This week was quite explosive when Dan Concannon, a site coordinator for the Manchester School District’s 21st Century Community Learning Center, resigned based on what appears to be a violation of his civil rights. Manchester administrators cannot violate the civil rights of black or white employees, yet here we are.
Concannon submitted a complaint that is riddled with potential civil rights violations.
Related: My Original Complaint to the Manchester School District
I’ve been a strong advocate for improving the public schools in New Hampshire, including Manchester. Several years ago, I helped parents in Manchester fight for better quality standards, curriculum, and testing. Unfortunately, the former Superintendent, Deb Livingston, felt that the dumbed-down Common Core standards were adequate. They were not and, they are not adequate today — yet here we are.
Many parents in cities care about their children.
While this district may have additional challenges not seen in places like Bedford, you cannot discount immigrant parents or the working middle-class parents that reside in this city. But that’s what they’ve been doing.
For the last decade, children in Manchester have been deprived of quality instruction in mathematics, English, science, and every other core subject.
Several years ago, former Assistant Superintendent David Ryan (now Superintendent in SAU16/Exeter) offered a presentation to the Manchester School Board Members on how they were going to teach Civics to Manchester students. He showed a video of young children discussing how they were going to engage their elected representatives on the subject of police brutality. In other words, this was a lesson on community organizing.
This wasn’t a lesson in academic content, this was a lesson on turning children into illiterate political mules. That’s what Civics action is all about. Turning children into community organizers instead of educating them in the core academic content. Promoting illiteracy is not funny, yet here we are.
The Manchester administrators developed new academic standards after the pleading from parents. What did they come up with? The administrators led by Deb Livingston and David Ryan developed standards that practically mirrored the dumbed-down Common Core standards. This cost the taxpayers $16,000.00 of their hard-earned money.
Essentially the taxpayers were scammed.
Deb Livingston had access to the top English and Math professors to advise them but instead, they chose to dismiss their expertise in order to cater to bureaucrats who push these failed fads in the schools.
These children haven’t had a decent math program in this school for over a decade. From the failed fuzzy Everyday Math to Common Core Math, Manchester children continue to be subjected to poor quality math programs.
Manchester Proud is now pushing more failed fads in the district. They haven’t addressed any of this poor quality curriculum used in the classroom.
Where has Mayor Joyce Craig ever advocated for improving the quality of the academic content and pushing for improving the academic outcomes for all of the students?
The Mayor, current Superintendent, and School Board members have been failing these children. Now we see that their focus hasn’t been on quality academic content, but pushing a radical extremist racist agenda on the staff. What is pushed on the staff will be carried directly to the children.
These children deserve better. Their parents deserve better.
If those in charge are not going to prioritize academic excellence, then there are alternatives. There are now options for parents who need financial assistance. If these people will not look out for your children, then it’s time to find an alternative.
I will continue to fight for our public schools, even when those in charge- fail. But if you need an alternative for now, I’m happy to share this information with you
