Julie Rine, a teacher in Ohio, wrote a public letter to Governor John Kasich, rebuking him for his insulting proposal to require teachers to spend a day in a business to learn about how to prepare students.
“Your proposal in the budget to require teachers to complete an “on-site work experience” with a local business as a condition of renewing our teaching licenses is baffling. Even the state legislators in your own party didn’t seem to see the value in it, and have indicated that they most likely will not support it. What exactly did you hope to accomplish by our spending time observing or even participating in a field outside of education? Despite a lot of press coverage, we were given few details about the thinking behind this mind-boggling mandate, but the director of your Office of Workforce Transformation indicated that this added licensing requirement was intended to “help teachers get a better idea for what jobs are available to students and what skills employers need”[1].
“Governor, even if your proposal does not become a requirement, you don’t need to worry. Teachers know the skills that employers value, whether the job requires a college degree or not: a willingness to work hard, to ask for clarification if a job expectation is unclear, to show up on time, to demonstrate respect when speaking to others, to take initiative and go beyond basic expectations, to work just as hard whether under direct supervision or alone, to accept criticism, to work well with others, to communicate effectively in person, on the phone, or through email. Armed with these skills, a person can be trained in any job from making a pizza to governing a state. Teachers don’t need to shadow a business person to understand what skills make a good employee. We know what those skills are.
“And you know what? We already teach those skills…”
She points out that teachers would be more effective if they didn’t waste so much time prepping for and giving tests.
She has a counter proposal:
“Governor, your proposal indicates that you think teachers are in the dark about life after high school. Frankly, we think you are in the dark about life in the classroom. Perhaps this could be remedied if you and our state legislators spent time with a teacher. Imagine if one day each year, across the state of Ohio, across all content areas and grade levels, in small schools and big schools, wealthy districts and high-poverty districts, every single state legislator and our governor shadowed a public school teacher for an entire school day. We could practice one of the life skills we both want our students to have: learning to see a situation from another’s point of view. Ohio’s teachers would know that when our legislative leaders discuss educational policies, each one of you would have had at least a one-day experience in our public schools with the students and teachers your policies will impact. Your proposal argues that it’s important for teachers to know what jobs await our students and what skills they will need in those jobs; I would argue that it is at least equally important for our politicians to know what our jobs are really like and how your policies affect our ability to educate our students in meaningful ways.
“My spending time working in a local pizza parlor would not likely improve my ability to teach, but your spending time in a classroom could improve your ability to enact policies that would have a positive impact on teaching and learning. Will you visit our classrooms? Will you talk to us? Will you listen? We will if you will. Our classroom doors are always open.”
Thank you, Julie, for expressing so well what every teacher was thinking.
Do you think Governor Kasich and Ohio’s legislators will accept your invitation? Given their penchant for telling you how and what to teach, it would be reasonable for them to spend time in the classroom.
Thank you, Julie Rine: excellent work.
Agree. An excellent rebuttal to a beyond silly proposal.
Our Governor wants all of public education in the state to contribute to the economy of this state, including higher education.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
There are so many politicians that are so clueless. The odd part is that many of the most clueless happen to be Republicans. It that a coincidence? I’m not sure but it is definitely a pattern.
Bad Governors in no particular order
1. Brownback-Kansas
2. Walker-Wisconsin
3. Christie- New Jersey
4. Cuomo-New York
5. Kasich-Ohio
Those are the 5 that come to mind first, I know there are some I’m missing.
Don’t let forget former governors that created bad situations before leaving office.
Little Ricky Perry-Texas
Bobby Jindal- Lousiana
Jeb Bush- Florida
As educators, we have the power to change this country. We can control elections. We can support the candidates that support public education, no matter what party they belong to. There is too much, I’m voting republican or democrat because I always have. It should not be about the party but about the person running for office and what they stand for.
Please don’t forget about Rick Snyder in Michigan.
I considered him simply because Betsy is from Michigan. I didn’t know as much about him but consider him “on the list”.
Rick Snyder is definitely an enabler of privatization and DeVos.
I forget how much money she has given him in exchange for “results”
LePaige in Maine, Scott in Florida, Haslem in Tennessee, Cuomo in New York, Bevin in Kentucky, Ducey in Arizona, Martinez in New Mexico, Abbot/Patrick in Texas, Hutchinson in Arkansas….
Let’s not forget the Toxic Twins from Hoosierland:
Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence!
You are correct. We can’t forget them.
It is scary to think Pence is one heartbeat away from being president. He is scarier than I ever thought Trump was/is.
Most public school teachers in Ohio, and elsewhere, already have Workforce/Business experience. Just to make ends meet at home, they are working weekend jobs, summer jobs, home office jobs, online jobs, consulting jobs, holiday jobs, babysitting jobs, Avon jobs. Are you kidding? Clueless in Columbus.
DUMB AND DUMBER. The GOP live in a bubble where idiots dwell.
