This is a letter from a kindergarten teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, to her state legislators. Nevada has the lowest graduation rate in the nation, lower even than the District of Columbia. As she explains in her post, the schools of Las Vegas are underfunded, and the needs of the children are huge. Please read and remember: Everything you need about school reform may be learned from a kindergarten teacher.
The session has begun and I’m worried. What worries me?
FUNDING
Money. People say money should not matter in education but it does. Money buys stuff and staff. Bottom line: Schools are an expenditure. You get what you pay for.
There is a public school funding unfairness in the state – the Nevada Plan. Frankly, Vegas money needs to stay in Vegas. Our children and public schools need the money. I don’t want to see other schools in Nevada starve, but it’s only fair that the tax dollars made with the labor in my community come back the the families and children in my community. We are last in funding in a state last in funding. And we pay everyone else’s bills?
85% of the total state revenue comes from Vegas. 75% of Nevada’s students and teachers live in Vegas. Only 50% of the general fund comes back to Vegas schools. There is something very unfair about this formula.
Isn’t a student in Vegas worth just as much as a student in Eureaka?
REFORM
I’m worried about the scary reform movement. I have had 6 principals in 12 years, 6 reading programs, 3 math programs, taught 3 different grade levels, and taught at 3 different schools. Reform implies that teachers are not willing to change or are stuck in bad habits. Frankly, I have whiplash.
Screaming reform at 17,000+ teachers in Vegas who experience constant change is …. Ridiculous. Our community only has 50% of the teachers it had 5 years ago anyhow. In a profession with high turnover – in a community as transient as Vegas – who are you demanding reform from? The few that are left? Dumb and a waste of time.
We need security, retention, and better working conditions. Some consistency and balance would be nice. I would like to see some work to KEEP good teachers because we are driving them off.
STANDARDIZED TESTS
25 years ago … During my undergraduate studies the professor who was teaching me about tests said this: Standardized tests are racially and culturally biased. Nothing has changed.
He also said: Be careful what you assess because it will drive your instruction. When we place such high pressure on standardized test scores – we are going to force everyone to teach to the test.
What if the test will not get students ready for life or academic success? A, B, C, D multiple choice questions are not measuring authentic life skills. We all know people who test well who lack skills in other areas.
Currently, I spend 75% of my instructional time testing or preparing for testing. My students are 5 years old and I only see them 2 hours a day. It’s too much. I’m not even teaching anymore.
I’m wondering why my community that is predominantly minority insists on testing our children with biased standardized assessments? Traditionally – these tests have been unfair to minority groups.
We are basing how our students are doing based SOLELY on this kind of assessment. There is no balance in this. Teachers will be evaluated ONLY on these scores and this is fair? We will turnaround our schools, develop charters, and sell more schools to Edison because of these biased scores?
States that have been using these standardized tests for years are now moving to OUTLAW their use at all. Standardized tests do not test higher level thinking skills. Real life skill is not measured by them. Innovation, invention, synthesis, analysis, and creativty are not measured by these types of tests.
There is no balance when you place so much pressure on one type of assessment.
Something is wrong when you can tell how many schools will be privatized by test scores -and you can also predict scores based on race.
Sadly race and poverty are brothers and sisters.
POVERTY
The research says: Household income is the leading indicator of how well students will do academically.
My students are poor. I have homeless students. I have a revolving door. Four students did not come back after winter break – they just disappeared. This is normal. My school has a 75% turnover. My school has a high ELL population. My school has 85% free and reduced lunch students.
Guess what? My school has NOT qualified for TITLE funds because there are so many other schools in the district that are at 95% to 100%. I guess my school is considered normal in Vegas.
Teachers are rowing the boat as fast as we can – but the boat has a hole!
CORPORATIONS
While I’m busy tutoring, furthering my education, and working — the wolf has been in the hen house!
I’m calling out the wolf!
Charter school corporations do no better than public schools. They do not take the high needs students. They are not regulated like public schools. They are resegregating our population by race and interest – sometimes religious interest. Tax payer funds are being misused. Yep – misused. Charters are more expensive and with few exceptions no more effective than public schools. This charter experiment is failing across the nation. Nevada does not need to participate in this movement until it proves to be working someplace.
