Based on your many comments, I have drafted the following letter to President Obama. Please tell me if you have any changes or corrections. Once the letter is edited, I will post it again, and whoever wishes to do so will send it on October 17, two weeks from today.
The letter is called:
Teachers’ Letter to President Obama
Dear President Obama,
We assume you know that there are many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of teachers, who are disappointed in your education policies.
We assume you know that some will vote for you reluctantly, some will vote for a third party candidate, and some will not vote at all. Our votes will make a difference.
Given the choice between you and Mitt Romney, who seems to view public education with contempt, we want to help you win back the hearts and minds of teachers.
Here are ways to do that.
Please, Mr. President, stop talking about rewarding and punishing teachers. Teachers are professionals, not toddlers. Teachers don’t work harder for bonuses; we are working our best now. Waving a prize in front of us will not make us work harder or better. We became teachers because we want to teach, not because we expected to win a prize for producing higher scores.
Please stop encouraging the privatization of public education. Many studies demonstrate that charters don’t get better results than public schools unless they exclude low-performing children. Public schools educate all children. The proliferation of charter schools will lead to a dual system in many of our big-city districts. Charters are tearing communities apart. Please support public education.
Please speak out against the spread of for-profit schools. These for-profit schools steal precious tax dollars to pay off investors. Those resources belong in the classroom. The for-profit virtual schools get uniformly bad reviews from everyone but Wall Street.
Please withdraw your support from the failed effort to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students. The American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education issued a joint paper saying that such methods are inaccurate and unstable. Teachers get high ratings if they teach the easiest students, and low ratings if they teach the most challenging students.
Please stop closing schools and firing staffs because of low scores. Low scores are a reflection of high poverty, not an indicator of bad schools or bad teachers. Insist that schools enrolling large numbers of poor and minority students get the resources they need to succeed.
Please, President Obama, recognize that your policies are demoralizing teachers. Many are leaving the profession. Young people are deciding not to become teachers. Your policies are ruining a noble profession.
President Obama, we want to support you on November 6.
Please give us reason to believe in you again.
I am a teacher.
/signed,
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks!! Do we want to call for Secretary Duncan’s reassignment?
Emphatically, yes.
You misspieled resignment …
That is a wonderful letter. I have been drafting a letter for the last two weeks in my mind on the way to work each morning. This is perfect. I’ve encouraged my own children not to go into education for the very reasons you’ve highlighted.
I prefer to have Secretary Duncan terminated forever from any form of education system.
Yes. He has to go.
We absolutely need a new sec of ed – one not tied to corp profits. And a true educator would be refreshing!!
President Obama, we want to support you on November 6.
Even if his cabinet has no plans to address the “human rights whitewash” (per ACLU) that results in “academic genocide” (per NC judge Manning)? What sort of example would that be to schoolchildren?
Please consider identifying this as a statement on behalf of school and district administrators, not only teachers. The only part that confuses me a little is the part about rewards and punishments. Is there any ways to be just a little more specific or contextual? Is it linked just to the use of standardized test scores, or is it broader? Thanks for doing this!
Rewards and punishments is demoralizing. Perhaps the reference to toddlers is not fitting?
Everyone should edit as he or she wishes. The reference to “toddlers” was meant to refer to the infantization tendencies of current policy.
Certainly having two letters, one collectively from teachers and one collectively from parents would be more powerful than just one letter from both. It will be harder to get the requisite number of signatures for the White House We the People threshold.
Having it be from both parents and teachers would make it more powerful. Alternatively, having it be just from teachers but including the destructive unintended consequences to children would reduce the chances of Obama saying he is doing it for the children. My child has a high I.Q. and is classified as Gifted Talented/Learning Disabled. The unintended consequences of the NCLB world of high stakes testing almost destroyed him. Having the letter include how destructive NCLB / RTTT has been to students will make it more powerful.
It is easier to organize teachers. A lot of parents don’t have the confidence to criticize the junk science NCLB/RTTT world.
I think the idea is to have as many teachers as possible send it individually through the White House email system, not to collect a lot of signatures for one letter or to create a petition.