Ohio public schools bring in community members who are business people and we speak to the students and do presentations. The teachers help us and extend what we say and try to connect it to their schoolwork.
My husband and I go in every year.
Public schools came up with this all by themselves. Shocking, I know, that they had an idea and executed without one or another ed reformer scolding them into compliance.
Governor Kasich should visit a public school. This idea he has that we’re all just sitting around doing nothing without his expert guidance is nonsense.
Instead of looking at what public schools can do for him, why doesn’t he offer us something? If he has nothing to offer than just butt out. Tell him we insist he “value-add” or don’t waste our time.
This is particularly laughable coming from Kasich. He spent years in the US House and then in state government. His brief mid-career foray into the private sector was when he was hired at a financial firm solely because he was a former House member.
And his foray made him millions of dollars—in other words, financially independent—while he fleeced the state of Ohio with bad investments with the assistance of former Gov. Bob Taft. He cashed in before the crash and then reaped the political rewards to run against Gov. Strickland—who paid the political price for Kasich’s duplicity. All the while, the state Democratic Party chased its tail while Kasich and his allies embedded their power.
the Democrats seem to be OFTEN chasing their tails lately
ciedie: from a recent story on David Letterman:
The 69-year-old Letterman also called out Democrats. “We don’t need more confirmation that there’s something wrong with Donald Trump,” he said. “Let’s instead find ways to rebuild what is rational. And the Democrats, goddamn it, get a little backbone, get a little spine.”
“Whether the job requires a college degree or not: a willingness to work hard, to ask for clarification if a job expectation is unclear, to show up on time, to demonstrate respect when speaking to others, to take initiative and go beyond basic expectations, to work just as hard whether under direct supervision or alone, to accept criticism, to work well with others, to communicate effectively in person, on the phone, or through email. Armed with these skills, a person can be trained in any job from making a pizza to governing a state.”
The TFA and ACE, members (ACE is considered the Catholic version of TFA)
may have that POV as well…
“Blowin in the wind” (apologies to Bob Dylan)
How many schools must a gov’nor shut down
Before we can call it a plan?
Yes and how many schools must a white guv fail
Before we call it a sham?
Yes and how many times must the wrecking balls swing
Before they are forever banned?
The answer my friend is blowin in the wind
The answer is blowin in the wind
Yes and how many years can a teacher persist
Before she’s allowed to be free?
Yes and how many years can the bashing exist
Before all the teachers will flee?
Yes and how many times can a guv turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Yes and how many times must a guv mess things up
Before we demand to know “Why?”
Yes and how many beers must we voters all have
Before we can vote for this guy?
Yes and how many scams will it take till we know
That too many people have lied?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin in the wind
I get it. Teachers get to observe in fast food restaurants or WalMarts to see the jobs most of their students will end up working after graduating from high school or college. That way, the teachers will learn what they have to do in the classroom to teach those children how to survive on poverty wages with no benefits.
Better to observe the governor on the job so they can teach their students how to get ahead in life with smoke and mirrors.
You might enjoy reading this story from my university alumni newsletter. It’s about a teacher that moved into the community where he taught and why he quit teaching to work in the community to bring about change. From what I read, it looks like he did succeed.
“Phil stopped teaching and started working in housing developments, trying to make a difference in neighborhoods through housing. He then began working for FIFUL in 2006. After moving to Lowell, the Skei family began connecting with the neighborhood by building a communal environment around their home. …
“In the 10 years that the Skei family has been in the Lowell neighborhood, quality of housing and academic scores have increased, crime rates have decreased and a sense of community has been built — more and more people are tutoring out of their homes and hosting events in their front yards, such as movie nights and carnivals.”
View at Medium.com
Imagine that. The Skei family helped bring all this about without high stakes tests, closing public schools, punishing teachers, cherry picking students, and turning education over to corporations so they could make more money.
Perhaps businesses should be required to have an education program to help students better train for their future as participants in the American workplace experience.
Kasich is a complete moron plain and simple. This guy looked like a total jerk during the primaries some how thinking he was a legit candidate yet the guy speaks like he grew up on a kentucky farm with nothing but animals, hay, barn yard and all the shitt from the cows.
The fortune that Kasich’s wife inherited, should have bought a higher quality husband. I’m curious if Mrs. Kasich lost money, like the pensions did, in the collapse of Lehman Bros., a firm that employed her husband as a managing director.
Ohio teachers can be faulted for teaching skills and knowledge, instead of a tutorial on how to be born wealthy and/or how to marry money.
I have actually wanted to do just what Kasich suggested. I think it would be fun to help out in an engineering firm or an architectural enterprise. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do so. Teaching lasts into the night, so summers and breaks are generally spent on catching up on chores left unattended due to the normal teaching day.
Perhaps K should consider offering paid sebatical so teachers can gain this valuable experience. I am sure his friends in the private sector will bankroll a real program that will give people a real experience. Of course he might have to deal with the attrition rate caused by teachers learning how others actually live.
Those unintended consequences.