Nebraska has one of the best state school systems in the nation. It does not have vouchers or charters. Its students do far better on NAEP than most states that won Race to the Top grants.
But the public schools of Nebraska are under attack by mean-spirited politicians who want to destroy public education and turn children over to the free market to monetize.
The meanest of them is Senator Michael Groene, who is chair of the state senate committee on education. Hard-right Republicans in Nebraska have been following the same plan as Hardliners in Kansas, North Carolina, and Michigan, which is to replace reasonable, moderate Republicans with extremist ideologues. Groene is one of them.
Read his email exchange with a constituent about education, and you will see his hatred for teachers and his grand ego.
Teachers are lazy and second-rate, he says, protected by tenure. As the exchange continues, his hatred grows more intense.
People like this want to destroy public education, destroy teaching as a profession, and drag down a great democratic institution that made America great. Like his peers in other red states, he wants to turn schools over to profiteers and Wall Street, to turn taxpayer dollars into profits for investors.
Shame on him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
This is really bad for Nebraska. This type of politics had hurt Kansas publics schools and universities badly.
Nebraska pols are copying Kansas
Brownback has been a disaster for Kansas. I grew up in Kansas and still have ties to my university up there. They are beginning to struggle financially because so much of their funding has been cut. Fort Hays State University (my alma mater) and Emporia State University house some of the best teacher education programs in country.
My wife and I were raised in Kansas. Really received a good education in the University/Colleges of the State. But Brownback and others before have created such a economic disaster for the state there is absolutely no way we would move back. The religious right has taken the state so far right that politically it is falling of the end. The cuts in funding for schools is tremendous. The LLC in Kansas do not pay taxes. If anyone is considering moving to Kansas — don’t. We are retired, have family in Kansas, and could move anywhere we want but Kansas is not on the list. Shame on the politicians like Bronwback and Groene.
Some of us professional educators are continuing the fight to have Groene removed as chair, and perhaps even as a member of the education committee. Whee there’s breath, there’s hope.
We are doomed.
We are not doomed until we give up. I am not giving up.
Like!
I AGREED
[ YOU CANNOT BEAT A PERSON WHO NEVER GIVES UP ]
Thank you for weighing in on this topic! We are fighting hard for those who want what is best for our state’s youth. This man is not it.
Something like Cool Hand Luke
thank you. need to hear this. i live and work in education in NE and am ready to fight. thanks for writing about what is happening in our state.
Lauren,
Reach out to Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer. She holds the vote that could stop DeVos.
Laurengatti,
I wrote a post about Senator Fischer. Could you make sure she gets it?
Talk about demagogues, Michael Groene fits the description perfectly. He resorts to ad hominem attacks and accuses the commenter of being a socialist. Groene vomits up all the far right wing manure: teachers are lazy, tenure is bad, money is not the answer, US kids are not that poor, poverty is not an important issue, etc. Oh, surprise, surprise, he’s an Ayn Rand fan! Now our whole government and too many US states are dominated by people like Michael Groene.
How Christian of the Religious right … NOT!
If I didn’t know he had a college degree & was a senator, I’d assume from reading his emails he was a just a barely-educated ignoramus with an outsize aggressive ego. Oh, wait, maybe he is that. He’s a poster child illustrating that teacher impact on student learning is 10%.
Like!
USE DISERNIMENT
Wisdom and knowledge , knowledge can make you rich and prominent but wisdom can safe the world . I’m sorry a senator or a person like me . Who I’m not body .
I have 3 degrees 2 from Rrusian and the other from Cuba .
HERE THE PROBLEM IS I’M NOT BODY BECAUSE I’M NOT AN ENGLISH SPEACKER.
DO YOU WANT HELP DON’T COMPARED TEACH AND DON’T JUGDE MY BOOCK BECAUSE IS NOT IN ENGLISH.