That being said, I think it would be worthwhile to have parents also send emails to the White House on the same day. If I get a chance, I might try to write a sample one and post it here, but I think it would be more powerful for each parent to write their own letter explaining their own, their child’s and their community’s situation and experience with education rheeform and how it’s been harmful so that the actual human cost comes through.
My concern that parents are very busy too. I think if they had a forum in which to send a letter, such as this forum, we would see greater support from parents. Can there be a place in the “form” letter for parents/teachers to leave a personalized comment?
I hope that parents and teachers will write their own letters.
I posted a model letter for parents and will do it again.
Diane
Carol, I second your suggestion that we include the negative impact these policies have on children, from the detrimental effects of high stakes testing to the diversion of scarce public dollars from already underfunded public schools.
I would also say that this on behalf university educators
Dear Diane Ravitch:
Thank you so much for drafting this letter. If the President gets a flood of such letters, he may have to take notice, but/and I hope that it won’t be too late to influence policy changes now and into the future, should he be re-elected.
If I may, I’d like to suggest that you include more suggestions about what he should do, equal in weight to what he should stop doing.
This morning I saw the TASA/TASB videotape of your speech in Texas last week (I work with Phil Schlechty, George Thompson, and John Horn) and I must say that I thought it was very powerful, in no small measure because of your comments on the effects of poverty on children and schools—that is perhaps the key issue, and it can’t be emphasized frequently or loudly enough. Perhaps you could inject a bit more of that?
I also found it a bit ironic to see that Arne Duncan’s bus tour has been touting communities where schools and the community have drawn together to provide a full panoply of services and support to students and families. Is he finally getting religion, or is he finally feeling too close to Election Day to continue to be so limited in his view of solutions to our most debilitating problems? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-j-blank/education-reform-poverty-_b_1901794.html?utm_hp_ref=education
I was interested and somewhat surprised to see the list of original signatories in support of Broader, Bolder—including Duncan, yourself, Deb Meier, Ted Sizer, William Julius Wilson, James Comer, Tom Payzant, Pedro Noguera (glad to see him taking up arguments with Deb, now), Arthur Levine, and so forth. Is this organization making the sorts of progress that you would hope for?
Thanks for your fine words in Texas, and keep fighting!
Best,
Bob Nolte
Senior Associate
Schlechty Center for Leadership in School Reform
C: 860-463-0794
bnolte@schlechtycenter.org
I’d like to cite this letter as another reason (hurting teachers!) for changing his education policies, in addition to my personal education story/situation. Are you ok with having the content added to the end of an email, or printed and sent as an addemdum on a (gasp) real letter?
Each person can change to suit his-her needs.
We will not sign a petition. Everyone sends his-her own on October 17.
Many of our critics say that we have no solutions of our own. I believe that we do. Can we have two letters, one to ask for the President to listen to educators at all levels, as you have, and one to outline our own ideas for improving education for all children? Thank you.
I especially like your remarks about privatizing education. Where was I when legislation was passed to allow private companies to siphon money off from public schools? How can we have allowed such a thing right after the Wall Street debacle? I just don’t understand it.
I’m not a teacher… I’m a retired administrator with 29 years of experience as a Superintendent… I hope I can sign the letter.
I believe, however, as written the letter misses one important point: teachers ARE willing to be held accountable for student performance within reasonable boundaries and through the use of performance measurements that honor their professionalism. The biggest flaw in federal, state and local “reform” is the use of standardized achievement tests as the primary basis for accountability. Re-read your blog posts and you’ll see this is the case. I think public educators should tell the President that they want him to use the limited funds in the USDOE to work collaboratively with teacher-leaders to develop sophisticated metrics that states and local communities can use to measure school performance. He ran as a conciliator who understood nuances and complexity: he should lead in that fashion.
One other note: the NYTimes recently ran an op ed piece about the NFL officials that made a distinction between “labor” and “talent”, asserting that NFL officials should be paid based on the fact that they possessed “talent” that required in depth training and professionalism as opposed to “labor”, which could be replaced by less trained individuals. It strikes me that the TFA crowd and the for-profiteers think of teachers as “labor” while those of us who spent our lives in public schools now that teachers are clearly “talent”….
BTW: THANK YOU for leading this charge!
http://www.waynegersen.
