What’s wrong with this picture?
Teresa Danks has been teaching since 1996. She teaches first grade. She has a master’s degree.
Why is she standing by a busy road in Tulsa begging for money?
Watch the 54-second video.
Then send it to Bill Gates, The Walton Family Foundation, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg or Priscilla Chan, Michael Bloomberg, or Betsy DeVos with your ideas about how to improve education.
It’s obviously not just confined to Oklahoma but is a nation-wide issue. Our government appears to have plenty of money for warfare but not for healthcare and education. Plus, our young people need more support for public schools and less for the militarization of our schools via JROTC programs, even the so-called, “Young Marines” endeavor. Education not Militarization! BTW, Chicago is the most highly militarized school system in the country! Sad. Very sad.
“Education not Militarization!”
Bingo!
Give this man a Kewpie doll!
I wonder how long it will be before Indiana teachers start doing this?
.It must be okay with the US Department of Education.
Look what they’re promoting this week:
@POTUS has demonstrated his dedication to America’s students by donating his second-quarter salary to the @usedgov.
The President thinks US public school students are his personal charity. I guess our kids are all supposed to be grateful he “donated” fractions of a cent to each of 50 million students.
They’re turning public schools into something rich people use for publicity and turning public school kids into beggars.
Donald Trump can keep his fraction of a cent donation if he promises to stay out of my son’s public school. I think he’s a terrible role model and I don’t want him anywhere near my kid. It’s bad enough he’s on tv constantly.
They can keep his donation. Put it toward the Secretary’s elaborate security detail.
Big deal. Trump donated $100,000 but wants to chop $9 billion from the US ED
also wants to decetify teachers. Bythe way isn’t Tulsa Deborah Gist country-the former RI Commissioner of Ed and still one of Jeb’s Chief for change if that organization still exists?
Yes. Gist is superintendent in Tulsa. She was Commissioner of Ed in RI. She was hailed by Arne Duncan for her “courage” in approving the mass termination of the teachers at the High School in Central Falls. She is a member of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change.
It was not just Arnie Duncan…So did Obama:
Obama Applauds Mass Firing of Teachers…
In a speech to Colin Powell’s dropout prevention nonprofit at the US Chamber of Commerce headquarters, Obama “voiced support” for the firings. President Obama voiced support for the mass firings of educators https://shadowproof.com/2010/03/03/obama-applauds-mass-firing-of-teachers-just-like-when-he-applauded-the-mass-firing-of-banksters-oh-wait/
Not sure why, but Obama seems to have a personal grievance against public school teachers.
It’s very curious because he was educated at private schools so its not like he would have had a bad experience that biased his views.
SomeDAM-
I think it was his education at private schools that biased his view – he has no first hand knowledge. Many private schools encourage their students to think they’re superior to the schools which educate all. I can’t figure out why Michelle Obama didn’t influence him in that regard.
cross posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CNN-VIDEO-Why-a-Teacher-i-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Money_Schools_Teaching-170729-263.html
with this comment… which has embedded links at the address above
In every classroom where I was a full-time teacher I spent no less than $2000 to purchase materials I needed.
In my last tenure, during the 8 years when I was a celebrated teacher, and the NYS Educator of Excellence, and the NYC cohort for the New Standards research, I bought 1000 books, and all the art supplies. *I taught the full 7th grade curriculum in art education, within my English (COMMUNICATION ARTS) curriculum.
The first two principals of that school cheated me out of payment for everything, and the last one, stole everything and re-distrubted my materials to other teachers… while I languished in a rubber room thanks to false charges that I disproved by hiring an expensive attorney… when the union looked the other way.
Don’t teach if you have little funds to support your work.
You are on your own.
See this: The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman on Vimeo
Well, Diane, one of the favorite hackneyed phrases of the ed reform “movement” is that we’re “throwing money” at schools.
Repeat this propaganda long enough and it can be really tough to elect people who support public funding of schools and they sure repeat it. They all recite it like parrots.
Have you ever tried to pass a school levy? You’ll hear derogatory themes about public schools repeated like they’re gospel. That’s what 20 years of their hard work and dedication to “education” has given us- people now think they have no responsibility to pay for anyone else’s education- after all, we’re just wasting it on “failing schools”.
