I’m pleased with the outcome of the school board primary. Alanna Oswald, whose chief blemish is that she successfully got the school district to teach her child in a western school the complete course work state law demands, will be on the General election ballot. With a blemish like that she should be a shoe in – except that there are a lot of fans of the board majority who don’t mind that their heroes squandered a quarter-million dollars on sham excuses to remove Art Johnston. Art won’t shut up about the District’s inequality – damn him.
And that inequity is in the News today for all to see. Denfeld with its 900 students has a hard time offering what is available in East high with its 1600 student enrollment. This is the result of the Red Plan which promised so much more. For folks who tell us that the Red Plan is over………..they are oh, so, very, wrong. Its aftermath continues to plague this city.
This post is one of a long succession about how we can truly put the Red Plan behind us by fixing what the Red Plan broke. But first I’d like to ponder the kind of people who make big changes in the world for good or ill like Superintendent Keith Dixon and stubborn question asker Art Johnston.
It may take a guy like Keith Dixon to get a half billion school building project through. I’ll have more to say, reiterate really, about Keith Dixon before the General election roles around in 49 days but let me remind folks of the first thing he did in Duluth on the first day he was in town. He lied through his teeth and was caught on camera.
Dixon was a smooth talker and charismatic. His first day in Duluth he was invited to participate in a town square discussion of the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial honoring the victims of Duluth’s infamous lynching. He made a couple weepy contributions to the conversation which I found a little too incredible. This is one of them:
You can read a much fuller account of this particular lie here but here is the thumbnail version: Keith Dixon claimed he spoke to his black roommate in his college days late into the night which helped him finally understand the problems faced by black Americans. This was a wonderful story in the circumstances but it was hokum. I couldn’t believe that it was statistically likely that a white kid in lily white Colorado in the early Sixties was likely to have a black roommate. Eventually I met the supposed black roommate. He was a famous Minnesota Viking. He had no memory of his old roommate Keith Dixon.
When Gary Glass asked the chairman of the Faribault school district to sum up Keith in two words she was succinct – “Chronic Liar.” Keith was good at churning out codswallop to sell his grandiose new building plan and like the lynching memorial he wasn’t shy about milking minorities for his sales pitch. The plan submitted to the state for approval of the Red Plan said it would reduce segregation. Of course, minority children have only suffered as a result of Dixon’s dishonesty.
Despite warnings from old school board members, like me, that his plan would divide Duluth to the detriment of minority children Dixon got his way. I’ve blogged incessantly about the segregation that the Red Plan would lead to but do no avail.
Keith Dixon was also ruthless. I’ll have more to say about how Dr. Dixon infected the Duluth Schools with character assassination but that will have to wait. However, if you want a sneak peak you can see how Dixon treated one lone wolf in Faribault.
Nonetheless, Keith Dixon pulled off an extraordinary coup. He rebuilt Duluth’s Schools with the help of a school board that fell for his charm.
Art Johnston is not a smooth talking Keith Dixon. He was a shy kid who feared speaking in public because he had an intense fear of public speaking. He is, however, very bright and stubborn. He willed himself to overcome his intense fear of public speaking and, because he was very bright, he became a superlative engineer. When he found himself in Duluth eight years ago he was astonished that the District was considering tearing down the almost new Central High School. He ended up with me in Let Duluth Vote where he leant his engineering expertise to the effort to give voters their right to vote on the then $485 million dollar vacuum cleaner.
Whatever else can be said about Art, he is not a quitter and his thirst for common sense and justice eventually propelled him onto the school board. Even in the face of sham set accusations that he was violent and had assaulted his colleagues, among other phony claims, he stayed put even though it cost him $70,000 in legal expenses. Keith Dixon would have been proud of the school board majority. As a pretty tenacious man myself I can only stand in awe of what Art has had to endure while Keith Dixon’s legacy of character assassination has been heaped on him.
But Art Johnston is not what this election is about. This election is about a school system that was tricked into putting all its eggs in one basket which is not being shared equally with Duluth’s neediest children.
Either the heirs of Keith Dixon will run our District or the heirs of those committed to social justice. Unlike the Red Plan, which voters were cheated out of a chance to vote on, the School Board’s future lies in the voter’s hands today.
I will abide by whatever decision they make. I just won’t let Duluth citizens vote in ignorance with the stakes being as high as they are.
I will soon tell the story of how another liar attacked Art Johnston’s significant other and the liar’s role in the vilification of Art Johnston. Oh yeah. And telling my readers this story might get me kicked off the School Board.