“I believe, however, as written the letter misses one important point: teachers ARE willing to be held accountable for student performance within reasonable boundaries and through the use of performance measurements that honor their professionalism.”
No, not at all. I am one teacher that is not “willing to be held accountable for student performance” as there are no “performance measurements” that are accurate much less “honor their profession”. What you have written is the top down hierarchical approach to school administration with the administrators holding the power over the teachers to demand they do what they, the administrators, want them, the teachers, to do even if what the administrator wants goes against the very grain of fabric of the teacher’s core beliefs and practices.
I have no control over what the student does with the knowledge, facts, skills, curriculum, etc. . . that I present. I do have control over how I present it, how I organize my class time and physical space (and teachers don’t always have a say as to the room in which they teach is arranged/decorated), how I manage the classroom learning environment and classroom behavior management issues. Yes, I don’t mind having an intelligent discussion with my supervising principal on an equal professional one on one basis before, during or even after they have observed me teaching for more than just a few minutes but completely disagree with the thought of being evaluated on student “performance measurements”.
Student performance measurements are a falsehood, a logical impossibility, a chimera, a duende or as Wilson states “vain and illusory”. As far as I’m concerned “student performance measurements” should be confined to the dustbin of history much like bloodletting, phrenology, waterboarding torture to extract accurate information (whoops that was already in the dustbin only to be brought to light again by the Bush administration war criminals), IQ tests, etc. . . .
I’m with you too Duane. There is absolutely nothing in the literature that suggests that we are anywhere close to being able to develop student metrics that could be used to validly evaluate teachers.
I must agree with Duane. Some years ago I would have committed more to a top-down sort of evaluation scheme where administrators observe me and rate me.
However, after researching, and accepting many studies that show principal ratings may actually narrow teaching to a set of skills for which there is little justification showing they improve student performance, I now opt for Duane’s stance.
As a certified and licensed professional (with almost too many degrees), I would expect an administrator to verify that I have a PLAN for instruction and that I follow it, much like a doctor would when treating patients. My plan may or may not work for ALL students, but ultimately it is the responsibility of the student to follow my prescription because I know best. Of course, if ‘treatment’ is not working, I am willing to examine the situation and amend on a more personal level in after school remediation.
If an administrator walks into a classroom for which there is no logical plan, kids are off task, and the teacher is in la-la land, then that teacher needs to be observed often, warned, and given a chance to improve. If they don’t they need to be fired, tenured or not.
This is how Finland does it, this is how we ought to do it. It’s called professionalism, not evaluating labor.
I agree. I don’t think the issue is that teachers don’t want to be held accountable or aren’t willing to be hard workers. It’s just the the measures of accountability and hard work that are being promoted are so invalid and unstable.
I would also stress the importance of collaboration, professional development, and working conditions that support teaching, learning, and engagement.
Thank you, Diane!
Good letter, but I personally would have to add or tie in the following to my copy of your
letter due to my own anger: :
I strongly supported you in last election because Linda Darling-Hammond was your education adviser. I really believed you would be going in a direction that supported public school students and not privatization and testing. Then you tossed her out in favor of Arne Duncan. Sir, with all due respect, his “Renaissance” program was not a success. Prof. Hammond on the other hand has worked with schools creating professional learning communities. She has worked on meaningful staff development programs–not top down–but teacher to teacher. The schools she has worked with made meaningful academic gains that encouraged learning over testing.
RTTT does nothing to directly help students. The majority of the funding has gone to for-profit charters, TFA and testing companies all with one agenda–to take over public ed. You “force” school districts to teach to the test by dangling RTTT funding. You “force” schools that are making fantastic gains to close by using only one major factor–test scores!! You “embarrass” good teachers by having their names published in newspapers and/or fired based on an unreliable statistical measure–a practice that Duncan has publicly supported.
You abandon policies that can help students such as:
Grouping students by ability
Measuring a student’s progress instead of using one grade on a high-stakes test
A meaningful curriculum
Small class size
More counselors
Family support services in each school
This year, if you want my vote, you have to commit to ending RTTT and bring back a real educator to head the Department of Education.
