C. J. Huff: Randy Turner is texting Fort, Martucci during board meetings

When C. J. Huff publicly criticized Debbie Fort at last Tuesday's Joplin R-8 Board of Education meeting, it received a scant one paragraph mention on the page seven jump in the Joplin Globe's coverage the next day. It was not even featured on televised reports.

Those who watched the spectacle, whether it was on Jet 14, YouTube, Jet 14 Live at the district website, or at the Turner Report, were shocked by Huff's display and that, combined with Huff's Facebook attacks on Jennifer Martucci, have directly led to a growing movement to rid our school district of the man who has been superintendent for the past seven years.

During his attack on Fort, Huff said she was the worst principal in the district when she was at Irving Elementary and rattled off statistics which supposedly proved this.

We all have heard Mark Twain's quote referring to people who try to bolster weak arguments by using "lies, damned lies, and statistics." As you might expect, C. J. Huff cherry picked some statistics, ignored others that would contradict the point he was making, including ones in which some scores at Irving improved during Fort's last three years as principal there.

I noted in an earlier post that blogger and frequent Joplin Globe columnist Anson Burlingame had written an April 2, 2014, post designed to derail Debbie Fort's school board candidacy, using the same information that Huff used Tuesday night.  I stated without equivocation that Huff supplied Burlingame with the information, trying unsuccessfully to defeat Fort, a result he repeated this year in his efforts to stop Jennifer Martucci. Burlingame has denied this and claims, unconvincingly, that he does his own thinking. If that is the case, why did he cherry pick the same information that Huff used Tuesday night?

Judging from years of Burlingame's blogging, there is absolutely no evidence that he has ever dug into public records to find out about anything. Yet on this one occasion he provides the same information that C. J. Huff used in an unsuccessful effort to discredit Fort.

I had planned to run a statistical answer to Huff and Burlingame today, but that is no longer necessary. In a letter to the editor in today's Joplin Globe, Julie Hartwell thoroughly tore apart Huff's attack on Fort. She has been kind enough to give me permission to run that letter, which will I do in my next post.

In the last few days, Burlingame has gone around the bend, with a series of statements that might explain why even the Joplin Globe is not running many of the things he was written about education. I have learned from administration sources that C. J. Huff's attack on Fort and Martucci for texting was based on his belief that I am the one who is sending the text messages and that I am the behind-the-scenes mastermind who is calling the shots for everyone who is opposing him.

Part of this, as I have noted before is that C. J. Huff does not like women questioning him. It makes it easier for him to believe that some man is actually the one who is causing his problems.

For the record, I am not texting anyone during the board of education meetings. And I am not leading the organized effort to fire Huff.

As I have also noted before, portions of Anson Burlingame's columns give a clear idea of how C. J. Huff is thinking.

Here are a few samples from recent days (You can check out his blog at this link.)

Dr. C J Huff knows more about the fundamental and underlying problems in our system of public education than anyone I have ever met, period.
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Have I ever suggested to him how to deal with “that ….. Randy Turner”. Yes I have but not often. And as you can guess my advice falls into the category of politically incorrect (but not illegal either) as well.
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The people that follow and support Turner seem to be very much of a mob mentality. And some BOE members now pay a lot of attention to that mob, even getting guidance from the “mob” via text messages, maybe, during meetings.

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There is something common between the mobs in Baltimore and the disagreements in Joplin right now. Both disagreements, one over justice (or is it racism, or civil rights, or equality, or black lives matter, or…….) and the other is over a dysfunctional public education system? We see mobs trying to scream their way to solutions and their way is destructive to the two systems they are screaming about fixing, justice and education systems.

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I also wonder how far behind some inner city ghetto school system Joplin might be today. Pretty far behind as long as we keep good and hard-working leaders in R-8. But why not just let Randy Turner take over R-8 and run it as he sees fit, letting all teachers teach as they so choose. Hell let’s make Fields (Ben Field, a frequent commenter on Burlingame's blog until he was banned yesterday for trying to hold Burlingame accountable) the Principal of JHS and Dr. Fort go back to Irving to see if she can improve things there this time around.

And for sure we need to put new yes men and women on the BOE so the Turner crowd has no mobs in their face to change things, again!! At least for a couple of years at least with no mobs, until the current mob finds our new schools burned to the ground or all the kids just watching porn on their Iphones all the time. Let’s see, what is a sexual act that is like eating a Popsicle? The “new superintendent” sure knows. Hell he wrote about it in a book.

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Huff is NOT the problem in R-8. Even the poor little old BOE is not the problem, a bunch of citizens that want to help but have not much of a clue how, specifically to help. No Superintendent of any School is going to really fix any school in America. We have to fix some deep and systemic issues first and doing that is HARD, seemingly impossible, to do, anywhere.

Burlingame seems to have no problem with Huff's recent attacks on Fort and Martucci. He has not said a word on the subject.

You almost have to feel sorry for Burlingame. He has watched people he has praised lavishly on his blog, David Wallace and Mark Rohr, leave and now C. J. Huff is doing more to discredit himself than I could ever do with everything I have written.