From the Publisher Send Out The Clowns

IN THE JUMBLE OF MISFIRES. BACKSTAB-bing, deceit, and confusion that produced our sixth new school superintendent in five years, one incident was too classic to be forgotten. It should be entered in the annals of Dallas history.
The school board had narrowed its field of candidates from 60 down to two, One of the two was a black superintendent from California, where they found Bill Rojas. His school district is about the size of Santa Fe, where they found Yvonne Gonzales. Three of our black trustees were adamant that Dallas hire a black. So they voted for the black guy. He’s black, right? After he lost, the News” Paul Pringle looked up the guy’s voting record and discovered that he is registered in the American Independent Party, which was founded by George Wallace.
But they were right about the main thing: The guy is black.
These people are too much fun.
Really, you expect to see Dallas school board members enter one of their meetings by piling out of a little red car and squirting seltzer at each other.
The entire buffoonish exercise in picking a new superintendent was motivated by one thing: to avoid knuckling under to the Dallas business community. These school board members, who in some cases have been elected by as many as 120 of their fellow citizens, think they’ve earned their place in the sun. They like those reserved parking spots. They like it when the cameras begin to whirl. They strut and they posture and they preen, and they try mightily to ask weighty questions to show that they’re on top of things.
Mediocrities have ticklish egos. So when business leaders had the audacity to suggest that the enormous problems in Dallas schools might be the fault of the people in charge-that is, them-they bit back in the only way they knew how: by reneging on agreements, flailing around for new candidates, and doing anything-anything-that might preserve their own tender esteem of themselves.
To compare this latest folly to a circus act is an insult to clowns.
A recent study revealed that incompetent people don’t know they are incompetent. They apparently careen from one disaster to another without ever realizing the disasters are of their own making. I fa psychology department somewhere is looking for a case study, they need go no farther than 3700 Ross Ave.
Business leaders are now trying to recruit candidates to run in the May election, when the entire board is up. They say they don’t intend to run a slate. That’s a mistake. They need to run a slate. The usual protesters and the teachers union will make a fuss about “interference.” So what? They’ll fuss anyway.
The voters need a clear choice. Only then will we know if this show must go on.