PS: I assume this will be a mass email to Obama. But I would love to cc it to Axelrod after his attempt to destroy the Chicago teachers with I am sure Obama’s blessing.
No reason you can’t send the same message to as many people as you want.
I know that. I just wanted Axelrod (and Cuomo) to know it because I am sure they are reading this too!!
I think a letter writing campaign could be very effective in getting a new and better Secretary of Education.
Are we sending via emai or snail mail? Can someone provide addresses?
I think email would be best because all the letters will arrive on the same day, which will be more attention getting than flooding in over the course of several days. Just go to whitehouse.gov and look for the (very tiny) link for “Contact Us” in the upper right corner.
But in any case, get your letter in any way you can – by carrier pigeon if you have to!
I have been composing a similar letter in my head for weeks now. I quit my teaching job at the end of last year after 25+ years in the classroom. They call it retiring. However, for me it was the only option I felt I had left to maintain my own personal ethics and belief systems that were being compromised on a daily basis by the insidiousness of corporate reform. Last year a partner teacher and I were ordered by our district to do things that we knew violated Title 1 law. We strongly objected. In trying to avoid using general funds to pay for certified teachers to deliver “core instruction,” the district usurped Title funding and reallocated it. Our most vulnerable children lost their reading support groups and Title 1 staff was used to fill necessary regular classroom instruction. The district denied that this was illegal and targeted us as “incompetent and insubordinate” because of our stance on this issue.
We have been told that we are not to have an opinion. We are simply to do what we are told. Principals are expected to be without voice also unless they are compliant with all district efforts and demands. It is a frightening scenario to me–rather like a Nazi-regime. When teachers lose voice and autonomy, so do children. When we are treated with disrespect, so are children. When our creativity is disregarded and discouraged, so is the creativity within children. We are inexorably linked. The lack of empowerment is becoming totally invasive. It is a moral obligation to stand against such abuses.
The education policies of Bush and Obama demoralized me into retirement, but many of my colleagues cannot opt for this. I did not want to. It just seemed to be the only option given the negative momentum in our district as our district superintendant pushes for merit pay, escalates the manic testing culture, and diminishes the ability of teachers to have voice. Our district accepted TIF grants and is now on the hook to set up a merit pay system in order to skip the negative consequences of insane NCLB testing expectations. Our union has not exactly signed on to it, but we haven’t shut it down yet either. We are divided over the issue. Continual loss of pay over the years has made folks vulnerable to the carrot of more money. Many (even union leadership) have no clue that this is blood money for which they are selling their souls. My soul was not for sale. So I left. Thanks for your voice, Diane. It encourages many of us to preserve and use ours as well.
Read “IBM and the Holocaust” and everything you feel will be validated.
i meant to add that all this data collection must be being used by for profit corporations at the expense of teachers. We just do their dirty work.
Good News:
Winerip found a way to bring an education issue into his new column. But I want to know if the NYTimes is considering selling to Bloomberg because that would explain their editorial decisions of late???
Looks good, I see some minor changes I would like to make before I send mine out. I would like to make it a little more personal. If we all send the same letter they may not get read. If we take this letter and personalize it then perhaps some may get through.
Thanks
Including the fact that No Child Left Behind was well intentioned, but needs serious fixing [RTTT is not serious fixing] will be in my letter. Disappointed that it won’t be a We the People attempt to get a response, but a mass emailing on October 17 is probably more pragmatic.
Does Arne Duncan send his children to Sidwell Friends or U of Chicago lab school?
Thanks for bringing up President Obama’s bait and switch with Linda Darling Hammond during the campaign and Arne Duncan after the election.
Duncan was asked where he sends his daughter to school. His reply: “She goes to Arlington [Virginia] public schools. That was why we chose where we live, it was the determining factor. That was the most important thing to me. My family has given up so much so that I could have the opportunity to serve; I didn’t want to try to save the country’s children and our educational system and jeopardize my own children’s education.”
So he passed over the outstanding KIPP’s in DC? Interesting.
Diane,
Sorry to hijack this post, but did you read about this in Texas:
EL PASO, Texas — During his sophomore year, Jose Avalos was urged by a principal to drop out of high school. The next year, his brother was told to do the same after entering the 10th grade. A third Avalos brother shared the same fate in 2009.