Not sure that “wisdom” can save the world. Like knowledge, wisdom is something an individual acquires over time. Expecting even the person with the most wisdom imaginable to “save” the world, is an exercise in frustration, it’ll never happen. Each person, hopefully in conjunction with others must “do the dirty work” of making the world a better place.
Now perhaps because you were brought up in Cuba (boy I would love to visit Cuba) it may appear that a “savior” (think Fidel) can do the job. But the fact is Fidel had many thousands of helpers who made La Revolución possible. As John Donne put it a few centuries ago:
“No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
Si sería fantástico y gracias por ser tan amable , no todos son así de lo contrario la humanidad no estuviera en las condiciones tan críticas y de que me ha servido todo el caudal de conocimiento y tantos años de estudio ? Conozco desde la A- Z como trabaja el sistema político y también el sistema comercial y el sistema educativo está en condiciones muy críticas .
Que opinas ? y gracias si fuese tan amable y indagara un poco más profundo y medite regla número uno be kind but no weak and to many people’s are involved with crimes against kids and my family because they confuse my kindness by weakness and I’m Kind to everyone but when some people confused my kindness with weakness I think they will never forget that I’m not weak .
I don’t have any time to tell the BOOCK of my life special I’m in the Midle of the boock of nightmare and I have to find out the way out of this laberinto .
This is not my I learned from a good friend of my .
The more you learn, the more you know that there’s a lot you don’t know and will never know. Anyone who says or acts like they know everything is a fool because once they think like that, they stop learning and stay stupid.
I agreed and you ?
De acuerdo. Digo que el primer trabajo de ser maestro es aprender. Enseñar es secundario. Y un dicho mío es “Si no está aprendiendo está muriendo o ya muerto.” If one isn’t learning one is dying or already dead.
Have you published a book? If so where might we get it?
reibelcastillo on February 1, 2017 at 10:32 pm
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
2016’s With best and worst Scooll Sistem
FLORIDA # 14
NEBRASKA # 15
1- MAIN FINDING
2-ASK THE SPERT
3-METOLOGY
PODRÍA USTED AYUDARME A RAZONAR CON ESTE COMENTARIO. ES COINCIDENCIA FLORIDA IS # 14
NEBRASKA # 15 ?
GRACIAS
Cuba es nothing but history amigo is not what people think .
Time pass and time destroyed because time is free but also priceless .
Don’t kill the time you can’t resuscitate the time .
Señor mi inglés es terrible pero trato de mejorar.
Espero que me comprenda . Gracias
Señor nunca he visto tanto abuso de poder y tanto sufrimiento y tanto stress .
No importamos a nadie y no se impresione cuando le relate todo lo que le han hecho a este señor si a mis hijos y este servidor , he tenido que fight and learn day and night with out money and I told you this because kids are not slaves and abuse of power is the worts crime agains humanity abuse is the begging of the desintegración of the humankind .
No mercy no peace and no peace no life
May be I’m wrong because others judged wrong .
.* 12 For wisdom is a protection+ just as money is a protection,+ but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves the life of its owner.+
Do you have a link for the FL/NE figures? I need more context to understand.
FIGHT AND FIGHT BUSINESS AND NOTHING BUT BUSINESS AND THE NATION HAVE NO CLUE WHAT DANGEROUS IS THE ” NEW REFORM ”
REFORM AND FRAUDS IS NOTHING BY THE LAW IS THE WORTS AND IS A SHAME THAT FIGURES AS BILL GATE AND JEB BUSH ARE NOT PROTECTING THE AMERICAN TRADITIONAL SCHOLLS ( PUBLICS SCHOOLS NEED SUPORT WHO IS GOING TO JOIN AND FIGHT THE INJUSTICE . BACK IN THE DAYS STOLEN TAX- MONEY AND NOW WHO CARES IS THE NEW GOLD ( CHATERS ARE THE NEW GOLD AREA AND WHO ARE MONOPOLIES WHO IS JEB BUSH ?