Using tax payer money to fund someone fancy smancy private school idea aka charter schools – is no good.
Now there is legislation to “empower” parents to pull the trigger and turn their neighborhood school into a charter? I can think of so many different ways to empower parents. Killing public schools is a horrible mistake.
Edison claimed it would make money and fix failing schools. It hasn’t. It won’t. Yet these corporate hybrids expand and continue to receive additional money. Someone is making money – not students or teachers. From my point of view, Edison is an investment scam. Joke on the tax payer.
Giving money to a corporation to run a school – is money that is not spent on kids.
Teach for America claims it will give our schools the best and brightest to teach at-risk for two or three years. TFA come untrained and are placed in the hardest areas and expected to know after 6 weeks of intense training what to do? What could go wrong? I guess this is why so few make it through the first year and it’s a very rare person who stays in the classroom for a career. Tourist teachers?
Inexperienced and untrained teachers – are not worth the three or four times the money it will take to hire through TFA.
Elaine Wynn spent A LOT of her own money and her friend’s money to obtain some board seats for TFA friendly board members. I would question – WHY?
The New Teacher Project is a Michelle Rhee non-profit. Michelle Rhee controlled her students with duct tape when she had her own classroom. Then she became an adminstrator who fired teachers on TV. Now she makes money telling governors how to unionbust and get rid of veteran teachers. Students First lurks around waiting for opportunities in Nevada. They invested heavily in campaigns – for extreme conservatives.
I’m not sure why people listen to this foul Rhee woman or any of her banter? She is cruel and making money. Not unlike Ann Coulter.
These privatizing vultures all have one thing in common – promises they can NOT keep because it’s quick fixes and not research based. And they are earning a lot of money. I’m not a fan of privatizing or spending money on someone or a corporation which is NOT effective.
To get at those education dollars — we need our schools and kids to appear to fail right?
FAILING
Someone explain to me please why Nevada needs a High School Math Proficiency Test that is the third hardest in the nation?
We fund last in the nation – but expect our children to test at the highest levels? Then scream because a high number drop out or do not receive a diploma?
It’s a known fact that you can graduate just fine with a Nevada education – you just need to move to another state your senior year if you can NOT pass the math proficiency. We export our seniors?
We fail most of our kids and no one is questioning the RIGOR of the test? I’m questioning the actual validity of every measurement tool I’ve seen. The tests are — BAD tests.
I’ve challenged every school board member to take the math proficiency – and pass. No takers yet.
The “math” proficiency is actually a very technical reading test – word problems. Statistics, proabability, algebra, geometry – all couched in word problems.
Why would this be a problem? 60,000 language learners? Do you think the large number of kids who are not receiving a diploma are primarily second language students who fail the so-called “math” test which is actually a reading English test? It is not adminstered in Spanish.
EARLY INTERVENTION
Speaking of failing ….
My students fail on the first day of school. Yep. Kindergarten. My students are two to three years behind the nation on the first day of their public school experience. Before the public school teacher ever sees the child – they are behind the nation.
Kindergarten is not mandatory in Nevada. Vegas still has a large number of half day Kindergarten programs. We are supposed to compete with the rest of the nation that invests in early intervention and compete with parents who are placing their children in preschool at age two?
30% of Kindergarten students fail. And go to first grade. They are behind and stay behind. At-risk kids in half day programs, class sizes between 30 to 40, racing to catch-up to the nation who began 3 years ago.
We aren’t failing them in high school; Kids fail before the public schools even know their name.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
60,000 identified ELL students. “Identified” because this depends on self identifying when parents enroll their child. For whatever reason, parents may or may not check the right box on the form.
I have a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. Research shows it takes students 5 to 10 years to develop the academic language ability to be successful. We are not supporting students so it might even be longer.
Studies show that it would take $175 million to support our language learning students in Vegas properly. $50 million would be the bare minimum.
I’ll say it — $14 million? $10 million? I guess if your name is Sandoval you don’t want to be the only Governor with a significant number of ELL students and give them NOTHING.
Our kids have real needs that are not being met.
MISSION STATEMENT
The reason the business model fails public schools is — mission statement.
Business is about making money – the mission statement is about the bottom line.