Administrators at Bowie High School cited excessive tardiness in their efforts to remove the siblings. But now the brothers suspect they were targeted for an entirely different reason: The district was trying to push out hundreds of low-performing sophomores to prevent them from taking accountability tests. The scheme was designed to help El Paso schools raise academic standards, qualify for more federal money and ensure the superintendent got hefty bonuses.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/school-district-rebuilds-_0_n_1933327.html
Yes! Posting tomorrow
Diane Ravitch
At least Roy Blunt wants to work with teachers instead of condemning them. It’s a sad day when with respect to education the President compares poorly by comparison to a conservative Republican like Sen Roy Blunt:
http://www.blunt.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/education
Home / Issues / Education
Education
With job stability and education a top priority for Missourians, Senator Blunt looks forward to the opportunity to address ESEA reauthorization in the Senate while working with Missouri’s teachers and administrators to craft the best possible solutions for our state.
Senator Blunt will continue to encourage commonsense policies that create opportunities for local educators to decide what is in the best interest of their communities, education systems and students
Yep, Roy Blunt is a friend of ours, those of us in public education. And I have some beautiful ocean front property for sale down at the Lake of the Ozarks, competitively priced, it’ll be going quickly.
Right before your quotes was this “This legislation [NCLB] was an important victory for individual student achievement and accountability, however it does not give enough flexibility to states and local communities to determine their own reform efforts.”
So Blunt considers NCLB “an important victory for individual student achievement and accountability”. With that kind of thinking we don’t need ol Roy on our side.
well done Diane!
Aside from a couple of typos, this is an excellent letter…thanks so much for penning it, Diane!
I second the motion for a similar letter coming from parents. Here’s my draft…
***
Dear President Obama,
We assume you know that there are many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of parents, who are disappointed in your education policies.
We assume you know that some will vote for you reluctantly, some will vote for a third party candidate, and some will not vote at all. Our votes will make a difference.
Given the choice between you and Mitt Romney, who seems to view public education with contempt, we want to help you win back the hearts and mind of teachers and parents.
Here are ways to do that.
Please, sir, stop talking about rewarding and punishing teachers. As a parent, I wish for my children to be taught by a well paid professional, not a piece-worker in some factory. I wish for teachers who are managed by experienced, qualified principals and administrators, not given top-down contrived hurdles to jump over.
Please, sir, stop encouraging the privatization of public education. Many studies demonstrate that charters don’t get better results than public schools unless they exclude low-performing children. Public schools educate all children. Charters are tearing our communities apart, pitting parent against parent and created a “them versus us” situation in what were once tight neighborhoods.
Please, sir, speak out against the spread of for-profit schools. These for-profit schools steal precious tax dollars to pay off investors. Those resources belong in the classroom. The for-profit virtual schools get uniformly bad reviews from everyone but Wall Street. In business, what’s bad for your competitor is great for you. The “competition” your policy is fostering is of the typical corporate “cut-throat” variety. It gives private companies incentives to destroy our public schools. Charter school supporters in my town have fought against funding for public schools because the worse it is for our public schools the better it is for their charter school. This is madness.
Please, sir, withdraw your support from the failed effort to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students. The American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education issued a joint paper saying that such methods are inaccurate and unstable. Teachers get high ratings if they teach the easiest students, and low ratings if they teach the most challenging students. I don’t want my children growing up only knowing how to fill in little bubbles. I don’t what my children growing up never learning the things I learned in school because they aren’t on the test.
Please, sir, stop closing schools and firing staffs because of low scores. Low scores are a reflection of high poverty, not an indicator of bad schools or bad teachers. Insist that schools enrolling large numbers of poor and minority students get the resources they need to succeed. I am lucky and my children are easy–they don’t need as much resources to teach as the less fortunate do.
Please, President Obama, recognize that your policies are demoralizing teachers. Many are leaving the profession. Young people are deciding not to become teachers. Your policies are ruining a noble profession. I don’t want my children taught by “what is left over”.
President Obama, we want to support you on November 6.
Please give us reason to believe in you again.
I am a parent.
/signed,
You’ve said it better than I could ever have hoped to. Thank you!
