in the schools just talking with teachers and students from elementary to high school about whatever they wanted to talk about.
I remember covering an event at Central Academy of Excellence high school, where track and field star John Carlos — one of the two Black Olympians who’d famously thrust a fist in the air during the 1968 Olympic medal ceremony — was to speak to students. Bedell walked into the school’s library and students surrounded him, shaking his hand and hugging him, as if he was the celebrity. Bedell knew everyone’s name. They talked like friends who respected each other. I had never seen a superintendent do that. Most students don’t even know what their superintendent looks like.
He not only played the inside game, but he also knew how to get the attention of the world beyond the school walls. During his six years at the helm in KCPS, Bedell relentlessly promoted his district and bragged on his scholars and staff, because he knew of course that their successes were also his.
He strategized with local and state education leaders to protect schools from any threats to diminish public education. He told me once that he really wanted to see Kansas City voters support a school bond issue, because one hadn’t passed in the district since the 1960s. Maybe the next superintendent can get that done.
Bedell did convince skeptical area business leaders the district was on the road to improvement and gained their partnership in the effort.
But Bedell hasn’t always been the cheerleader. In 2019, he led superintendents of 13 other school districts in opposition to then-Mayor Sly James’s plan to increase taxes for universal preschool education. Bedell supported more pre-K but felt James’s plan would strip school districts’ control of the program and give public money to private pre-K providers. The plan failed. And universal pre-K still hasn’t happened.
District enrollment looks stable at around 14,000 students. Student successes are up. Graduation rates jumped double digits in his last five years from 68% to 78%. Schools have more advanced placement course offerings than ever, and international baccalaureate scores are up, too. He’s leaving as his executive staff takes on plans to address equity across the district by closing some schools because there are too many facilities and not enough kids.
But with the deputy superintendent he groomed, Jennifer Collier, stepping in as interim, Bedell says “the district is in good hands.”
“Leaving is tough,” he said, adding, “it’s the right time to go.”
I agree. If he had to leave, it should be on a high note, like right after having gained the long-elusive accreditation.
Middle school stabbing took a toll
Before his Friday press conference, the last time I’d seen Bedell, he appeared drained of the propulsive energy I had been so impressed with the first time we talked.
He’d just lost a student, a 14-year-old boy, who was stabbed to death by another student in the bathroom of their middle school.
That kind of violence and other social ills — “racism, injustice and economic disparity” — are what makes running an urban district so stressful, Bedell said Friday.
“This is a hard job.” he said.
But Bedell is both an educator and a learner, and “now I have an opportunity to diversify my experiences,” he said. “I tell my kids this: As a leader, everything you do should be shooting for the moon, and if you land somewhere among the stars, at least you set your sights high.”
So where’s his moon? Bedell would love to someday land in the U.S. Secretary of Education seat. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him there. When he leaves here in August, I — like much of the rest of Kansas City — will be forever grateful that this warrior for kids and education passed through Kansas City and left it better off.
