Maine Governor Paul LePage has made a name for himself insulting Maine educators and proposing vouchers, charters, and evaluating teachers by student test scores. One superintendent, Paul Perzanoski of Brunswick, decided he had had enough.
This is how the local press described his letter and the reaction to it.
“The legislators passed new laws on bullying this spring but they failed to include the Blaine House,” Perzanoski wrote. “Remediation is on the governor’s mind and I agree, he needs remediation in civility, public speaking, telling the truth, diplomacy and following the law. I think we should challenge him to take the SAT and then make the results public.”
But that wasn’t all.
“There comes a time when you have to stand up and say enough is enough,” Perzanoski said on Wednesday. “Our educators work harder now than they ever had before, and their reward for it is additional unfunded mandates and then political bashing based on whatever statistics they choose to use and the cliche of the day.”
And this:
“Public school bashing has become the favorite political sport since a statistically flawed document called ‘A Nation at Risk’ was released in 1983,” he wrote. “The main goal of this 29-year attack is not to improve public education but to demean it enough so public dollars pay for private and religious schools.”
When asked by a reporter about his bold statements, Perznoski–a 40-year veteran of public education– said “sometimes you have to take a risk” and speak your mind.
“We don’t have to put up with this,” he said about his message to staff. “We have a voice. We need to use it. We need to stand up as one.”
This man should get a gold star for courage.
Here is his email: pperzanoski@brunswick.k12.me.us.
Let’s thank him for using his voice and speaking truth to power.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
pperzanoski@brunswick.k12.me.us
Thank you Diane for finding this and posting this. This has been a truly depressing period around education/being educated. The public school systems under attack coupled with mind boggling ignorance from chosen politicians- these people were chosen to represent swaths of the US- reached a personal crescendo yesterday. I am developing severe animous toward young people who parrot their parent’s righteous indignation and ignorance of basic human rights and education and extreme nausea at the blatant disregard for anything resembling a scientific knowledge base from our leaders or our citizens. This is a harbinger of what is to come.
How is it in this day and age. I am so glad when people who actually have a dog in the race, ie their image or reputation, as opposed to the rest of the 90% who actually have just children in the race ( sarcasm), take on the self serving short sighted politicos for their bullying tactics and their clear lack of democratic leadership.
I am finding that I am beginning to actually hate other human beings for their ignorance and that is never a good sign.
Hatred is not a useful path or attitude or emotion. Redouble your efforts to educate the public. Look what this superintendent did. He dared to speak truth to power. He took a huge risk, but he said “enough is enough.” His act may have educated some people. For those whose eyes and ears are closed, our task is to overcome hatred and disdain and to think instead of how to educate them, how to get them to open their eyes and ears to the logical consequences of their ideas.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I will take your message to heart as well as other examples through out history of woeful ignorance used to support inhumane systems. The battle is so corrosive to the human spirit at times to think of how far we have come and how little some of us have actually learned. Your message and this post came at just the right time for this reader.
Thanks Diane, it is great to hear about someone finally standing up against this political machine that has taken over our country. I’ll send an email to thank him personally. We need more brave souls to stand up and find their voice. We need great leaders, like you and him, to stand up and speak for teachers. Teachers need to stand together and find their leadership voice. Unless we begin to stand together and fight, we will all fall together. Our voices have to become louder than theirs. We have the numbers, some 3.5 million of us. We need leaders who can organize us against the bullies.
Bridget,
“We need leaders who can organize us against the bullies.”
Yes and no! I have been appalled by the “leaders”-administrators who haven’t spoken up at all even though when you speak with them on a personal level they don’t agree at all with what has been going down for the last dozen or so years in supposed education reform. So the pressure really needs to come from the bottom up to force those “leaders” to resist the demands of those who have no clue as to what teaching and learning on a day in and day out basis is. We need to quit reacting out of fear of the “bullies” and stand up. Teachers (and as importantly, parents) are the ones who should be challenging these bullies.
And the bully meme is one we should point out as the definition of a bully is, per wiki: Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior manifested by the use of force or coercion to affect others, particularly when the behavior is habitual and involves an imbalance of power. It can include verbal harassment, physical assault or coercion and may be directed repeatedly towards particular victims, perhaps on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or ability.[2][3] The “imbalance of power” may be social power and/or physical power. The victim of bullying is sometimes referred to as a “target”.
If that is not the definition of the current “stick” approach to the top down mandates that are forced on educators, I don’t know what it could be.
Duane, you misunderstood when I said ” leaders” . Any one of us can be a leader. Most of your comments seem to always blame school administrators for allowing the deform efforts in our schools. I think we are all at fault because we didn’t understand what the real agenda was. We actually bought into the BS at the beginning bc we thought those at the top knew what they were doing. So we put their initiatives into place and now we are paying the price. They are now using the failure of their own initiatives against us. We underestimated the powers that be. Stop blaming administrators because they are as powerless as you are. Everyone has someone above them who they can blame. None of us are blameless bc we all played our parts like good little educators. I am sure you will disagree as you usually do bc you see administrators, conveniently, as part of the problem. I have been lucky enough to have worked with great administrators and leaders. I guess you have not. We are all doing the best we can. Before you judge the actions of administrators you need to walk in their shoes, which I know you have not.
So let’s all stand together and stop pointing fingers at each other.
