Crap is Just a Crappy Word

Posted on July 26, 2008
Filed under Communications, Public relations, education and tagged Harvard University

Since posting an item a few days ago about eSchool News’ “Tech Savvy Superintendents Award,” specifically mentioning award recipient Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jerry Weast, I’ve received some interesting comments from Weast supporters and detractors.

It seems the good Dr. Weast likes to refer to his District as “the cream of the crap.” No — that’s not a typo.

According to an Examiner.com article, the slogan was revealed at a June conference held at Harvard University. The Examiner reports that Deputy Superintendent Frieda Lacey and other District administrators were speaking at a national conference on school achievement gaps when Lacey told the crowd, ““Our superintendent likes to say we are the cream of the crap…They’re his words, not mine.”

In other words, if I can translate, Dr. Weast frequently uses the provocative statement as a reference to the dismal state of America’s public schools. It’s a play on words, people. On the other hand, as a PR professional who represents a number of school superintendents, let me interject this thought. Was the clever play on words worth the reaction?

Dr. Weast is under fire from parents, who have interpreted his words as a reference to their kids. You can’t be serious, folks. (Do we automatically lose our focus when we become parents?)

But again, I ask the question — was it worth it? Could Dr. Weast have made his point another way? Most likely.

As my high school English teacher, Miss Petrella, used to say — “With all the words in the English language, you had to choose that one?!?!”

Crap is just a crappy word.

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2 Responses to “Crap is Just a Crappy Word”

Bob Astrove on July 28th, 2008 10:57 am

You’ve missed the point.

MCPS (lead by Jerry Weast for 9 years) really is the “Cream of the Crap”. Look at the state testing results for Maryland. Jerry Weast has taken what was once the top performing district in Maryland and run the test scores into the ground.

MCPS now ranks 11th out of 24 school districts in Maryland on the states grade 3 – 8 math tests, and just 6th in reading.

He called it the “Cream of the Crap” because it is. The dishonest part is that Jerry Weast spends $10M per year on his “Department of Communications”, and has worked them overtime with slick full color mailings, press conferences, and TV productions to convince our community that we are “World Class”

Let the facts speak for themselves, MCPS is “The Cream of the Crap”
Websites tagged "eschool" on Postsaver on April 17th, 2009 10:17 pm

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