If we are so determined to “reform” education. How come there seems to be no pressure on improving college graduates, it is all about getting rid of low performing schools and staff? If one were really trying to produce true long lasting change wouldn’t you take the fight to the next generation of teachers? Why doesn’t the POTUS throw some effort into college preparation? How many of ALEC’s bills are about improving the training of the next generation? Is Gates spending his billions on college programs? What good is getting rid of deficient teachers if you put someone with the same training but less experience in their place? It seems to tip their hand doesn’t it? My letter will go in on the 17th. Thanks for organizing this.
Here is a great example of a failure in the teacher colleges:
http://qmsteched.edublogs.org/2012/05/04/the-magic-bullet-of-education-reform/
The President may well lose Wisconsin because of the demoralized educators in that great state.
Choosing Arnold over L D H as his Ed secretary has proven disastrous. However, Arnie is following the President’s lead.
I will not vote to put Arnie back in charge of the USDOE. I realize things could get worse, but, I refuse to drink dirty water any longer.
I will be sending a letter on October 17th.
I will send to Arne, Obama, Michelle and Jill Biden.
I cannot vote for Romney and I do not want to vote for Obama.
Arne Duncan is clueless…when I heard him speak once, he appeared to be a bullshitting huckster. I can’t stand to: see his face, hear his voice, or read his words.
We’ve already lost Wisconsin after the failed attempt to get Scott Walker out of office. Our only hope in Wisconsin is to elect Tammy Baldwin to the senate and Barach Obama to the White House. Let’s get this done, because Romney as presdent will be a disaster for Wisconsin and the whole country. Right now we can’t afford to be one issue candidates. In Wisconsin, we saw how well that worked in recalling the governor.
Obama turned his back on Wisconsin because he knew he had the votes. Have no idea if he’s still ahead in your state. But you should let him know that you are not happy with RTTT. even though he praised it in the debate. I thought that was a total slap in the face to teachers everywhere.
I would say “Please stop allowing the exploitation of children’s data” if I didn’t know better…. if I didn’t know big data is a commodity, and stimulus money (RttT) is used to grow big education data.
Obama should protect US students as though they are his own. He should not allow schools to disclose children’s contact information to strangers without parental permission. The sale of student data & use for profiling & marketing should be illegal.
Students should be protected even though their fathers aren’t the president or pols with security.
Kids are at risk.
But the president already knows this. How could he not.
Could the people that use facebook please also put this on facebook? I do not navigate facebook well. I only got on it to monitor my child’s postings. Using facebook will help spread the news. Someone has probably already tweeted this. I don’t tweet either.
I am sure it will be up on the many pages devoted to public ed like:
SUPPORT PUBLIC SCHOOLS and WEAR RED FOR PUBLIC ED
as well as many blogs. You could also spread the word on your own FB status or email your teacher/parent friends.
This is a fantastic letter. It lays out the key issues in a dignified and basically positive way. It is also firm in taking a position and demanding attention for the issues raised. Thank you so much for drafting it.
How will you “send” or submit?
This contains information about where to send letters and emails:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/write-or-call
With all due respect, I don’t think the president will read your letter. Unfortunately, the readers of this blog will not be happy with either candidate, because while some of their reforms may be a bit too “extreme,” it is abundantly clear that they both agree on thing: that the status quo is unacceptable and unsustainable.
But wait! The readers of this blog agree that the status quo is intolerable.
This is the status quo:
NCLB Firing teachers based in student scores Closing schools (“) Carrots and sticks High stakes testing Privatization
We hate the status quo
Diane
Nope. feel that there can be no competition, no reasonable changes to teacher recruitment, training, compensation and evaluation. No competition for public education options. No public charter schools. Just more paranoia and fear to protect self interest groups and the way things have transpired for more than 100 years, while resulting in deteriorating student performance.
And from my own experience on the ground, not from test scores alone, I can say unequivocally that other countries are eating our lunch – their students are more prepared for the 21st century.
You are focusing on the wrong stuff, in my opinion.
You are wrong. You are misinformed. No high performing nation in the world is evaluating its teachers by student test scores. Not one. We are being led by profiteers and ideologues to destroy public education.
