Dear Mr. President,
Throughout our country, the voice of the masses is being squelched. The changes needed in our public systems are in control of the powerful and influential entities, people who do not need these systems. Chicago and other major cities are ground-zero for these injustices. The public systems are breaking down for the disadvantaged, and your opponent is using the troubles of these systems to paint the entire system with a bad light.
It’s bad enough that your opponent and his party are trying to fatally wound the public school system, but there are instances where members of your own party are joining the ranks. Chicago is just one example of this. Do you see the injustice of supporting an appointed, not elected, school board in Chicago and other major cities? Where is the voice of the people?
Do you see the injustice of closing dilapidated and under-funded neighborhood schools and replacing them with “suddenly funded” charters that serve only a “select” portion of the population? What is left for the rest of the population–the under-privileged? How is any of this “reform?”
You can say that your opponent wants to disband the public system completely, yet with your administration’s Race to the Top program, schools in failing communities are set up to fail. The population has strengths and weaknesses—no one student is going to progress at the standard level in every subject. Yet, only STEM and reading subjects are tested and schools held to these scores as “evidence of educational progress.” This is wholly unfair as STEM and reading are not the only subjects that societies value. Civics and the arts were valued in the ancient school systems, yet our current educational climate—one that is dictated by those who write and enforce policy—is devoid of these areas. Where is the voice of the people?
Standardized testing as a measure of success paint an incomplete picture, as well, this type of testing should never be utilized as a reward or punishment measure. Race to the Top fosters invalid measurements to judge success. Where is the voice of the trained and credentialed educator population?
As well, Race to the Top encourages unfair competition. There are far too many variables that influence student learning. Rewarding teachers and schools for having the “fortune” of serving an advantaged constituency is a sure way to lure these schools from teaching disadvantaged students. This type of thinking leads to a segregated population where the privileged communities attract the best teachers, while the under-privileged communities are served by a revolving door of teachers who do not want to make a career out of being vilified by politicians and pundits who are not experts in education.
I urge you to remember the children of your beloved country. If you turn your backs on them, they will have no advocate. Push the super-mayors to disband their appointed school boards. Fix Race to the Top to foster collaboration, not competition. Encourage school districts to hire credentialed and experienced educators as superintendents, not mayors and other politicians. Support public community-liaison programs to help parents provide a better life for their children and thus aid in their learning-readiness. Stop the infiltration of our public schools by private interests. Help the communities, and stop punishing their schools.
If Mitt Romney is elected, there is no hope for public education, but if you stand idly by and allow these injustices to continue under your watch, are you the public’s hope or just another corporate-reform advocate?
Inactions often speak as loudly as actions. Save our country. Support our public schools.
If you truly care about the children of this country, help the situation, Mr. President. Help our kids. I wish you the best in your re-election campaign.
Lisa Gordon
Educator
Freehold, NJ
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sorry to say, but it is obvious: choose between a slow and painful death or a quick and less painful one.
All the more reason to break with the false two-party choice and vote your conscience. The Green platform is far more consistent with the view of the readers of this blog than anything the Demolicans can offer: http://www.jillstein.org/issues.
On education, the Green Party platform supports:
Provide tuition-free education from kindergarten through college, thus eliminating the student debt crisis;
Forgive existing student debt;
Protect our public school systems from privatization;
End high-stakes testing and stop punishing students and teachers for failures of the system in which they work;
Stop denying students diplomas based on tests; and
Stop using merit pay to punish teachers.
It we start voting for the politicians and parties that support our goals and views, then eventually third parties like the Greens will become enough of a challenge to the Demolicans to either force them to change or whither. By buying the “lesser of evils” arguments, we only support the slow death of our democracy.
And here in CT, the mayor of Bridgeport has a special event to promote his referrendum question giving him full control of the BOE and click here to see who is invited to convince parents and taxpayers to vote to lose their right to elect a board of education. And Vallas, the disaster as opportunity wizard will be there too:
http://www.studentsfirst.org/page/signup/pledge-to-attend-a-conversation-about-education-reform-in-bridgeport?utm_medium=email&utm_source=StudentsFirst&utm_campaign=ctoutreach&source=email
Leave the teenage girls at home!
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Are we sending our compiled letters to the media? Valerie Strauss or even Huff Post? Maybe even the New York Times? Maybe we can open some eyes there?
I think the response shows that Obama simply doesn’t care about saving public education, because he sees it as outmoded and superseded by modern technology and business practices.
Obama is a progressive in the tradition of the original movement a century ago: Pro-business, patrician, and technocratic. He wants to smooth the rough edges of capitalism but not challenge it; he worships at the altar of “efficiency”. Yes, the progressives did much to improve society in their day; but they often acted on the premise that they were an elite who had to drag society into the 20th century using the federal government to achieve their aims, even if that meant running roughshod over the local government. The treatment of teachers and education by the progressives closely mirrors what we are fighting against today.
We have to face the reality that the Democrats are run by the sort of academic meritocratic mindset that defined the progressives. For decades now, the academic meritocracy has been enthralled with the likes of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, with “free” markets and “choice”. Why then are we surprised that our current crop of “progressives” act and sound like William Graham Sumner?
I suggest that what most readers of this blog want (so far as I can tell) is not more of that old-time progressivism, but a return to the ideas and ideals of the New Deal, which many progressives hated. We want a government based on the premise that all humans share basic rights to health care, shelter, clothing, security, nutritious food, and education; and that government has a role as the most effective guarantor of those rights. We believe that democracy cannot thrive where these rights are neglected and violated. We believe in the Four Freedoms. We believe that a modern technological society not only can provide these necessities, but must provide them in order to maintain its viability.
Therefore, we cannot accept the Democratic party in its current form as defined by Bill Clinton and Al Gore some 20 years ago through the Democratic Leadership Conference. Their “Third Way” has lost its way and merged with the GOP. I believe this has been the results of the lure of wealth and the worship of liberalism that has become almost libertarian. We have lost touch with our obligations to respect social justice in our rush to do our own thing. That’s why the presidential debates are so devoid of any real clash and content.
We need a new New Deal. We won’t get it any time soon. But if we start voting our consciences and abandon the false choice dangled in front of us by the Demolicans and the complicit press, then we can begin to move towards real positive options.
Where is my comment?
I wrote : You can say something and don’t take some labels from the power! What a good country!
I don’t know I can not say anything!