Public schools are about helping citizens – all people, the mission statement is about a literate democracy.
Public schools are always going to be an expenditure and investment.
When we try to use only data and scores from a biased measuring tool to evaluate our students and teachers like a business – we will get a privatizing business result.
My students are more than a test score. I am more than a collection of their test scores. My craft is an art more than a science. Hard to measure but still valuable. Learning will still take place in my classroom – even if I never give another test.
POWER
Teachers have very little power. All I have is e-mail. I have worked non-stop since the last legislative session to get to know as many legislators as I could and educate my community. I’m the alarm in my own frenzied way
I’m worried.
I see too much willingness to sell our public schools instead of invest in them. We are giving money to snake oil salesmen instead of getting it to the classroom and kids. It’s wasting our precious limited funds.
I believe we are damaging our kids with excessive data collection and testing. We are failing everyone and I’m questioning this – WHY?
I’m worried about disadvantaged kids.
I’m worried about money. I don’t understand why I live in a state that is so rich in money and gold — and we can’t even fund our schools? What does this say about my state?
And I’m worried about Democrats. Yep. It was Democrats last session who did the damage. Why do Democrats follow the extreme right wing logic when it comes to public schools? Stand Up. We believe in a free public education for everyone. It’s worth protecting and fighting for.
We aren’t here to collect money for our next election by selling public schools down the river in a canoe with a hole and a frantic screaming kindergarten teacher!
Do what is right this time around.
Angie Sullivan
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wow! Awesome letter! I don’t have any answers. I’m too numb to think and fight anymore. I feel like I’m treading water and watching a huge wave headed my way. I don’t know which way to turn. I am tired. I am frustrated. I am sad. I am battle-weary.
This is a great, easy to undrstand and impossibly to deny description.of the situation, and “you get what you pay for” sums it up nicely. The folks looking to “reform” education certainly expect to get paid well. When they gather to plan, when they attend and hold fund-raisers for the politicians, policy-makers and school boards they intend to buy-they realize that. Problem is that human capital and societal gain take a back seat to their private greed.
Whiplash….yup..that is correct. We have had changes to changes before the changes were even started or reached full implementation. This has to crash….this is unsustainable. This is suicide.
Incredible thoughts & arguments. Source of scores (no pun intended) of quotes and tweets. This teacher gets it. Wish the talking heads in the media & government would read and understand.
This is a great letter, perfect to share with parents! You know what kills me ? The politicians say early intervention is important. OK great . Guess when? In 10 years.
That’s what they’re saying ….in 10 years we’ll do it. PLEASE! How long did it take to funnel billions to Pearson to implement these testing reforms? 6 Months???
Interesting to see the support for local funding of schools. Won’t that lead to large discrepancies in resources for students in urban and rural areas?
I recently read an article that mentions public ed has been intractable, non-responsive, and hard to improve in its current format. They are not accountable to anyone because many have been run by corrupt self-interested public officials elected most times by fewer than 2% of eligible voters. School board members have no incentive to be responsive because they are guaranteed a constantly growing pot of revenue regardless of performance/quality/responsiveness. This so echos what I see in my own district. Superintendents and their administration are not held accountable for low performing schools. The extra momey received byTitle I schools doesn’t seem to help. Charters have their warts too but only came about because public ed hasn’t been able to do the job either. Neither system seems to work. Maybe if the focus was truly the kids and teachers and people did what was right instead of making education about money, power, political agendas, and the adults, changes could be made that really solve what’s wrong with public education.
Angie Sullivan identifies the symptom of the problem (underfunding), but since she does not take her analysis to the true causes, she cannot propose a persuasive remedy beyond do the right thing legislatively. But that’s perhaps the best that can be done so far. She ought to ask how Nevada could reelect Harry Reid. That would start to get at the real causes. The schools are being sold to the highest bidder, but her side has lost the bidding war in which her side’s bid used to be the only one. No longer. She admits that her construction company can’t build the project. The other small competing firms don’t take on jobs they can’t do. It’s unfair, but those who control the money pipeline are working it that way. Maybe going back to local funding rather than robin hood funding would work. Mainly, however, the house is taking too big a cut off the top and not returning enough in winnings to the players. There will be no more money. Will reform come from the teachers?
