I admire courage, and I see it in every part of life.
In the first responders who come with flashing lights and sirens, in entrepreneurs who open a business, in mothers and fathers who aren’t sure where their next dollar is comingfrom. In people who are picked on, in people who proclaim their faith, in people who battle doubt and uncertainty.
And sometimes, very rarely, in elected officials. In people who have been entrusted with the votes and the dreams of their neighbors.
Like the other night at the school board.
When five strong women stood up to a howling mob, the evening news, the conniving politicians, an angry union, two presidential candidates, and arguably the most powerful politicalorganizations in our state and nation.
Cynthia Elliott, Beatriz LeBron, Liz Hallmark, Judith Davis and Willa Powell.
Five women who, as they cast their votes, were the mothers and protectors of every student in this massive and struggling district.
In almost 40 years in the news business, I have never seen a greater or more touching display of bravery by elected officials. What they did came at a very high price, of socialostracism and political opposition, and yet they unflinchingly paid it. They cast their votes for what they knew was right, without regard for their own personal interests or ambitions.
They were true leaders.
And they were courageous.
And that should be recognized.
The backstory is a once-vibrant city whose school district has fallen into a generation of immoral failure – immoral in that it has stolen from countless young people the opportunityfor a basic education. Numberless futures have been dimmed or denied because dishonorable and incompetent people perverted the Rochester City School District into a gravy train for adults instead of a ladder upward for children.
And then, earlier this year, a new superintendent came to town. The best superintendent in my 30 years of covering the district. A servant leader instead of a resume padder. Andhe is charting a course.
A course that begins with cleaning up the financial mess of previous administrations, including the seemingly criminal concealment of a $30 million budget shortfall.
The resultant necessary layoffs became a battleground for the entrenched teachers union, whose president has been the shadow superintendent for most of a generation. The fightmorphed into whether it was going to be business as usual, or if it was going to be a crusade to re-enthrone education and kids.
And the union came loaded for bear.
Its president laid out a multi-day string of demonstrations and job actions, each meant to draw sympathetic television coverage and to put pressure on school board members toreject the superintendent. Students and parents were mobilized, pushed forward in public meetings and before the TV cameras. On the night of the final vote, the last of a handful of packed public meetings, four hours of speakers railed against the board.
The union-driven denunciations included Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, tweeting from the stratosphere at the behest of national donors.
The union also brought in the presidents of its state and national affiliates, the biggest political donors in Albany and Washington. In 2012, New York State United Teachers gave almost $5 million in political contributions, and, on average, the American Federation of Teachers donates 30% more per federal election cycle than any other corporation or special interest.
That’s raw, brutal power. And the presence of the leaders of those unions was not a show of solidarity, it was a threat.
The entire effort was a threat. It was bullying. It was intended to be personally and politically intimidating.
That’s what the fearless five faced.
And they stood strong. While others bowed in compliance or sat silent in fear.
An assemblyman, feckless in actual assistance to the district and obstructionist in the mayor’s efforts to direct it, chimed in with the union. Candidates for state senate marchedfor the cameras in front of district headquarters. Even the mayor, so loud for so long about the district, hid away and refused comment.
And there those women were.
The reality was that not only did they face opposition before their vote, they would most assuredly face destruction after it – if they chose the superintendent over the union.The teachers are an army of political volunteers, with a mountain of political cash, and payback would be certain and vicious. Not just in any future elections the five might be in, but in the tightly knit circle of Rochester politics, non-profits and business.
To vote “yes” meant that the board members were done in politics. It also meant that they would probably face vindictive retaliation in their personal and professional lives.
That’s the reality they faced.
And that’s the reality they ignored, as they chose duty over self-interest.
I am certain these women and I don’t vote the same way. We have different world views and political affiliations. I suspect we seldom agree on the issues of the day.
But I am in awe of their courage, and grateful for the good they have chosen to do. In their way, in that moment, when so much depended on them, they were truly noble. And I don’twant the shouting and hectoring and mocking they faced from an angry crowd to be Rochester’s memory of what they did.
This is the city of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, people who courageously did what was right.
It is also, in the same vein, the city of Cynthia Elliott, Beatriz LeBron, Liz Hallmark, Judith Davis and Willa Powell.