Governor Nathan Deal likes to point out that both his parents taught school, but it’s not clear what kind of school they taught. Clearly he doesn’t like public schools. He has proposed legislation based on Tennessee’s failing “Achievement School District.”
Jack Hassard, a Professor Emeritus of Science Education at Georgia State University, explains that Governor Deal’s plan will set in motion “the infrastructure to tear Georgia’s public schools apart.”
The author of the plan was a young reformer with three years of teaching experience. Her name is Erin Haimes. She has now set up a consulting firm and is being paid to help districts figure out how to avoid the consequences of the law she wrote.
Hassard writes:
“Where does this path take public education in Georgia? It’s a path that is based on fear. It’s a path that is based on competition. It’s a path that is based on greed. It’s a path that is based on opinion and not knowledge.
“As others have said, the plan that will be voted on in the 2016 election, and will be supported by a group that Hames will lead, and will be targeted by organizations and families outside of Georgia who stand to make a financial killing in the state.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If public school advocates and supporters did something even a little like this, it would be denounced by the leaders and enablers and enforcers of self-proclaimed “education reform” as crass and self-serving, patently rigged to benefit a few adults at the expense of many many other adults and children and communities.
But when it’s their own…
😎
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I will just repeat what I said 5 years ago.
Unless public school supporters present a viable alternative to the testing fiasco, public schools will perish.
I marched in Madison Wisconsin and that was a great outpouring of support. We won that battle. Boy did we show walker. However, we lost the war. We put Walker on the national scene and nothing changed. Yes, we should have marched for the purpose of awareness. But if that stands alone, nothing will change.
Yes we got opt out to be a strong support against the test. That sets the table, however, if we don’t serve the main course, nothing will change and nothing is changing,
Public schools are still closing and will continue to close as we as professionals continue to play the finger pointing game.
We now see in fighting as we attack each other. Randi Weingarten is a strong supporter of public education. She organized rallies that were successful. But she went even further. Instead of acting like the tea party and flexing her muscles and screaming and yelling and finger pointing, she took the intelligent route of being politically savvy by talking small steps to slowly but surely change the law. She also along with Linda Darling Hammond made positive suggestions.
The point I am making is not who to support or not support, it is how we get success. Yes, it feels good when you’re angry to emulate the tea party. But we must be smarter than that. We are professionals who are not acting like professionals. We understand children and understand education. We are the ones who are the best in the world at innovation. Yet when a viable alternative to the testing fiasco is essential, we stand silent, saving our voices to scream insults.
If we are to act as the professionals we are we must give innovative responses rather than tea party responses to what is happening. Innovation is finding the best way for children to learn, and that can’t be done by fly by night pseudo educators.
The ONLY way to save public schools is to have a better idea!
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Cap,
I can’t think of a better idea than a well-funded, equitable public education system with expert career teachers.
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That’s a big part of the puzzle and your efforts toward that are to be commended, but short sighted. Innovation, however, goes beyond that into critical thinking. What is the problem as well as how do we solve it. The scientific method begins with defining the problem but doesn’t stop with the obvious needs.
Public school teachers are the best innovators in the world. But they need to step up and realize that they are stuck in a system that was never designed to serve all kids.
The big difference is that charter and choice, often due to the lack of high quality well trained teachers, are not in the position to be innovative. Public schools are. And that is the selling point. If we continue to use the same system and philosophy that others are using they will be able to manipulate the statistics to look good.
And they will get away with saying that we lie when it is the system of lying letter grades, a fail system that forces kids into failure and second class standardized testing that judges kids based on bubbles that are the real liars.
We must advocate a better system that has credibility that shows the true learning that is going on in public schools beyond what others do and in spite of the road blocks put in front of us.
Yes, continue what your doing. I believe the fight for small class size, a sufficient budget, more planning time are things we may need to strike for. As important is for teachers to take back their profession. we are the professionals. The best way to be heard is through a system that allows teachers to be empowered.