Didn’t you say you were a teacher, Harlan?
So lead the way!
My particular charter is very tight ass about money. I’d prefer vouchers.
I wasn’t referring to your school. I was referring to your profession and you leading the way to true reform. Otherwise, you are just another bloviating blowhard.
Thank you for your gracious and kind, pungent and pity, Lindakakian words.
That’s all you got?
At least you were forced to be succinct vs. your usual rambling nonsensical blabber.
In order for reform to come from teachers, they must be allowed, once again, to make some decisions about what goes on in their classrooms. The best teachers will soon all be gone. They are being forced to sit in meeting after meeting after meeting, called TBTs (Teacher Based Teams) where they revisit student data until it’s like beating a dead horse. When I took stats way back when, we isolated the target variable. What if it can’t be isolated? What if the child :1. didn’t eat breakfast, 2. lost a pet, 3. lost a parent, 4. fought with a friend, 5. stayed up too late. 6. visited a parent at jail the night before, etc., etc., etc. These TBTs that sometimes meet weekly are the biggest waste of taxpayer money. Good teachers know their students. They don’t need data, gathered weekly, and gone over weekly, to tell you what a student needs. Unfortunately, with all this data gathering and evaluating, less and less time in being spent helping the children. When the current students graduate and can’t do a job, whose fault will it REALLY be? You won’t be able to blame the teachers, since they have no control over what is happening. If these corporations think workers don’t have necessary skills now, just wait until they get the product they have chosen.
Want real reform? Give the decision-making power of what goes on in a classroom back to the teachers. Expect students to step up to the plate. Expect parents to come to parent teacher conferences. Every business should be willing to allow its workers to attend school conferences on paid company time. CEOs should be interested in the academic standing of its workers’ children. This is the future of your business and our country. Put your money here, instead of fighting to use test scores to evaluate teachers. That is the most asinine idea anyone ever came up with. Are there bad teachers? Sure there are. Just like there are bad bankers, bad CEOs, bad cops, bad firefighters, bad factory workers, bad lawyers, bad prosecutors, bad doctors,etc., etc., etc. That is no reason to badmouth every person in any one of these given professions.
Let’s start a letter writing campaign. To newspapers, legislators, governors, the president. Make it a weekly activity. And keep doing it until we see REAL REFORM that will benefit the children.
Great comment! I’m so tired of Inquiry Meetings where we look and data and try to figure out why. Just let me teach!
Angie, consider sending your letter to President Obama.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
Obama does not cares about children. Neither does any Dem or Repub who touts education reform. Not one single one of them. In fact, the people pushing education reform across the board should not be allowed to have any input unless they have been a classroom teacher for at least 5-10 years! The ones in there now have no clue about children and don’t really care!
Actually, they truly despise children and see them only as a means to an untapped industry. Parents and teachers are needed now more than ever to stop this destruction!
Most districts have a top down approach to managing. Teachers and parents are not having enough say in public ed. In my district they(admin and most of school board) seem to act as if we are there to serve them, not the other way around. Very self serving. Only pretend to want input when really only want people who agree with them.
I agree with thenextlevel2000. Forget about writing to Obama. We have to work locally and fight things where we are to change things where we are. Look at Garfield H.S. in Seattle. Look at Chicago. Look at the Texas rally–10,000 people! I would recommend to first focus on stopping “standardized” testing. Parents, opt your kids out, & get other parents to do so as well. No testing–$$$$ saved, more, better teaching & richer curriculum (no more teaching to the test!), no more RTTT, no more VAM, no more teachers degraded & fired, no more buildings closed due to “poor test performance; not making AYP.” OPT OUT NOW!!!
Very salient point about the fundamental difference in goals between business and education. Business is good at doing what it does — making money — but that doesn’t mean a profit motive behind the scenes is the best thing for schools.
It is not really a question of differences in goals or entity. The public schools were always a business, but they used to be a well managed business with segregated clientele and limited goals. A top notch private school asks $27,000 per pupil, and puts at least 80% of that into the classroom, with class sizes of 15, and the teachers still get only 2/3 of a public school teacher’s salary, and NEVER get a defined benefit pension plan, only defined contribution. Compare that to the foundation grant and the management cost of your public school. Those who live by the public sector die by the public sector.
