That our children should be allowed to languish in the quagmire of our failed school system because of the skin color or origins of the person chosen to salvage it should be outrageously unacceptable to the parents, children and citizens of this territory.
The posturing and grandstanding of some of our elected officials on this critical issue needs to be cut off at the knees now, before it's too late.
Lynn Spampinato is the person Gov. John deJongh Jr. has chosen to lead us out of the shabby maze our education system has become. He must believe she can do it, or else why would he have chosen her? Certainly not because he thought it would bring him political favor.
Instead, we have a few senators who believe their re-election hinges on playing the same old race card and voting against a white woman outsider. They should be taking a giant first step toward rebuilding a crumbling system that is severely handicapping our young people — the same young people whom those same senators profess to care so much about.
Spampinato has proven herself over and over again in other jurisdictions. A recent study found a five percent increase in third grade reading scores from after only a year with a new program Spampinato introduced in Pittsburgh.
But success doesn't make nearly as interesting headlines as the criticisms raised from some mainlanders — none of which have anything to do with Spampinato's abilities.
We have a much higher opinion than some of our senators of the Virgin Islands electorate. We think they will take strong exception to any senator who chooses to further hamstring our children by turning away the governor's well-researched choice for education commissioner as a cynical ploy for votes.
Hopefully, our representatives in the next round will come to their senses and do the right thing. Let Spampinato and our governor have a chance at fixing the problem. After all, we elected deJongh because we thought he could fix things. We can't afford to waste any more time in letting him do just that.
No one and everyone is to blame for the state we find our education system in. Years of neglect and sinecures have bogged down the system to the point where we are facing a federal takeover of our Education Department.
How's that for white outsiders coming in to tell us how to do things?
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