We have the best ideas. Present them, implement them and if one teacher is threatened with being fired, we all walk because it is for kids.
Others can’t have those ideas because it takes certified teachers. That’s what sets us apart. That’s why parents will have their children flock to public schools when they hear we will not use letter grades but tell them what their child has learned. We will not depend on the test because assessment will be whole child and local where it can be of value. We will never again fail kids into oblivion but take them from where they are, not as robots but as kids that grow and develop in different ways and different rates.
And if they don’t pass proficiency, whole child of course, they can try it again when they are ready. And if they advance faster, we team with colleges and universities to allow them entry in classes they excel in. And every child will have their bar raised based on where they are, not based on everyone being the same. And yes IEP for all to assure success and accountability.
Project based learning, learning in the community, differentiated learning and more cannot be done without fully educated teachers. Yes many minimally educated teachers can teach to the test. But only we can educate the whole child. This is what I mean by more ideas and innovation. You won’t hear any of the privatizers talking about this because they can’t.
You set the table well with opt out and pointing out the wrongs of the of privatization and the test. Now it’s time. The powder is dry. It’s time to stand beyond the reformers and reform the reform.
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“Yes, it feels good when you’re angry to emulate the tea party.”
“If we are to act as the professionals we are we must give innovative responses rather than tea party responses to what is happening.”
Cap,
What you insinuate here is that those who consider themselves to be a part of the very far regressive right-the “tea party” are unworthy to be a part of the conversation, that their thoughts, ideas and actions are so much less than the supposed “professionals'” that you use the “tea party” term as a deriding sobriquet. I thought those “professionals” would know how to include all, just as public schools do, in the conversation.
There are many who describe themselves as “tea party” or “patriot” types who understand the harm that is being done to innocent children via the educational standards and standardized testing regimes and are working to rid the world of those educational malpractices. And you, Cap, belittle them, by not considering them and their thoughts, concerns and action as “worthy” of the “professionals” (whoever the hell they are). Break out of your status quo shell Cap, look beyond the Weingartens and LDH’s to others who also share your concerns.
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Wrong again. I’m talking about style. Screaming and yelling vs substance and new ideas. Those new ideas are far from the status quo. And no, I can’t defend the tea party due to the lack of critical thinking
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“Let’s make a Deal”
Let’s make a Deal
For Georgia’s schools
To trade them all
For goats and mules
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Another Ohio ed reform scandal:
“According to an investigation report from the Ohio State University’s Office of University Compliance and Integrity (OUCI), “Employees with the Ohio Technology Consortium (OH-TECH)… reported that a project to implement a statewide K-12 learning management system is failing because a key vendor, IQ Innovations (IQ), repeatedly did not meet the requirements of its agreement with OSU.” The employees “indicated that Board of Regents staff caused them to be removed from parts of the project and other responsibilities because they reported these issues.”
The report finds that “three OSU employees conveyed credible information that they faced significant retaliation after questioning the performance of IQ” in implementing the learning management system, now called ilearnOhio.
IQ Innovations is a software company owned by William Lager. Lager also owns a company called Altair Learning Management as well as the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), a giant online charter school that has a lower graduation rate than all of Ohio’s largest urban public school districts. ”
Lager is a huge donor. Gross. Now it’s spreading thru the whole system. The whole ed reform crew in this state have to resign so we can start over. Just clean house.
http://www.plunderbund.com/2015/09/30/state-employees-report-significant-retaliation-after-revealing-contract-failures-with-charter-school-company/
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Cross posted the original article at
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-Dangerous-Path-for-Geo-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Closed_Georgia-Politics_Public-Education_Public-Interest-151001-315.html
see my comments at the end of the article regarding the speed at which our institution of PUBLIC EDUCATION is being handed over to the billionaire oligarchs.
IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO CAN GET BERNIE SANDERS TO LOOK AT THE ENDOF PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR ALL OUR PEOPLE
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