Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Richmond Crusade: No Rubber Stamp for Kamras Contract Renewal

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

by James A. Bacon

Richmond City school Superintendent Jason Kamras, a white man, is super woke and rails frequently against systemic racism, but that hasn’t been enough to win him automatic allies in the Richmond Crusade for Voters, one of the city’s preeminent advocates of African American interests in the city.

The School Board is negotiating with Kamras about a four-year contract extension. The Crusade has issued a press release noting that its board has several “major concerns”:

  1. Richmond Public Schools still ranks at the bottom, when compared to all Virginia public schools, for 2018-19 and 2019-20.
  2. The graduation rate for Richmond Public Schools was 76.85% in 2017; it dropped to 71.58% in 2020.
  3. No progress report or data regarding the Superintendent’s performance has been made available for either the School Board or public consideration.

The Crusade is asking the school board to make public past and future evaluations, and recommends that Kamras be given a two-year extension on the contract “based on whether he has reached the benchmarks” recommended by the board.

Bacon’s bottom line: It is heartening to see that an influential African American civic group sees past Kamras’s virtue-signaling rhetoric. I see this press release as a hopeful sign that many African Americans are less interested in ideology and more interested in outcomes. If they read Bacon’s Rebellion, they have every reason to worry that four years of Governor Northam and Superintendent Kamras will result in the worst backsliding in African American educational achievement that Richmond has seen in decades.

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8 responses to “Richmond Crusade: No Rubber Stamp for Kamras Contract Renewal”

  1. SuburbanWoman Avatar
    SuburbanWoman

    No school board should rubber stamp anything from the Superintendent or his staff. All central office employees making over 75K a year should have evaluations. Superintendents need to lead not talk.

  2. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead V

    Superintendent Kamras has hauled in a million dollars worth of salary at 250 grand a year. 22 out of 44 schools are not accredited. 1 out of every 4 high school students dropout. Aged and crumbling school infrastructure that still has not been addressed. A keen interest in the politics of education but little attention to everyday details that makes a school division’s gears turn.

    Why hire this man back for 4 years and a pay raise? Richmond would be better served by a nuts and bolts leader to gradually begin the long term toil of a education comeback miracle.

  3. SuburbanWoman Avatar
    SuburbanWoman

    No school board should rubber stamp anything from the Superintendent or his staff. All central office employees making over 75K a year should have evaluations. Superintendents need to lead not talk.

  4. wonderbread Avatar
    wonderbread

    Complicating this narrative 1. it’s hard to even say what the data we do have even mean, since the prior administration marked students as “graduated” who didn’t, and had test huge accuracy problems with transcripts. Kamras and team have fired 11 school principals due to testing irregularities, and his predecessor was also fired.

    2. Much of the activist energy against Kamras is that he’s alleged to have made RPS a hostile environment for Black teachers and students (see Black@RPS). No doubt the fore mentioned firings factored into this, but so too do the investments in standardized, modern curriculum, and the perception that he’s trying to drive out POC staff to replace with outsiders.

    He’s said he won’t take a two year contract…maybe a path forward is a four year contract, but with greater accountability/metrics.

  5. wonderbread Avatar
    wonderbread

    Complicating this narrative 1. it’s hard to even say what the data we do have even mean, since the prior administration marked students as “graduated” who didn’t, and had test huge accuracy problems with transcripts. Kamras and team have fired 11 school principals due to testing irregularities, and his predecessor was also fired.

    2. Much of the activist energy against Kamras is that he’s alleged to have made RPS a hostile environment for Black teachers and students (see Black@RPS). No doubt the fore mentioned firings factored into this, but so too do the investments in standardized, modern curriculum, and the perception that he’s trying to drive out POC staff to replace with outsiders.

    He’s said he won’t take a two year contract…maybe a path forward is a four year contract, but with greater accountability/metrics.

  6. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead V

    Superintendent Kamras has hauled in a million dollars worth of salary at 250 grand a year. 22 out of 44 schools are not accredited. 1 out of every 4 high school students dropout. Aged and crumbling school infrastructure that still has not been addressed. A keen interest in the politics of education but little attention to everyday details that makes a school division’s gears turn.

    Why hire this man back for 4 years and a pay raise? Richmond would be better served by a nuts and bolts leader to gradually begin the long term toil of a education comeback miracle.

  7. bhnelsen Avatar
    bhnelsen

    If Comrade Kamras had his way–his own words, shortly after coming to Richmond–all charter and private schools would be closed. Kamras believes every Richmonder deserves a failing school system.

  8. bhnelsen Avatar
    bhnelsen

    If Comrade Kamras had his way–his own words, shortly after coming to Richmond–all charter and private schools would be closed. Kamras believes every Richmonder deserves a failing school system.

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