WELL AS I KNOW HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT EDUCATION I THINK THE ONLY THING JEB CAN HANDLE IS POLITICIAN AS A FLORIDA GOBERNADOR JEB BUSH I THINK HE DID A GREAT AND TRANSPARENT JOB BUT NO NOW
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/Philly_Charters_schools_building_boom.html?mobi=true
Reibelcastillo,
Please don’t use my blog for personal messages.
Diane how I can find out when people using me and is not fear because I have to tell them that I don’t want to do what I should not but I can’t find out emails personals because I don’t stop to fallow your blog and your post are the only wants who I want to keep following became you are on the same boat ( Charters opponents )
Diane I need help to find , bloggers emails and your blog is very hard to me because I know to much as you do because I don’t stop to tell the truth because I’m the same person I don’t change I don’t want you told me that I’m wrong because I have to find out who . The only way to stay together is helping each other’s and I want to learn how to stop using your blog for personal messages,
Diane I’m sorry I don’t know because the only thing I know is about how charters scholls are violated and I don’t hurting no one if I told the true truth is I became the only want who help and others let me down because I really don’t know what to do because I
Please Diane I want to learn what others do ; I mean as your blog is the Headqueter I want to do the things right . People are been getting information from me with out find out who they are .
Thanks very much for warning me that way I have to tell you thanks and learn and learn IS time and I have no minimal dough you remember when the my kids were abused by the Charter School and the Chairman the city Mayor became very upset because I complain , I can tell you that he is under investigation because I told the truth I suffered from those crimes against kids and the law enforcement did nothing but arasment me cruelty. I complain nation one .
As you say don’t give up .
Great wed ( WORLD PRESS BECAME MY FAVORITE SCHOLL YOU ARE A VERY PROMINENT PERSON AS WELL VERY SMART IS NOT WHAT I SAY IS WHAT IT’s
CONGRATULATIONS FOR THE ANIVERSARY OF WORLD PRESS .
I’m sorry Diane is not that I don’t fallow your rulers I’m not how to handle it.
I apologize Diane . I’m sorry
Did I just read that exchange or am I in a nightmare?
it reads like a teenage girl arguing with one of her girlfriend that she is mad at…it is insane.
Forgive me for flogging an old joke, but I must assume these epistles read better in their original Prussian dialect.
“Instead I preferred to help create wealth for myself and others in the free market system.”
–Nebraska State Sen. Mike Groene
Since the free market system is, by definition, a win-lose proposition, to the extent Groene won, he necessarily contributed to creating the losers he rails against.
If allowed to prevail, it will be Groene’s kind of competitive, self-serving, internally contradictory thinking that will hasten the country to dig ever deeper the pit within which it will eventually bury itself.
Ohio’s Republican politicians are bought cheaply. They’ve gerrymandered the state so effectively, that being mean is a choice, not a necessity.
Hello I’m not welcome because I don’t know how to handle the right way my coments ?
Take in considering please I’m an Russian and Splanosh Speaker but don’t ignore me , pleas at lest try and I’ll apriciate as well apologize for if someone don’t like me.
Hate me but no ignore me because I’m pretty sure no one of you wang be ignored as Donald Trump do !
Si quiere, lo puedo ayudar. Escríbame @ dswacker@centurytel.net y puedo traducir lo que escribe en español. Si eso no es práctico contáctame por email y quizás podemos intercambiar el número de teléfono.
As a Nebraska teacher, I want to thank you for posting this. I have always felt fortunate to work in the school district I do, and Groene and his ilk (including the Governor, who appointed him to this position) frighten me in what they could do to our ed system and our children.
You need to start working double time, Patrick, to prevent him and his ilk from turning Nebraska into a Kansas (and being from Missouri, I know just how bad that might be-ha ha!).
“We will bury you” – Nikita Khruschev, on the inevitability of communism over the free-market system.
Hmm, are you saying that because all of the free marketeer types that are currently in many statehouses and the federal government, that the collapse of that vaunted free market system will happen all that much quicker???
By the way I “flew” on google earth to the “free market” and here are the coordinates of it: 13, 33 14.99 North and 29 29 42.44 West. Pretty hard to drive there.
