The Pedagogy of Being the Best

Every school day at Rufus King High School once began the same way. Over the intercom, in the hallways, before pep rallies and report cards, Principal Tom Balistreri delivered the same charge to his students: "You are the best; we expect you to do your best; and remember, you attend the BEST SCHOOL ANYWHERE."

It sounds simple. Some might even call it a slogan. But those of us who have spent time in classrooms know that repetition is pedagogy. What a child hears every single day becomes what a child believes about themselves. And what a child believes about themselves becomes the foundation for everything else — how they carry themselves in a hallway, how they answer a teacher's question, how they eventually walk into a job interview, a courtroom, a city council meeting, or the halls of Congress.

Mr. Balistreri understood something that too many education reformers miss excellence is not primarily a curriculum. It is a climate. You cannot test your way into a child's self-concept. You must speak it into them, model it for them, and expect it of them until it becomes theirs. A young person who is told daily that they are the best does not automatically become arrogant — they become anchored. They develop a baseline of dignity that is hard to shake loose, even when the world outside the schoolhouse doors is far less generous.

That is the quiet genius of the pedagogy of being the best. It is not about producing children who believe they are better than others. It is about producing adults who know, in their bones, that they are not less than anyone — and who carry themselves accordingly in public life.

Which brings me to a moment last week that should trouble every one of us who believes character is something worth cultivating.

Far-right provocateur Laura Loomer, a close ally of President Trump, posted a video naming Florida U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon alongside U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, former Rep. Cori Bush, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — five accomplished Black women — calling them "ghetto, entitled, race-obsessed, destructive Black bitches... unfit for the power they hold." When Nixon clapped back, Loomer escalated, mocking her speech as "Ebonics" and saying she needed to "tug" Nixon's "leash." Confronted with backlash, Loomer did not retreat. She doubled down, repeating the slur across multiple posts and insisting she had "spoken the truth."

Nixon, a Jacksonville, Florida, state representative who just pulled off a stunning primary upset and stands to become Florida's first Black U.S. senator, responded with the poise of someone who was clearly raised on her own version of that daily affirmation. She did not shrink. Nor did she mumble. She clapped back with humor and dignity, then pivoted the conversation back to the issues.

To be fair, the condemnation was not universal silence. Former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene denounced the comments as racist, and Democratic leaders including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Maryland Governor Wes Moore spoke out forcefully. That matters; because Black women are far too often not spoken up for and left to navigate issues on their own.

But here is what should trouble us: where are the institutions? Where are the sanctions? Where is the sustained, organized outrage from the conservative political establishment that so often insists it stands against hatred? And where, specifically, is the Anti-Defamation League — an organization that in recent years has pushed aggressively for hate-speech legislation and campus policy changes — when a sitting Trump ally used dehumanizing, racialized language against five Black women in American public life, including a sitting Supreme Court justice? A moment that met nearly every definition of the bigotry these organizations claim to fight drew a scattering of individual statements, not the kind of institutional reckoning that would signal hate speech is truly disqualifying, regardless of whose ally speaks it.

This is where Mr. Balistreri's pedagogy becomes more than a school motto — it becomes a civic diagnostic. A student who is taught daily that they are the best does not need anyone's permission to occupy public space with confidence. But a society that claims to value excellence and dignity has an obligation to defend that dignity consistently, not selectively, when it is attacked in the public square.

Mr. Balistreri was one of the greatest advocates for Rufus King High School and public education. He believed in giving students voice, building a culture that was shared by all stakeholders, and the belief that excellence was inevitable. I honor his memory, as he passed away earlier this week. He fought for his students and believed that at Rufus King High School, we did not just meet standards, we set the standard. Whenever challenged, he was poised and ready for the fight. I am forever grateful for him and his leadership.

Like Mr. Balistreri, Angie Nixon did not flinch. She has clearly internalized the pedagogy of being the best. The question Wisconsin — and the nation — must now ask is whether we and the institutions we support, are willing to do the same to rally around Black women, or will we choose to allow our silence to serve as acceptance of the expendability of Black female political voice.