Public schools have NEVER been a business. Stop it, please.
Try half of a public school teacher’s salary, and no pension plan at all. Most private schools aren’t “top notch,” and ALL are overrated since they can pick and choose who can attend.
Oh, puh-leese, susan nunes. The public school system in every district is a service business, and until recently a service business with a legally protected monopoly. To deny that a public school is a business is just pure perversity. The government is a business too. It is hired by the citizens to provide basic services such as police, fire, and legal administration. Think it through.
Your understanding of what “business” is and how it does it is limited. When a business doesn’t make a profit it closes. When a public business can’t pay its bills it goes out of business too. The essence of a successful business is NOT profit, but profit is the byproduct. What the public schools have ignored for too long is that they are a business.
Very warped views…have you ever thought of starting your own blog. You should.
This is an excellent commentary and with a few exceptions, the same could be said about our state of “mis”education here in Florida, actually everywhere. After teaching Kindergarten for 32 years, I left kicking and screaming because of that very same “wolf at the door”. That was 12 years ago. Unfortunately, the wolf has gotten inside, wreaking havoc at every turn. Sadly, students and teachers are his favorite meal.
I love “Tourist teacher” My theorie is that things are getting worse at a faster and more frantic speed. Like these reformers realize that people are starting to catch on, and they have to get as much done as possible before everyone discoveres this is fraud. It’s harder to go back and fix things then it is to go forward.
Great insight….they wouldn’t have a clue how to fix any of this because that is not their intent.
Crash, break it and grab as much as you can…then move on to your next venture. It may crumble faster than they thought, but it will take a lifetime to fix the messes they have created under the guise of “reform”.
Your letter is well written, asks very important questions, and shows what is really happening to our public schools. I wrote a book three years ago about my story, once I quit after 18 years of teaching high school. You have a story to tell as well, unfortunately if those of us in the trenches aren’t connected with the publishing world, its hard to get that reality out there.
There is a movement afoot….our public school system is being dismantled. Is it so the business world can profit off of education? Is it so we can keep minorities chained to the service-sector of our society? Has there been a deliberate dumbing down of the education of our society? It would seem so, but for what purpose?
Americans are a very resilient people. There has been resistance seen in the growth of private schools and homeschooling. But I keep asking myself, what are the public schools going to look like 10 years from now? This testing is madness, state funding doesn’t make sense, but it’s been done to methodically re-shape our public school system. Into what? I’m not sure.
I see a division occurring in our society caused by what is happening to our public school system. The phrase “united we stand, divided we fall” has new meaning for me now.
Very sage questions, unheardofwriter. Suppose we assume that the people doing this are NOT evil. Then what would be the motivation of the homeschoolers, and the private schoolers, and include the charter schools too. Suppose there is an unmet “need” that is driving the conversion. What would that need be? Mostly what I see here on Diane’s blog is business and profit bashing, rather than an attempt at real evaluation. It’s like a doctor treating the symptoms rather than the true causes of the disease. One wonders WHY teachers can’t introspect and look for the causes within themselves but always have to blame outside forces, and impugn the motives of the alternative providers=greed, as if the public school teacher wasn’t always self interested, no matter how good she was at her craft. No one works for nothing. Teaching used to be a way of climbing into the middle class by developing one’s intellectual competence. What happened when one could get the job without real competence at the substance and the craft. What happened when you could keep the job for a lifetime without real competence? This blog calls that “bashing teachers,” as if it weren’t true. It isn’t true of ALL teachers, but it is true of some teachers, but it’s a union shop, and one thing you DON’T do in a union shop is finger the malingerers. So my analysis is that when great public school teachers, and there are many of them, tolerated the incompetent in their buildings, they were destroying themselves. Think about it. You said, “It’s not my responsibility. That’s the administration’s job.” It was supposed to be the administration’s job, but the administrators couldn’t fire at will because of the union. When YOU accepted union interference in hiring and firing, you made a pact with the devil. And since you won’t change your allegiance, still, you scream and yell when Van Helsing shows you the cross. Many good teachers repent, get out of public education into private, and accept the lower, rational wage. That’s what the privatizers are exploiting, in my view anyway, the natural parental protest against teachers whose allegiance is to an alien European, indeed Communist, ideology. Public sector unions have to go. It is a simple as that. Now, do your voodoo dance and fulminate and curse at me. Tell me not to come in your holy temple. That your High Priestess will be offended. I’ve heard it all before. Your priestess is actually quite clear in her adherence to the theology. And she is half right. The privatizers are exploiters, and their solutions are corrupt, and mostly won’t work and will likewise crash and burn and serve students no better than the public schools, but they will do it within budget. But real reform from within cannot happen because YOU won’t reform yourselves. The only hope I see is in vouchers, but there is probably a constitutional question about religion involved there, or if not constitutional, at least political. Teachers are wedded to an out of date economic ideology, Marxism, but what the Brave New World will look like, as yet nobody knows. Charles Murray has called for the end of the college degree as the ticket to an interview. So maybe some kind of “testing” for credit, like the new GED, or our great god Pearson, will become the low cost way of certification. Someone’s going to be making the money, but it won’t be you. Too much deadwood in the public system, dragging down effectiveness. Politically, the culture is fumbling blindly toward a solution via NCLB and RTTT, but it is blind fumbling for sure.