Bridget,
Generally I tend to shy away from the term leader as it has been used in education administration, especially for the last 15 years or so as it seemed to be an attempt to “professionalize” the administrative positions. To me these “leaders” took it upon themselves to tell us lowly peons, the teachers, that we didn’t know enough about the teaching and learning process in our rooms to be able to “improve”. So many chiefs telling too many underlings what to do-all with the backing of or mandated by the state educational authorities, most of whom hadn’t been in a classroom in years, not to mention the professors of education, many of whom didn’t utter a peep of resistance to said “leaders'” reforms.
And yes, I do blame the vast majority of administrators who have gone along with this nonsense since the turn of the century. And if as you say “we are all at fault because we didn’t understand what the real agenda was. We actually bought into the BS at the beginning bc we thought those at the top knew what they were doing. So we put their initiatives into place and now we are paying the price. ” then now are you willing to the price of losing your jobs for putting the BS initiatives in place? I know I paid the price for challenging those said “BS initiatives”. So in essence I’m saying that there has been hardly any “accountability” on the part of the “leaders”, most of whom, in my opinion, should be “falling on their own swords” as means of acknowledging their very damaging shortcomings as “leaders”.
If nothing else go down in flames now challenging the educational deformers BS. Oh, but I have a family and mortgage etc. . . . Well, come back to the classroom and teach then. Sorry, but mea culpas now seem too late and quite inadequate without substantial concerted effort by those so called leaders. And I won’t hold my breath, either.
Sorry if my thoughts are “rough” but that’s how I see it.
Duane
P.S. “Before you judge the actions of administrators you need to walk in their shoes, which I know you have not.” You are right I have not been an administrator in a public school setting (other than being a department chair), however, I have done internships (yes, I know they are no where near the “real” job) and have been certified to be an administrator but chose not to specifically because I knew that I could not implement those “BS initiatives”. And yes I have held supervisory positions in a number of other jobs before becoming a teacher so I’m not quite as much of a greenhorn when it comes to “managing” people. Yes, I do feel qualified to speak out and “judge” those who chose to “go along to get along (monetarily speaking)” and if my judgement is not to your liking, so be it.
If you want to “stand together” now, it’s time for you (administrators in general) to come clean, come out strongly against the reforms even if that includes losing your jobs. Then I will stand with you. Until then, no thanks as you haven’t proven any leadership skills to me. (again the yous are meant to be a general you and not taken personally because I don’t know what you personally have done as an administrator.)
Superintendant Paul Perzonoski’s letter:
Click to access Brunswick.schools.letter.pdf
thank you, I will add the link to my post.
Thank you Diane and Superintendant Perzonski!
Bridget you are so right the only way education it going to improve is if and when we ALL stand together.
Here is his email:
pperzanoski@brunswick.k12.me.us
We need more displays of bravery of this ilk (eg. Carol Burris). Stand up! Be counted! Articulate your vision of education, not just at your dinner table but at City Hall and the mall.
I admire this real hero, willing to speak the truth.
I applaud every educator and parent willing to take a stand. Having the courage of your convictions in this day and age is certainly not easy, but speaks volumes to the character of a person. Thank you Diane. Thank you Mr. Perzanoski. Thank you Carol Burris. Thank you to the many bloggers and others who are willing to give voice to all that is so very important.
Yes… a “nation at risk!”
The National Security State (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Security_State) has given rise to state longitudinal data systems that merge surveillance and commercial exploitation.
Proof comes from the Oregon Department of Education Data Collection Committee.
https://district.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=228
Click to access ed_data_commitments_1-19-12.pdf
MyData Button: Dept of Ed Commitments 08/14/2012 (216.35 KB)
Fact sheet from the US Department of Education for the MyData Button initiative.
“FSA ‘MyData Button’: The Department of Education announced that, by this summer, FSA will add a “MyData” download button to allow students to download their own data into a simple, machine-readable file that they could share – at their own discretion – with third parties that develop helpful consumer tools.
Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA): One year ago, DoD committed to making DoDEA schools a leader in the use of advanced learning technologies that have the potential to significantly improve student performance. Today, DoDEA pledges to take an important step in that effort by committing to offer students and families secure, timely and electronic access to their student data via a ‘MyData Button.’ “
I hope those who are fortunate to work with this superintendent will take him up on his message that “We need to stand up as one.” I do think he is talking about the educators in his system. I think he is talking about educators across the country.
Bravo!
I emailed him to thank him. Maybe he’ll start a trend!
There’s been quite a bit of reaction in the Maine press over Superintendent Perzanoski’s letter. The Portland Press Herald’s editorial was one of the more interesting for its cowardice (http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/editorials/school-heads-comments-about-governor-out-of-line_2012-08-24.html) by agreeing with the Superintendent’s points and then demanding that he apologize for getting “involved in politics”, which for the editors means criticizing our loud-mouth bully of a governor.
One of the funnier (although I assume unintentional) comments was:
Calling the governor a bully, as Perzanoski did, or implying that he’s not intelligent — “I think we should challenge (LePage) to take the SAT and make the results public” — is another way of telling people how to vote.
First, when I read the letter I took no inference that Mr. Perzanoski was making fun of our governor’s intelligence (which the Press Herald itself does from time to time); I thought he was pointing out that those who want to make test scores public should be willing to take the same test publicly themselves, since test scores traditionally have been private matters between students and teachers. Apparently, it was the editors of the Press Herald who thought the governor would not look so smart if asked to take a test.
Second, how these comments amount to “telling people how to vote” is beyond me, although the Press Herald may not think much of the voters in Brunswick since the editors think they are so easily suggestible.