Mother Meria has been shown the door by our neighbors at APS with her contract conveniently ending coincident with our shutting down the Dr. Green Machine. If the DeKalb BoE has not already made overtures to Dr. Carstarphen they are fools. And yes, there is much evidence in the dossier that they fools they be.
There are many reasons to aggressively pursue Carstarphen for the DCSD job. She's smart. She's capable. She's ebullient, inciting enthusiasm in everyone she touches: students, parents, teachers and the general public. Yet she's a hard-nosed advocate for students and their education and will allow no one, even entitled stakeholders, to long impede her progress. As best as anyone can suss out she simply ran afoul of entrenched groups more powerful than competent that are directly or indirectly part of the very problem she was hired to fix. Once she'd cleaned up the stink of their cronies they re-emerged to exert their expulsive force. They wanted cleanup and coverup rather than substantial change that would disenfranchise their legacy power base.
But that is exactly what DCSD needs. We need someone who will come in unafraid of ruffling feathers if that happens in a drive to put students first. If that means personnel changes she knows how to make those changes. If it requires hard choices and hard sells, she can do it. How do we know this? Because we've watched her do it. What we have with Carstarphen that we will get from no other candidate is that we have been vicariously trying before we buy. She is more of a known quantity than any other candidate we are likely find by any other means and at any other cost. And she is a known good quantity.
In her interview the AJC closed with this quote:
There are many reasons to aggressively pursue Carstarphen for the DCSD job. She's smart. She's capable. She's ebullient, inciting enthusiasm in everyone she touches: students, parents, teachers and the general public. Yet she's a hard-nosed advocate for students and their education and will allow no one, even entitled stakeholders, to long impede her progress. As best as anyone can suss out she simply ran afoul of entrenched groups more powerful than competent that are directly or indirectly part of the very problem she was hired to fix. Once she'd cleaned up the stink of their cronies they re-emerged to exert their expulsive force. They wanted cleanup and coverup rather than substantial change that would disenfranchise their legacy power base.
But that is exactly what DCSD needs. We need someone who will come in unafraid of ruffling feathers if that happens in a drive to put students first. If that means personnel changes she knows how to make those changes. If it requires hard choices and hard sells, she can do it. How do we know this? Because we've watched her do it. What we have with Carstarphen that we will get from no other candidate is that we have been vicariously trying before we buy. She is more of a known quantity than any other candidate we are likely find by any other means and at any other cost. And she is a known good quantity.
In her interview the AJC closed with this quote:
"I know we are a challenge, but if you really love kids, if you really don't mind putting your back into hard work, if you want to be a full-service superintendent like I am, there's plenty of work to do."Yeah, we'll take her. The question is would she even consider us?
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