On Long Island, almost every school levy passed. The same parents who opted out of state testing opted to raise their own taxes to support their public schools. Not privately managed schools, but THEIR schools.
Sickening. I blame both the GOP and the DNC for this one. Sorry, DNC, but the DEMs went to the “right” and blamed public school teachers. This country likes to blame public school teachers for the ills of society. SICK.
I’d take a public school graduate any day over a private school preppy.
Good for her. I’m glad she’s getting away with it. In Utah, we would be fired for “unprofessional conduct,” particularly with it being on the news.
Maybe in states that continue to slash public school budgets, we should have a national day of begging for public education. For political reasons, perhaps parents should do the begging. There would be no reprisals from that, and it would get a lot of publicity for what is happening in so many states.
Yeah, it’s really hard to get teachers in Utah to rally for anything. It probably has something to do with the exhaustion we feel with the largest class sizes in the country and the poor pay, often leading to working multiple jobs just to survive.
Threatened Out West,
It has everything to do with those teachers being Go Along to Get Along Good Germans than anything else. Personal expediency over justice for the children. Sad but so true.
After I got my teaching certificate, I considered getting a permanent teaching job in Utah.
But I only considered it for a brief time.
After subbing for six months in Salt Lake, I decided against it. The class sizes were just too big (often 35+) and pay was too low.
It disturbed me that a bunch of stupid, incompetent politicians in the Utah state legislature (monkeys, really) and state House expected teachers to work for nothing with few resources.
After 21 years and with a masters degree she is only making $35,000 year!! What an utter travesty. Even NJ is not that depraved when it comes to teacher salaries.
That salary shocked me.
The cost of living is a lot less but that explanation only goes a little ways. Another shinning example of American exceptionalism.
edit\ shining
These oligarchs have no hearts. They have no compassion. They have no empathy. They are the walking dead, and they are driven to eat the flesh and drain the blood of the rest of us, the working class.
Having them watch that video will not move them, but some of them might ask their PR people how they can spin this, twist it, to further their goals to destroy the community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public education.
I think that sending this video to Bill Gates, The Walton Family Foundation, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg or Priscilla Chan, Michael Bloomberg, or Betsy DeVos would be an exercise without consequence even if fantastic ideas for public education were included.
These billionaires are not interested in improving education but in owning it, privatizing it, siphoning off and managing public funds, usually to make a make a profit, especially in environments were they can claim to be serving children of color and low-income families. The billionaires that Diane has named have no interest helping the teacher who is standing by the road begging for schools supplies. They are the part of the reason why it is necessary for her to do this and likely she is not alone in being so desperate for minimally adequate funding for her work.
It’s too bad that Bill Gates, the Waltons, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Michael Bloomberg, Betsy DeVos, and all of their likes will never get to sit in a classroom of Teresa Danks…
A period of 45 minutes…with a wide array, demonstrated by Danks in the areas of compassion, decency, self respect, dignity, honor, and love for our youngest citizens…
A lesson on the proper ways humans should treat each other.
My concern would be as to how many of these billionaires would walk away from Ms. Danks class with a new way to make money! Some people are so blind as to have little or no understanding of what it means to be civilized…after all, what would these people be without their billion dollar checkbooks?…what legacy would the people of the world remember them by?…how many lives and livelihoods did they destroy?
They unfortunately have purchased the titles “chief know-it-all”, even though they have no conception or understanding of humanity.
People like Ms. Danks provide an unwavering glimmer of hope during the plutocratic nightmare we are all living through.
Thank you, Ms. Danks…you are an inspiration to many hundreds of thousands across our nation that you will never come to know…but we know you, and respect you as a fellow citizen…and also as a friend to so, so very many.
Sending it to Bill Gates and the others is a waste of time.
These folks would only say “It’s her own damned fault”
The billionbaire Ayn Rand class believe in “accountability” for one’s lot in life, doncha know?
Two bits says she gets written up in the first couple of weeks of school, with many more to follow. Adminimals don’t like it when someone is so forthright in challenging the status quo.