What schools can learn from barbeque restaurants.

Desegregation by Deliciousness

By Michael McShane

Kansas City is home to the best barbeque in the world and some of the worst schools in the country. 

• In one sector, black and white, rich and poor come together to enjoy a high-quality, low-cost product. 
• In the other, almost exclusively people of color attend unaccredited schools at an enormous cost to taxpayers.

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Barbeque, quite simply, is food for poor people. After butchers remove the steaks from the core of the cow, the chuck from right behind the head, and the round from the beast’s rear end, the meat that’s left over is tough and has to be cooked in a way that softens it up. 

Pitmasters take those cheap cuts and cook them low and slow for hours and hours, and smother them in sauces rich in molasses, paprika, and proprietary blends of spices. 

The result is sweet and savory, tender and rich.
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... the Kansas City school district was designed to accommodate 54,000 students. This year, Kansas City public schools enrolled less than 17,000.

What happened?

Well, unlike Kansas City’s barbeque restaurants, Kansas City schools failed to focus on their core product, and spent the lion’s share of their time and resources on the bells and whistles that look great, but don’t keep folks coming back. 

Like the Biblical provision to not put new wine in old wine skins, the district struggled to improve the human capital of its teachers and principals. It simply gave more resources and higher salaries to the same folks that couldn’t get the job done in the first place, and not surprisingly, got similar results.

The district simply gave more resources and higher salaries to the same folks that couldn’t get the job done in the first place, and not surprisingly, got similar results.

By the time the “throw money at the problem” solution was found to be a failure, the state legislature and outstate residents were so fed up with paying for the schools that they created an open season for everyone and their brother to come in and start charter schools with little quality control. The district has, by my count, had 11 superintendents since the 1987 court ruling.-
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• I wish to be clear; I am not trying to equate teaching students with smoking a rack of ribs. Education, obviously, is a complex and multifaceted enterprise with interplay between families, teachers, and students. 
• What I am saying is that many of the problems that we see in our communities, like poverty and segregation, are not intractable. 
• The story of barbeque in Kansas City is the story of brilliant, creative, hard-working entrepreneurs that changed the social fabric of their communities. Our nation’s inner cities are filled with such people, and we need to help them save our schools. 

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