Aside from an overly permissive gun culture and underfunded mental healthcare system, I can’t help but wonder if this climate of teacher-bashing and public school bashing in which many of our political leaders partake regularly, is to some degree a variable in the aggression, hatred and violence that have been directed at our schools’ students and staff. Can we get a moratorium from our politicians to stop bashing public schools and teachers?
(Amen to that! Diane)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Agreed! It is time to take back the time honored status of the teaching profession!
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Diane — So eloquently stated. How about a moratorium spending millions/billions are testing and re- directing those funds toward addressing poverty in our great nation as well as addressing mental health issues.
Marge
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There is no accident about the teacher bashing. The reason is that in order for the powers that be to have their way in total control of society worldwide they have to destroy the unions. Read “Hapsburgs to Hitler” which is the definative book on how Austria became a fascist country from 1919 until today. The last rule, which is being followed in the U6 months in jail.S. and other countries today is to destroy the unions before they have total control.
Administrators are the real problem. Administrators spend the money, determine curriculum and how it will be taught and who will be assigned to what school and how they will be run, teachers do not do that. Remember, “The Fish Rots from the Head.” Over 47% of the superintendents in medium to large districts in the U.S. last year were place there by Gates, Broad and the Walton Foundation and many of the administrators under them also. Why should anyone trust them? The present superintendent of LAUSD is John Deasy. He was the former superintendent of Prince Georges County until the story broke on his phony PHD. He quit his job within one week of the story breaking. One week after he quits he is hired by the Gates Foundation to run its education division. Who would hire a person like that for that job? Well, those who have no ethics or concern for students or the public, who else would do that? One year after Gates hires him he is at LAUSD. I called every board member of LAUSD before the vote and not one had even put his name in to Google to see who he was. After I called they then knew. Before they voted him in I spoke to his phony PHD and they did not care and voted him in as superintendent of the second largest school district in the U.S. What message does that send?
If California child abuse laws (California Penal Codes 11166-11174.3) were enforced many administrators would have some jail time and a misdemeanor criminal violation along with loss of their jobs. California child abuse laws state that if an administrator does not report a potential case of child abuse to social services, local police, not school police, or the local sheriffs dept. they can be prosecuted with a misdemeanor criminal violation and receive up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. If anyone interferes with an investigation the charges and penalties are the same. I guarantee you that the first to go to jail are those in the General Counsels Office where every legal issue goes to. The superintendents office is next as it is his job to make sure that all employees know the law and that it is enforced. The superintendent told the Miramonte staff to not talk with law enforcement. Each time he did that is a separate violation. Any board member of other administrators who did not follow the law should also be prosecuted. If it is fair for teachers to be evaluated why not administrators?
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Speaking to the teacher-bashing atmosphere in our society, in that, seemingly, each problem encountered can be traced back to “It’s the teachers’ fault!”, I can see how an unstable person would equate all the ails in hie or her world to that one group of people.
Also, isn’t that what every egomaniacal and, often, brutal leader throughout history has done to make himself more popular and powerful? He has created a group to be used as scapegoats, an “other,” the “bad guys,” if you will, that must be “put in their place,” dealt with, or, even, destroyed.
I, for one, am not going to allow that to happen to me or my colleagues, anymore. I owe that to them, to myself, and to my kids (students).
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Where do we start? In Michigan? In New York?
Maybe people in Connecticut are ready to get behind their school folks The heroic actions of the principal, the counselor, the janitor and the teachers should be celebrated. These folks are representative of those who serve in our schools everywhere.
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Diane, you’re not responsible for what your readers write, but you do control which of their writings you choose to promote, and with enthusiasm to boot.
To blame this on teacher bashing, even fractionally, without a sliver of evidence to support it . . . it’s ugly and small, frankly.
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Thank you for saying this. Since the day of the shooting, I have been posting this very sentiment on Huff Post, MSN and other places. The media, political pundits and politicos on both sides of the aisle need to do some serious self-examination of their culpability in fomenting a culture that paints teachers as untrustworthy targets who need to be eliminated and schools as abject failures. Add to this mix someone who is mentally unstable with an armload of assault weapons and the tragic result is Sandy Hook…
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I fear that too much blame and responsibility are being placed at our classroom doors at the same time. EducatorsEducators are not trained mental health clinicians but we are trained to identify students who are not able to learn or behave appropriately in a normal classroom setting. Once that identification has been logged with officials and experts within the system, we expect the support and action to be taken toward remediating the student with services and family intervention. Well, the truth is, it doesn’t quite turn out that way. In many cases, we teachers are given strategies and new ideas in which to work with troubled students who we already have spent months exploring inteventions on our own and told to come back after implementing them for 6 weeks. In essence, we go back and do what hasn’t worked over and over again, waiting for the other shoe to drop and an outburst so damaging to happen for anyone to take us seriously. Trust us, we teachers see hundreds of students and we can spot a troubled child immediately. When we say a child is not progressing adequately, listen to us. For some special ed administrator, whose office is miles away from the child in need and ready to blame parents for most problems, and then tells me, the teacher, that nothing can be done until something more serious takes place, it fails everyone, especially the student. We educators are hardy individuals. We will go back to our classrooms and try to find solutions, lie awake at night worrying about what to do for a child and turn to fellow teachers for solace and support, but very frankly, we are not trained to deal with the serous issues of mental illness in our classrooms. You are asking too much from us, though our hearts and minds race to find answers on our own every single day. Districts are so afraid of litigation from parents that we have become mute in our responses to them for fear of upsetting them or saying something we cannot deliver. We have to get real and be unafraid of the truths in dealing in this humane profession. We are working with human beings. If there ever was a place and time to be honest and forthright, it is now. I’d rather stand up and tell the truth than hover in a corner of my classroom fearful of the outcome from officials who are only protecting their jobs and reputations instead of being the solutionaries for a growing mental health problem in our schools. The classrooms are the gateways to discovering those children and families who deserve our invested efforts to make sure we find a way to help them. Teachers can’t do it alone. I even wonder how and when it became part of my job to be expected to cure the mentally ill in addition to teaching citizenship and academic skills? This just seems like way too much to ask of educators, though they will be the first to try with all their might to do just that.
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