Great post. Talk solutions instead of demonizing either side.
There is a difference between “demonizing” the other side and pointing out problems with charter schools that are run by corporations. When criticism is applied to people who know little about education, who claim they know what is best for education and who want to dismantle public schools because they have the money and power to create charter schools, then how is that “demonizing” the other side? I think public education has become a struggle a between those who have the money and those who do not. It’s really more of a class issue in many ways than “demonizing” those in power.
If the vast majority of posts here were just “pointing out problems with charter schools that are run by corporations” I would probably agree with 90% percent of the posts. But that is not the argument that is usually made. Anything that is not a traditional geographically zoned school is reviled, unless of course you can afford a traditional private school.
And that is an opinion, your opinon.
I think there is ample support for my opinion. Posters here have often argued that public funds should never be given to private organizations. That is a blanket prohibition against allowing any charter like school, with no consideration of the quality of the education being provided. Another good example is the post the featured post “The Problem with Choice”. The arguments there apply to open enrollment public school districts just as much as charter schools.
There is ample support for most opinions. That’s why the privatizers pay think tanks and foundations.
We need to strengthen the relationship between teachers and parents. We share the same concerns and we outnumber the “reformers”.
I believe the key to protecting public education lies in the hands of our parents and tax payers. That is why my school and our district superintendent have recently begun holding public forums to inform our parents, community business, and other stakeholders about what is really going on at our state department. We are not waiting for the test scores to come in try and explain. We are being proactive. We are speaking before the ax falls, so they will already be prepared for the half truths that come from our Department of Education. The grading formula and score scales were changed to make it appear that schools are scoring lower. We are “educating” our public now so they won’t be misinformed later when the score appear to fall. I have said it all along. We are educators, let’s do what we do best. Let’s educate our communities now. Let’s teach them about this ALEC agenda and false claims of the miracle charter, voucher, and virtual schools. We can no longer afford to remain silent. Work with parents and be proactive. It is our only chance.
Good luck. Possibly it is your only chance.
Yes it is. Because I educate every child who enters my doors. I turn no one away. I don’t have the luxury of having every parent in my school who can advocate for their children. They want for their children what I want for my own. Yet they are not always armed with the knowledge and tools that I have to advocate for my own children. They depend on us as public educators. We help them fill out applications, we help them with school supplies and uniforms, we help connect them to community resources. As a public school administrator I don’t skim students, all who live in my community are welcome, even those who are expensive and difficult to teach. If the state mandates for testing would disappear, I could really focus our energy on educating these students.
How many students that do not live in your community can attend your school?
A couple of weeks ago a teacher in Connecticut was lamenting the closure of alternative high schools in his city, pushing those students back into the traditional high schools and disrupting the education taking place in the traditional schools. Should I think of alternative high schools as the place public high schools put the students that are too difficult to teach?
