Changing Names

What’s wrong with this picture? Where to begin?

This is the photograph which accompanied the story yesterday about the name change of this school from J.E.B. Stuart to Barack Obama Elementary school. While the comments section was blowing up with outrage about the name change, I couldn’t stop looking at the broken glass, the stuck window and the grass that hadn’t been mowed in weeks. Then I researched the school and learned about the abysmal test scores, the plague of underachievement by whatever metric you chose to measure the actual educating going on inside his building...and I thought, Changing the name of this school from J.E.B. Stuart to Barack Obama is the educational equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But, by all means, let’s spend six months studying and $26,000 changing the name of this school.

Ok, I suppose I should make something clear...I don’t object to schools changing their names. I completely understand and have great sympathy for the idea that maybe a school which is 90% African-American might not want to any longer be named for a Civil War General, who although perhaps the finest cavalry officer of the entire war (despite his lapse at Gettysburg), fought for the losing side, a side which was fighting, among other things, to preserve the legality of human bondage. So, if a school in 2018 wants to fly under a new banner, one that might inspire more pride in the community they serve, I have no problem with it.

But, that picture...

Richmond City schools have a boatload of big problems. Their buildings are crumbling. Their students consistently underperform in English, science and math scores. Half the time they can’t even get the furnaces to work in the winter and the air conditioning to work in the summer. But they can commission a study on changing the name of one their schools, come up with a list of ten candidates, even let the kids and teachers vote on the thing, then pick the guy who came in tenth in the voting as the winner. What could possibly go wrong?

But, at least it’s done now. The kids no longer will have to be called Stuart’s Stars. 

That should fix everything.