It gets “worser and worser and worser”.
The worsetest of the worsetest?
The hatred is visceral. Don’t let him hold any elected office.
Read more about Senator Groene at this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/groenequotes/posts/
There are more emails from Senator Groene saying no public teachers are christians. In fact, he sent that email to me. Let me know if you’d like to see this correspondence.
Tell that to the many self identified xtian public school teachers I know who liked to stretch the boundary of the separation of church and state.
Senator Mike Groene stated, “Do you really want to blame kids for the lazy,second rate teachers protected by tenure?” !!!!!! Ugh!!!!!!!
What a bias, ignorant, uniformed, closed minded, myopic, unaware, mean-spirited person! He hasn’t a clue what he is talking about.
Go to Wikipedia and you will learn of his phenomenal background in education: “Groene … raised on a farm … in northeastern Nebraska. He (graduated with)… B.S. in agricultural economics.[1][2]
Groene began working for …a dealer in new and used agricultural implements …3][4] …Groene co-founded the Western Nebraska Taxpayers Association, which he described as a nonpartisan group with no agenda apart from lowering taxes…”
He knows nothing about education nor the responsibilities of an educator. I suppose he thinks teachers should carry on like the teachers of his parents: stroke the fires, clean the out-houses and classrooms…. He hasn’t a clue what helps students succeed.
Has he ever checked out how many towns in Neb. have libraries? Those towns that are so fortunate to have libraries do not meet the needs of the population. Children are lucky if they can find two shelves for children’s books. How about the schools, do they have libraries beyond a couple of shelves in the back of the classroom?
In Neb. there are many consolidated schools. Local towns no longer have their own school much less a town library. Teachers of these multi-grade classrooms have to take on the role of the art teacher, gym, music teacher and the computer lab if they are so fortunate to have a computer in the school.
So why is he calling teachers lazy? What more can they do with what they have?
I say this as an individual who was born and raised in northeaster Neb. I experienced both the dearth of resources and the caring support of over worked teachers.
Thank you for telling the worls about this!
We are trying to oust him from committee chairmanship!
Good luck with ousting him.
How insulting for educators to have this guy in charge of state education.
Senator Groene should read “The Kindergarten Teacher Saw Something Suspicious … She Immediately Started Running And Now She Is A Community Hero”
http://www.uschronicle.com/kindergarten-teacher-saw-something-suspicious-immediately-started-running-now-community-hero/#
Teachers constantly go beyond the call of duty but go unnoticed.
Wow. He sounds like an Internet troll. It amazes me how Republicans are so big on personal responsibility, except when it comes to the performance of students and their parental involvement in public school.
Cross posted
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Nebraska-Bigoted-Rightwin-in-Best_Web_OpEds-America_Diane-Ravitch_Education_Educational-Crisis-170202-403.html
What a surprise .NOT!! THIS AIN’T NEW and it is not NEWS!
This happened to TENS OF THOUSANDS of teachers in the nineties,
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Nothing has changed in regards to TEACHER BASHING, , because TO THIS DAY, the PUBLIC has no conception of the tragedy to the civil rights our professional teachers that happened 20 years ago!
No media covered this, but I know it happened, because it happened to me, and hundreds of teachers in NYC, whom I knew.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Here is how they did it in nYC
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
Shame on every media outlet, every pundit, and every blogger, who NEVER told and RETOLD the TRUTH— or carried the story of WAR ON TEACHERS!
All allowed the ALTERNATIVE FACTS to be disseminated, and those bad tenured teachers were blamed when kids failed the tests.
The people who are now giving us Devos, removed dedicated AMERICANS who just happened to be TEACHER, from public schools, so the schools would fail AND THEY DID… SO NOW WE HAVE DEVOS TO DELIVER THE FINAL BLOW!
