new superintendent

I haven't read much about Anthony Amato, the man hired yesterday to be the Kansas City school district's next superintendent, but I like what I've read so far. Tony found an excelent article in an education trade mag that paints Amato as a reformer who got run out of town for shaking things up too much. That's what we need here -- minus the run-out-of-town part.

I'm a little distrubed by the vote, though. I generally like and respect Marilynn Simmons, Helen Ragsdale and Claude Harris, all of whom voted against him. The Star article states that they dissented because Amato was wishy washy during the application process. I'm not sure if that's a good enough reason, and I'm tempted to read between the lines, though try as I may I can't detect the subplot.

Though I thought the DA article was good, I was deeply disturbed by it. I just can't understand this corruption-in-the-school system stuff. Like, how can you steal from kids? I know it's happening here in KC. I've recently learned that $15,000 has come up missing at a local school -- $15,000 that had been donated by a local business. How can these grown-ups do this crap?

I have hard time believing in the whole concept of hell. But folks like this make me desperately hope and wish that hell is true, and that it burns and hurts and sucks to the infinite power.