Mine is a rural neighborhood public school in a small town. We don’t have magnet schools here. I support neighborhood public schools because I know my students and parents. You can believe what you want. I know what works here and I am committed to my students. I work with our parents and community. I have 600 students. I work under the mandates of my state. I have no choice. That is the bottom line here. Your experiences are obviously different. Pass judgement somewhere else please…
I am certainly not passing judgements on anyone. I have no doubt that there is an important sense in which community schools work best in small towns. What works best in a small town may not be what works best in densely populated urban areas or the rural countryside.
I do not like the “wolf” analogy in this letter (wolves are really not scary, threatening animals so check out this site:
http://www.facebook.com/NorthernIdahoWolfAlliance
to learn more about their important place in the environment) .
Regardless, I do think this letter is very thorough and, with a little tweaking, should be published in every op-ed in every major newspaper in the country.
Wow. Truer words were never spoken. I’m a first-grade teacher in Los Angeles and Angie Sullivan took the words right out of my own heart. We all need to call out the corporate, profit-driven privatization plotters as she has.
Anne Zerrien-Lee Public School Teacher
I could not have said it better Angie, as a 16 year veteran of Clark County, we are in the crucible, but I sense that some people are beginning to wake up as to the expenditures of the district. The recent questioning of our imperial superintendent’s consultant contracts may be a small indicator of hope. Here is hoping!
Nevada education is on the ropes, thanks to a hostile governor and a superintendent of instruction who doesn’t even believe in their existence. Sup Guthrie is now trying to get more TFAs into the state.
Once TFA has to accept more and more members to meet the growing demand by the privatizers and the charter miracle schools, their special status will dwindle since anyone can get in…imagine a lowly state university student as a TFA temp/scab vs. the Ivy League elite (who needs the resume boost for law school or Goldman Sachs).
Their brand will suffer when they can no longer brag about the small percentage of those accepted, unless of course they trump up the applicant numbers…similar to how charters create their “waiting lists”.
Any TFA interns slated for Detroit?
There are some excellent graduates of state universities. To call them “scabs,” is to betray the standard public school teacher union mentality, that the job somehow belongs to the union member. I dispute that. Public sector unions are a relatively new thing, post Carter, where industrial unions have a long and hard won noble history. But public sector unions contaminate politics.
I am calling the TFA temp a scab…when certified, qualified teachers are laid of and then replaced by teach for a whiles, they are scabs….a scab is scab is a scab.
I stand corrected, Linda. Forgot about the laid offs. They are sort of like strike breakers aren’t they, brought in to bust the union. Now, of course, I think the union should be busted, but, still, I stand corrected. You are right.
Thank you! Excellent. Shows the CORRUPTION.
I apologize for being annoyed.
“Schools are about money” is the oldest story in education-land.
Show me your budget, where each and every dollar is going and then
I will help.
I think spending in NV is probably not the issue. Schools should not
be expected to raise kids. If they do indeed have responsibility,
then we must tell the public
that schools are not only for education, but for replacing missing parents,
and non-missing parents that will not participate with their own children in the growing
up and learning experience.
If NV schools have a problem, don’t ask for more money.
Tell us all exactly what the problem is. Taxpayers will help
if only they know what problem they are solving in great detail!!!
This letter needs to go to President Obama and Arne Duncan. I have faith that if hey realize the error of their ways that they will change because they are good people, just misinformed and not teachers.
Dear twinkiecat, how mistaken you are. They know exactly what they are doing and why. Their enemy is the Republicans. Next to destroying them, nothing else matters. Why? The hope of retaking the House. If the Dems do, more taxes, more spending, but it won’t be on public education because they know you fools are in their pockets and you will go like sheep to the slaughter of higher taxes to make the hedge funders rich. You are being reenslaved by the politicians you admire and you don’t even realize it. I have more faith in The Second Coming than that Barak and Arne will change their education policy. WHY you continue to support him and Biden is a mystery to me. Even Diane’s support of him seems disingenuous to me. Would YOU buy her book if she had announced for Romney? Follow the money, and see what you find. Education deformation is the only bipartisan project in Washington, the right because it wants vouchers for religious schoos, cultural resegregation (not rscial) via charters, and paid homeschooling via online public schools, the left because because tax revenue is steadier for big money investors to use to contribute to candidates who can guarantee higher returns than on treasury bills and than business income on which the Rublicans depend. In both cases the children are the hostages. What would you DO if you lost your illusions?