We professional practitioners of pedagogy are the EXPERTS who knew what LEARNING LOOKs LIKE, and we were replaced by NOVICES , who would do what they were told, and use the common core crap and lots of tests — so EDUCATION would become a MARKET PLACE (like heath care) and the INSTITUTION of EDUCATION would end!
This is not about SCHOOLS, it is about THE common good and about the need to create OUR NATION’S EDUCATED CITIZENRY!
The privatization of our schools, in its PRESENT INCARNATION (handing control to legislatures and charlatans like Groene and DeVos, RESTS UPON THAT SHAMEFUL ASSAULT, that took out the CREAM OF AMERICA’S PROFESSIONAL TEACHER-PRACTITIONERS.
IT IS NOT AS IF THE REALITY WS NOT OUT THERE
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
http://endteacherabuse.org/
The horrendous war on teachers was NOT REPORTED BY THE MEDIA which was owned by the oligarchs/billionaires of the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
They put out the FAKE NEWS about those ‘lazy, tenured teachers, TWO DECADES AGO!
But because there was NO DENYING THE FACT THAT THE UNIONS ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN, the pundits and voices that could have told the tragic assaults that ruined their lives and ended education, played politics.
http://protectportelos.org/the-david-pakter-saga-an-all-too-familiar-of-a-story/
So much easier to talk endlessly about the RESULTS OF THE TRAGIC WAR ON TEACHERS!
VAM & PARCC, & NCLB , the alphabet soup OH MY!
Blah blah about Duncan, and Rhee and Moscowitz, and Klein and education reform, then to explain the tragedy that let this happen to dedicated people who blew the whistle.
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
http://protectportelos.org/does-workplace-bullying-continues-my-33-hrs-behind-bars/
rather than show how this happens…. like this:
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
So, forgive me, if I look at skunks like Groene, and I groan, because he comes 16 years after unaccountable, lawless administratorsTOOK ME OUT- the height of a celebrated career, http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
And did this to HER!
Sorry, Diane, you know how I feel about this!
2016’s With best and worst Scooll Sistem
FLORIDA # 14
NEBRASKA # 15
1- MAIN FINDING
2-ASK THE SPERT
3-METOLOGY
https://www.google.com/amp/s/miamiherald.relaymedia.com/amp/news/local/education/article49565370.html?client=safari
I’M FROM DADE CAUNTY AND CHARTERS SCHOOLL ARE STOLEN TAX-PAYER MONEY
SOME COMENT ABOUT NEBRASKA .
WHO IS JEJAIN PUSHING TO DESTROY THE PUBLIC SCHOOLL SISTEM ?
I’M KNOW NOTHING ABOUT EDUCATION . I JUST RESEARCHEDS BECAUSE I DON’T AGRED WITH
WRONGS AND DOOMS POST AND A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO KNOWS A LOT ARE BLIND OR THER FAKING !!!!
At the other end of the email exchange is a very intelligent guy, Bert Peterson, who is not a teacher, not in academia but used to be a consulting actuary—one of the highest paid jobs in this country. Hence Groene’s assumption that at the other end of the email exchange is a “sissy liberal from Academia” falls embarrassingly flat, not to mention the fact, that if anybody, an actuary knows his numbers, and he knows how to make them stick in your mind. Peterson makes an interesting remark about the correlation between teacher quality and kids’ educational achievement.
I know, the info is well known, but this is very well said this way—imo.
Anyhow, I think now we are going to see guys with Groene’s style more and more: he is one of those who went to Vietnam, is proud of it, which is fine, but everybody else is a sissy, “draft-dodger”.
When I hear this, I always think about one of the sissiest draft-dodgers, Muhammad Ali.
In any case, I think when a guy like this appears, we should immediately try to search for some tapes with locker room talk. There should be plenty.
You are spot on about his tactic. Here is an interview with a local TV station where he admits to using extreme “push against the wall” tactics that got the results he wanted, which was to cause the other person to “lose it”. Delusional anyone? http://www.1011now.com/content/news/Nebraska-Senator-has-heated-debate-via-E-mail-412490023.html