Robert Bobb seems to be a lousy candidate for D.C. school board president. He often comes off as gruff and overly serious. I’ve never seen him slap a back or offer a glad hand. Smiles don’t come easily. His trademark veneer of crisp, white shirts, dark suits and cowboy boots can make him hard to approach.
But for me, Bobb is the perfect man at the perfect time to help run our public schools. This is not an endorsement, but here are my five reasons Bobb will get my vote next Tuesday — in one of the most important elections ever for children in D.C.
1. Roots: I am a softy for candidates born in D.C., but the school system is so crippled by nepotism and cronyism that a man from Louisiana would be better than a native. Bobb’s parents never made it past grade school, but they and his grandmother drilled the need to read and learn into their eldest son. His father drove tractor in the sugar cane fields; Bobb was the first to graduate from high school and attend college. Education was his ticket from the salt mines, where he worked summers.
2. Motives: Robert Bobb doesn’t need this job. It pays $16,000 and can consume 40 hours a week. This is not a stepping stone to higher office. It’s not about him. Fixing the schools would be the hardest job of his 34-year career and reap the biggest rewards. To those who see Bobb as a stalking horse for developers who desire school buildings, I say show me the evidence.
3. Experience: Not one person opposing Bobb comes even close to his resume in running city agencies. He has degrees from Grambling and Western Michigan and did a stint at Harvard. He’s been city manager of Kalamazoo, Mich., and Richmond before running Oakland, then D.C. Is he an educator? No, which is good. He did, however, recently complete a 10-month program at the Broad Foundation’s superintendent’s academy.
4. Action: He waded into D.C.’s roughest corners and put cops together with human service agencies to help clean up the streets and help residents. He brokered the hard deals over baseball and health care and youth services. He demanded excellence and fired people who didn’t do their jobs well.
5. Rage: Beneath the cool veneer, Robert Bobb is an angry man. He was lifted from rural poverty by education; it enrages him that D.C. schools deny children that opportunity. Scars of racism still burn. On his way to Grambling, he told me he drove by the ashes of crosses burned by the KKK in Ruston, La. His rage fuels his impatience for change in D.C. schools.
Finally, Robert Bobb is the perfect person to run the schools under the probable Adrian Fenty administration. Whether Fenty decides to take over the schools and wins control, Bobb will be a valuable ally — perhaps chancellor.
If the school board survives, Bobb will be an impatient ally.
