John Stanford Conquers Bantam Books

Below is a copy of a letter I sent to Bantam Books.

Bantam Books
Attn: Barb Burg, Publicity
August 20, 1997
Dear Ms. Burg,

I recently learned of Seattle Schools Superintendent John Stanford’s stupendous book deal with Bantam Books. I understand Bantam is paying him a $100,000 advance ($400,000, according to insiders) for a book tentatively entitled Love’em and Leave’em! I understand this book will feature Stanford’s prescription for fixing public schools (I can’t wait to learn what it is!), along with highlights of his experiences as a leader.

As the author of two books, I’m embarrassed by my ignorance. I thought big publishers like Bantam only paid enormous advances to people who were proven commodities. Now that I know that any idiot with an inflated ego and a charming personality can make it big as a writer, I’d like to apply for a $400,000 advance for a book I’m writing about reforming the U.S. military. I was going to call it Love’em and Lead’em, but Stanford stole my idea. But don’t worry, I’ll come up with another catchy title! How about Soldiers are the Center of my Universe?

I have a couple friends who would also like to receive mega-advances from Bantam for books they’re working on. One, a bus driver, is an authority on space travel. The other, an unemployed lumberjack (damned spotted owls!), wants to tell America how to fix Social Security. They both have really neat personalities and are avid Bantam fans.

I wanted to fly to New York so that I could impress the folks at Bantam with my personality, as John Stanford did. Unfortunately, I’m kind of broke right now. One of Stanford’s CEO’s (“principal” for people who aren’t up on education reform) forced me out of my school (in an extraordinarily sleazy manner), and I wound up with a half-time position at another school. Quite a reward for twelve years of service, huh?

I telephoned Bantam more than two weeks ago and told your assistant I was writing an article about Stanford’s book deal. She asked me what my deadline was, and I replied “about a week.” She said you’d call me, but you didn’t. About a week later, I called and asked your assistant if you had an e-mail address. She was going to find out, but the phone was disconnected. I called back and she said she’d find out if you have an e-mail address and call me back. She didn’t. It brought back memories of the days when I used to call Seattle School District’s central bureaucracy in the forlorn hope of receiving advice or assistance! (Having declared myself an independent education reformer, I no longer consult with them.)

But I’m not a quitter. I just put this article on the Internet, at www.geobop.com/EDUCATION.Bantam.htm. Put that on my résumé and send me a $400,000 advance IMMEDIATELY. (Please!) As icing on the cake, I’ll offer Bantam some advice on how to manage your newest acquisition, John Stanford.

You’re correct to assess Stanford as an exceptional promotional tool for selling books. The idea of a retired general taking over the helm of an embattled school district that is bravely plunging into the waters of reform ought to make for great publicity. And Stanford’s charisma will make him the perfect TV talk show guest! Parents across America will swoon at a tough ex-military officer who shamelessly gushes about the little children who are the center of his universe. They’ll stand up and cheer as he tells them how he cracked down on the bad teachers who have made America’s public schools an international joke, reminding the audience that children’s advocate Forbes Magazine made him the focus of an article about education reform.

His adoring fans will wonder at this enigma who spoke at the Democratic convention (next to Superman!), yet professes no political affiliation. At show’s end, as they wipe tears from their eyes and laugh giddily, they may begin to chant, “Stanford for President! Stanford for President!”

This is a pretty accurate description of how quite a few stupid Seattle residents have reacted to Stanford. I predict that non-Seattleites will be even more enamored of America’s most dynamic public school superintendent and change agent, and you may very well have a runaway best-seller on your list. IF.

IF stands for “idiot factor,” which seems to account for Stanford’s popularity in Seattle. For starters, Stanford was recruited by the Seattle School Board, which is popularly regarded as an aggregation of idiots. These idiots regularly rank extremely low in public opinion polls. In fact, in a survey of Seattle parents conducted at the end of Stanford’s first year on the job, only the Seattle School Board ranked below Stanford, whose approval rating was just 43%. In an ironic slap in the face for this military-chain-of-commandaholic, the principals he unconditionally and mindlessly supports (whether they’re good or bad) outscored their commander-in-chief, while the teachers Stanford has displayed so much contempt for clearly won parents’ hearts with an approval rating of 72%. (Stanford bravely vowed to eventually make parents’ honor roll, but the district forgot to send out the survey last spring!)

The Idiot Factor runs rampant through Seattle’s media, which greeted Stanford as a conquering hero before most teachers had any idea what he was all about. These same media have been remarkably adverse to publicizing items that might reflect badly on Stanford, even if these items happen to coincide with the truth. Some of the more critical papers, like The Seattle Weekly, have made reference to this bizarre “honeymoon” between John Stanford and Seattle’s media. (Similarly, teachers despair of the “honeymoon” between John Stanford’s administration and “our” union, two star-crossed lovers who were merely shacking up before Stanford’s arrival.)

Though more difficult to gauge, the Idiot Factor appears to hold sway among the Seattle Business Alliance, a coalition that some observers say is the real power behind Seattle School District. Though the Alliance has a great interest in education, many teachers find it as aloof as Stanford, the Seattle School Board, local education reporters, and the overpaid idiots who call themselves a “teachers union.”

Nor has local government escaped the Idiot Factor. Our outgoing “Education Mayor” never did anything to expose the “public education mafia,” as I’ve come to refer to Seattle’s public schools franchise. Current contenders for his office, as well as seats in the City Council and Seattle School Board, say little about education, other than gushing mindlessly about how wonderful kids are. (Of course, they rave about John Stanford’s charisma, too.)

