Miami cannot afford to lose Rudy Crew

Miami suffers symptoms that in a human being would be called a cancer. In our community the results have been devastating.

Fear of violence and reprisal has led many in our community to allow that cancer to grow and fester. We are about to allow the cancer to affect us again. Destructive ethnic games and stupid politicking may lead us to the loss of one of the most respected educators in the country. And with all the negatives this community has experienced over the years, to a city like Miami, considered one of the poorest in the nation, the loss would be critical.

Rudy Crew’s head is on the chopping block. The Miami-Dade superintendent of schools leads the second largest school district in the country. Before Miami, he led the largest in New York City. Everywhere he’s been Crew has had backers and detractors. At Progreso Weekly we’ve always believed that a person who does not have both is not doing his job. It appears his biggest detractors in Miami are a small group who manipulate members of the Cuban-American community.

They’ve referred to him as aloof, arrogant and not sensitive to some in the community. What this group has never proven is that he is not effective and successful. A recent Miami Herald editorial in support of Crew summed up his accomplishments during his four years here:

• Superintendent of the Year, a national prize where he was described as a “gem”.

• Florida’s 2008 Superintendent of the Year.

• Halved the F-rated schools in Miami while raising the number of A schools.

• Helped create the Parent Academy -- described nationally as an imaginative program which helps parents become part of the child’s educational process.

• 2007 runner-up to the “Nobel Prize for education” the Broad Prize for Urban Education.

Still, this group insists that Crew should be removed from his post. They are still wounded by the fact that Crew stood up against censorship in Miami-Dade public school libraries, never wavering or giving an inch. The book in question was Vamos A Cuba which described, in a very elemental way, a normal day for school children in Cuba. This group wanted the book removed -- they saw Fidel Castro leaving his hiding place behind every tree in Miami and straight into the schools.

So the cancer continues to grow. We would hope that at this time, though, institutions and community leaders stood up and faced the consequences of losing a Rudy Crew to cheap Miami politicking. The last time something similar occurred, Miami lost another well regarded professional, Angela Gittens, who warned us of cost overruns and irregularities at the Miami International Airport’s (MIA) expansion project. To date, MIA is still way overdue and costs continue to rise.

We also find the solution offered by two of Crew’s fiercest detractors as downright sophomoric. Actually funny if the situation was not so critical. Both detractors are locked-up in a bitter no-holds barred (including our children’s future) political battle for a School Board seat. Incumbent and rival propose making the School Superintendent’s position electoral -- left to the voters.

Progreso Weekly disagrees wholeheartedly. What we need in the position of Superintendent of Schools in Miami is what we currently have, a professional. That is why we stand by Rudy Crew.

Our final fear is that the cancer may spread too widely. If that was the case, Progreso Weekly foresees a future where schools in Miami have no books. They’ve all been censored. Even the Bible has been removed from our libraries -- they found passages describing homosexuality, fornication and murder.