In Avondale, all Cloud, no water...

Exhibit one

Most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression.

Exhibit two

Agua Fria Union High School

Grade	Reading	Math	Language
9	44	56	43
10	42	49	47
11	45	50	42

We can’t decide if we are curators or prosecutors, but we are certainly acrawl with exhibits. Exhibit one is a reading test, among other things. It’s Emerson, from Self-Reliance; it was written in a time and place when self-reliance meant something. Exhibit two is a set of Stanford 9 test scores. Exhibit three is a letter to the editor of the Arizona Republic from a Mr. Don Cloud, papio sphinx.

And we must be prosecutors, for a crime is taking place, and we have taken it upon ourselves to investigate it.

The crime? Innocent high school students are being robbed of an education. The place? Agua Fria Union High School in Avondale, AZ, where there is no cold water, no hot water, no water at all. The perpetrator? Person or persons unknown, although we have been able to identify their ringleader: The selfsame Mr. Cloud, himself neither hot nor cold but very, very dry.

Mr. Cloud is false in all particulars, of course, but as with the pitiable battered batterers we can say this for him in mitigation: He has done nothing that was not done to him first. This must be so, for he is so obtuse as to boast that his young charges are thrillingly close to the top of the bottom half of the bell curve. Marvel at their mediocrity! Marvel at his!

His two is no real two and his four looks suspiciously like a seven. His every word chagrins us utterly and we are too much mortified for him. And this is cruel, in a sense, since he is surely no less endearing than grandma’s third-cousin from the old country—charming and enthusiastic and proudly befuddled. Perhaps he’ll press a quarter into our hand when he thinks no one is looking. Then he’ll say something absurd in fractured English and we will assume that gentlest asinine expression and help him find his way home.

But there is a difference: Grandma’s befuddled cousin isn’t being paid to lead the children of Avondale out of the desert of ignorance to the cool water of reason.

We are not elitists—to the contrary—but we are snobs. It is too much to expect that a genuine intellectual would volunteer to run a high school. The job is given to shop teachers and guidance counselors for the very good reason that their peculiar talents, unlike those of a cultivated mind, would not be wasted. But it is surely reasonable to expect that a high school principal, no matter how befuddled his career path, should rise to the challenge of his position.

How can we expect anyone in Avondale Union High School to learn to reason when reason is so well lost on its purported champion? Does Mr. Cloud actually believe that, were he “battling a serious illness”, he would want his physician to “preach teamwork and consensus”? Who’s to say that a medical solution is necessary at all? There’s a nurse down the hall who swears by homeopathy and her brother-in-law has great faith in faith-healers. Shouldn’t we have a group discussion and put it to a vote? Mr. Cloud might find himself moved to a place hotter than Avondale, but at least he wouldn’t have been victimized by that awful competitive self-reliance.

And this is too easy. Mr. Cloud is false in every particular. There is not one line of his letter that is not a deceit, and a moronically discomposed deceit at that. But the big lie, even bigger than that whopper about running at the same speed, is this one: Avondale taxpayers angry that their children have been robbed of an education should “want the best to come together to work together to find a cure.”

That is: “Don’t blame me. I’m only the man in charge.”

It would be a wonderful thing if Mr. Cloud were to find work he can do. It wouldn’t make any difference in Avondale; his successor would be another baboon, probably a worse one. But at least Mr. Cloud could experience the pride of craftsmanship, of producing instead of despoiling, of creating instead of destroying, of doing good instead of endless, boundless, exponentiated harm. One prison-uniform after another, one asinine expression just like the next. One cut of face and figure. Teamwork and consensus, the unminded goring the skulls of the innocent. This is no work for a decent man.

And we know that some of Mr. Cloud’s young innocents are giggling at this. And we know that even the best among them are stumbling over the hard parts; it’s a reading test, after all, among other things. From this distance we can’t point those students to a sure path out of the desert of ignorance, but it seems likely that ‘Self-Reliance’—the essay and the state of mind—is a fairly accurate map. On their way out of Avondale, if they are very kind, they might help Mr. Cloud find his way home...

Exhibit three

As the principal of Agua Fria High School, I am proud to state that for the past three years, Agua Fria’s Stanford 9 scores have been among the best in the West Valley.

However, using the Stanford 9 to compare one school to another reveals nothing about the culture of the school. The score tells the public nothing about the morale of students, teachers and other employees. It does not speak to the school’s mission.

Most realize that all students don’t run at the same speed. Why do we expect them to learn at the same speed? Stanford 9 tests promote competition. Why do we want schools and students to compete in the academic arena in an era when we preach teamwork and consensus? If one were battling a serious illness, I doubt whether he or she would want the doctors or hospitals to compete to see who could cure the patient. Rather, the patient would want the best to come together to work together to find a cure.

- Don Cloud, Principal, Agua Fria High School, Avondale

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