High school teacher Stuart Egan wrote an open letter to the North Caro,Ina Superintendent of Public Instruction. Mark Johnson.
Egan thanked Johnson for his kind words on Teacher Appreciation Week, but wonders why Johnson has failed to advocate for public schools or teachers. Instead, he sits in silence as the legislature cuts programs, privatizes schools, and allows the state to fall to one of the worst funded. In the nation.
A word about Johnson. He taught for two years as a Teach for America teacher. Then he earned a law degree. Then he won a seat on his local school board. That brief resume enables Johnson to refer the himself as an “educational leader,” worthy of overseeing the entire state system.
TFA likes to say that its recruits become lifelong advocates for public schools as a result of two years of teaching.
But Mark Johnson is not advocating for public schools or for students. His only goal seems to be to enhanc his own power.
Egan writes:
“First, it is quite disconcerting to not have heard you speak about the proposed cuts to the Department of Public Instruction. Actually, they aren’t really cuts. It’s more of a severing of limbs.
“As suggested in the budget proposal, http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/Senate/PDF/S257v2.pdf, there would be a 25 percent cut in operation funds for DPI.
“NC Policy Watch’s Billy Ball reported on May 12th, 2017 in “Senate slashes DPI; state Superintendent silent,”
“North Carolina’s chief public school administrator may be silent on Senate budget cuts to North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction, but the leader of the state’s top school board says the proposal has the potential to deal major harm to poor and low-performing school districts.
“There’s no question about that,” State Board of Education Chairman Bill Cobey told Policy Watch Thursday. “A 25 percent cut, which I can’t believe will be the result of this process, would cut into very essential services for particularly the rural and poor counties.”
Cobey is referring to the Senate budget’s 25 percent cut in operations funds for the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), a loss of more than $26 million over two years that, strangely, has produced no public reaction from the leader of the department (http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/05/12/senate-slashes-dpi-state-superintendent-silent/).”
Why the silence? Fear? Timidity? Collusion with the Tea Party Republicans who believe that cutting taxes matters more than children’s lives?
Mark Johnson, whom do you serve?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
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Exposing TFA not as organization intent upon helping children learn, but as a springboard to controlling political action: A scary phenomenon growing across the nation theses days. (Interesting perhaps that in our state the TFA whose “only goal seems to be to enhance his own power” is not named Mark Johnson but Mike Johnston.)
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Mark Johnson was also connected to a tech firm.
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Ciedie,
I have noted this strange phenomenon.
TFA appeals idealistic young people but the ones who rise to power end up in rightwing regimes: Mark Johnson in NC, Kevin Huffman in TEnnessee, John White in Louisiana, Jason Bolet (can’t remember spelling of last name), who led a KIPP charter in Baltimore, advised Trump on Education, and got a top job with DeVos.
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Scream! The arrogance of the deformers is suffocating.
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