IF also stands for Ignorance Factor. That’s how I explain my observation that most of the educators who believe in Stanford seem to be relatively new teachers who haven’t learned the ropes yet, or fortunate veteran teachers who somehow escaped the bureaucratic assaults that savage their colleagues. If this is the case, then the tide might be turning. Seattle teachers rejected a new contract last June, and I recently learned that some of the teachers who voted in favor of it have changed their position. Teachers who are leading the charge against the new contract are almost unanimous in their contempt for John Stanford and his teachers union counterpart, Roger Erskine (an idiot on loan from the National Education Association).

Thanks to a “conspiracy of silence” that seems to embrace so much of Seattle’s upper crust, much of the public has been kept ignorant of public school affairs in general and John Stanford in particular. I predict that thousands of Seattleites will buy Stanford’s book, if only to learn something about the author, even though they know it will be little more than a paid advertisement. And in cities across America, where rumors of John Stanford’s greed, arrogance, reckless impetuousness, and deceptiveness haven’t penetrated, his book may very well be embraced as a panacea for America’s education woes. IF.

If Stanford can exploit Americans’ idiocy, ignorance, and desperation for something larger than life to believe in, he will be a huge financial success and an asset to Bantam Books. Therefore, to keep your project on track, it’s imperative that Bantam keep potential readers in a state of idiocy or ignorance. Stanford knows how to do it — don’t give people access to the truth. Make deceptive statements. If someone asks you an embarrassing personnel question, just stick your nose in the air and state your contempt for discussing “adult issues,” which only divert attention from children. (To add flair, Stanford likes to emphasize that said children are the center of his universe.) If teachers who are being persecuted by a sociopathic principal come to you in desperation, just label them “warring adults” who divert society’s focus from children and warn them (through the chain of command) that they’d better not tell anyone what’s going in their school. In really desperate situations, you can simply decline interviews, as Stanford regularly does.

Here are some specific guidelines you should follow:

• DO NOT let potential John Stanford/Bantam fans hear about that discrimination lawsuit in Atlanta in which Stanford was found partially liable. The plaintiff received such a large settlement, it was mentioned on Paul Harvey.

• DO NOT let would-be charter members of the John Stanford/Bantam Books Fan Club know about a really big lawsuit that is brewing right now in Seattle. I’ve heard rumors it could prove a major embarrassment to Stanford and his disciples.

• DO NOT let loyal Bantam customers investigate Meany Middle School, Stanford’s grandest experiment; it blew up in his face. (Would you believe Seattle School District has resorted to placing “Help Wanted” ads in a local newspaper to woo foolish teachers to this embattled school?) DO NOT let them read Stanford’s incredibly childish and stupid response to an article about one of his principal-cum-CEOs who flunked out of the classroom (McClure Middle School) and into a job in the central bureaucracy that Stanford said he had trimmed to the bone. (Meany’s ex-CEO followed on her heels, bringing the total of exiled principals who reside in our central bureaucracy to at least three.)

• DO NOT allow education researchers to search through Seattle newspapers for some of Stanford’s more stupid statements, deceptive statements, bizarre ideas (e.g., outfitting students with nicotine patches), or rhetoric so lofty it seems to float in the stratosphere among Stanford’s infamous “trial balloons,” which have upset so many Seattleites.

• UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you encourage potential members of the John Stanford/Bantam Book-of-the-Month Club to study math. They might ask how Stanford could have imagined he could visit every school in Seattle four times a year. They might also ask how he can work 16-18 hours a day, six or seven days a week as an education reformer and write five books in his spare time.

• Finally, you must declare Seattle OFF LIMITS to anyone you hope to sell a John Stanford/Bantam Books book to. For Seattle is infested with teachers whose contempt for John Stanford, though ignored by the media, is apparent in casual conversation. (Actually, “casual” is a poor choice of words. In a school district where fear and intimidation are the norm, such conversations are typically hushed and furtive.) On second thought, perhaps you should ENCOURAGE potential customers to visit the Emerald City, for they may encounter less cynical teachers who will point out a startling truth: Despite his abysmal failure to grasp the fundamental problems in Seattle’s schools; despite his reluctance to seek advice from teachers, let alone the idiotic school board that hired him; and despite his repeated about-faces, missed goals, behind-the-scenes-maneuvering, shameless self-promotion, and astonishing contempt for the taxpayers who have made him the highest paid bureaucrat in Seattle School District’s history, Seattle’s public schools don’t seem to be significantly worse than they were before Stanford arrived. This may be the greatest miracle in Stanford’s miraculous career.

So how about it? Can I have a $400,000 advance? I wouldn’t even have to write another book. Perhaps we could just repackage my book Teacher With an Attitude! Since it went to the press shortly after Stanford’s arrival in Seattle, it isn’t terribly insulting of the General. (Though I was extremely suspicious of Stanford from Day One, a sense of fairness prevented me from making the sort of rash judgements Stanford has made of teachers.)

I could follow the examples set by the Seattle School Board and local media and portray Stanford as a god. I could mimic Stanford in omitting embarrassing facts. In fact, I would probably not even acknowledge the existence of Meany and McClure Middle Schools and Cooper Elementary School, among others. Why, I could create a series of fictitious world-class schools that are flourishing under the stewardship of the dynamic principals-cum-CEOs that Stanford hand-picked to lead his children’s crusade!

And just in case the truth about John Stanford leaks out, I could write an alternate version which reports the truth. (Maybe we could launch a new Bantam “Pro and Con” series!) Rather than lose massive amounts of money and prestige on a book about an egotistical general-cum-education reform who duped Bantam into a major book deal based on his proven ideas (proven wrong, that is) and personality, you could run the risk of breaking even with a book that exposes the real John Stanford.

Thank you, and, in the spirit of Paul Harvey, good day.