Well you are either uninformed or trying to promote reform agenda? Countries like Finland treat their teachers with respect. But let’s talk about this country. Look at the reason why Montgomery County, Md. turned down RTTT funding in order to preserve their teacher evaluation and training program. Because it is working!!! They refused the funding because they will NOT base their teacher effectiveness on one test scores!!!
Let me tell you what the “status quo” has been in inner-city schools. Large classes. Teaching to the test. Teachers being forced to give passing grades because schools are also graded on passing grades.
Reforms did not change that. In fact they call for increased class sizes. They call for more testing. And charters are not cutting it either. But in politics it’s about money changing hands, and charters are lining the pockets so that the “unacceptable” and “unsustainable” can continue. That’s why charters aren’t regulated.
Diane:
I completely agree on all points in your letter to President Obama, well done. I was in attendance representing my district during your presentation in Austin last weekend. I admire your work, thank you for leading the charge and infusing all of us with inspiration to continue to fight for quality in public education and supporting the teaching profession.
Ed Castillo
Stafford Municipal School District School Board
The president has no power to close schools or fire teachers. Education is handled at the county and state level. He does have the power of the DOE to appoint DOE head, and through the DOE set standards, policies and initiatives on the national level. I am disappointed that he hasn’t done more for education. DOE Duncan is a failure.
Diane, What email address or mailing address should we use?
Dear President Obama,
Thank you so much for being our health care hero and for caring about the common good of our democracy. The historic Affordable Care Act is fundamental to the growth of our economy, and most importantly, to the healthy growth of our children.
There is a direct parallel in the misguided voucher, privatization, and competition themes of the Romney campaign with regard to health care, and their approach to education. And if you could highlight these three parallels in your speeches in the next few weeks, you would have the support of every teacher, parent and grandparent in the country.
1. Vouchers don’t work any better in education than they do in health care. We need a universally good, fair and accessible to all public education system—just like we do in healthcare. School vouchers, like healthcare vouchers, are nothing but a broken promise. The well-funded schools will not take in students from poorly funded schools, any more than private health care companies will embrace people in poor health with pre-existing conditions.
2. Privatization in education—e.g. more charter schools, cyber schools and private corporations or states taking over schools—at the expense of providing equal and excellent education for all children in our democracy, does not work any better than vouchers.
3. The free market, corporate, profit focused takeover of education—with competition, privatization and a focus on testing and numbers at the expense of the growth and learning of our most precious resource—doesn’t work either.
We have tried more testing, more competition and more “choice” for three decades, and our student learning has suffered greatly. Let’s look to Finland’s example: Universal healthcare, well-resourced public schools, universal early childhood education (rather than our private, deeply segregated system for those with money), and support for teachers as a respected, well paid profession.
We need your support to raise these vital issues and parallels for the futures of all of America’s children. Thank you so much for being our healthcare hero. We need you now to be our education hero.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jill Sunday Bartoli
Emerita, Language Arts and Urban Education
Carlisle, PA
I wonder why, instead of calling for unity among workers, the proposed idea is to beg this corporate puppet for reforms. Barack Obama has shown his true colors for the duration of his presidency. It is not as though, given a second term (yes, these things are simply given), he will say “Now that I don’t have to worry about losing my seat, I can finally implement all of the changes I would like.” This isn’t going to happen. We call on all teachers – and all workers – to join together in the struggle against the financial aristocracy that is destroying our planet. Read the World Socialist Web Site.
Barack obama can you please come to valleywood middle school in grand rapids michigan??????????? you and michelle and ask for erica jackson
As a single mother I spent all that I had to become a teacher, and sadly I can’t pay the bills on $35,000. Maybe privatization would help teachers to be paid like nurses?? Regardless, I’m tired of being broke, and struggling on a terrible salary as a teacher. SO PRESIDENT I QUIT TEACHING!!! I give up, and I can’t live off this demoralizing income any longer. Teachers in Ontario, Canada make two and half times the income after ten years of experience with a master’s degree. What’s wrong with this country? Clearly, Obama thinks teachers are second class citizens or he would be doing something… it will be the downfall of this great nation. I’m going to be another statistic… so sad!!!!