Harry Jaffe, The Examiner
2008-01-28 17:03:27.0
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WASHINGTON -

Marion Barry once described himself as a "situationist," his way of putting a positive spin on what he has proven himself to be lo these many years, an opportunist, plain and simple.

The former mayor-for-life is honing his skills as an opportunist once again in the city's current, contentious debate over school closings. A responsible, morally upright politician might level with his constituents and tell them their children would be better served by a modernized school with a full array of classes and extracurricular activities, rather than a half-empty school with a leaky roof and no music or art classes.

Not our Marion Barry.

In meeting after meeting, Barry has pandered to the few, vociferous opponents of closing schools, any schools. He leads them in chants against Mayor Adrian Fenty and Chancellor Michelle Rhee. He brandishes protest signs and makes false promises to stand in the way of change.

Allow me to use this "situation" to make the case that Marion Barry bears the ultimate responsibility for the disgraceful state of many D.C. public schools. It has taken decades of neglect to bring a once-proud school system to its knees. Barry is the architect of that neglect.

Here are the facts:

Barry came to town in 1965 as a militant civil rights activist. But in 1971, he abandoned his street organizing to run for School Board. Driving around town with a placard saying "United To Save The Children," he won and was elected president of the board.

He didn't improve education but he did steer school contracts to political allies. He also started building a political base. In 1974 he abandoned the schools to run for D.C. Council. He won an at-large seat and became finance committee chair. The needs of educating children took a backseat to connecting with developers and raising money for his first mayoral run in 1978.

Barry ran for mayor on the promise of improving education. Once elected, he employed the bait and switch; the schools were run by an independent school board, he said, which tied his hands. He allowed the teacher's union to amass power. He tried to hold down school budgets. His role model for kids? Mayor Night Owl.

On Barry's watch of four terms - starting in 1978 and ending in 1996 - the schools fell into disrepair, parents lost their focus on education, drug dealers took over the playgrounds, teachers lost control of classrooms. Barry rarely visited schools and gradually descended into various personal addictions.

One more thing: Barry padded his bureaucracy with poorly educated graduates of D.C. schools. And he didn't train them.

Am I piling on? Perhaps, but facts are facts. For 37 years, since he first ran for office in 1971, Barry has aided and abetted the demise of our schools. For Barry to now argue against school reform is beyond hypocrisy.

Council members who join Barry's latest "situationist" gambit run the risk of withholding a decent education from more generations of Washingtonians.

hjaffe@washingtonian.com