So how did those teenagers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School become so well informed?
Thank their teachers!
Emma Gonzales’ teacher in AP government is Jeff Foster.
If all our high school students were as poised, well-informed, and ready for political action as Emma, this would be a dangerous world for crackpots and conspiracy theorists.
This might be a reason that red-state legislatures work so hard to defund the schools and demoralize teachers. A good education is a dangerous thing!
After she delivered her speech, González was so confident in front of news cameras that conspiracy theorists quickly accused her of being a crisis actor. Critics questioned how a high school senior could have such tight talking points. Rumors spread on YouTube and Twitter that the Stoneman Douglas students like her who were making repeat appearances on cable news networks were actually 30-year-old pawns of gun-control advocates. Others, like, CNN anchor Dana Bash, praised the students for their “amazing ability to have presence of mind and to be able to speak truth to power in a way that a lot of adults can’t do.”
But it turns out the Stoneman Douglas students being scrutinized are just teens with really good teachers at a school with resources. They are a testament to what public schools can produce if students have support at home and in well-funded schools.
Many of the high-profile Stoneman Douglas seniors are in the same AP United States Government and Politics program this year, helmed by Jeff Foster, who helped create the AP government curriculum for the entire Broward County Public Schools system.
Foster is going on 20 years teaching AP government classes. He worked in finance for a few years before his mother suggested he try substitute teaching. He fell in love with it and went on to get his masters in education.
Just one of the remarkable teachers in a well funded public school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Alt-Right reformers that want to profit off of everything public, FEAR well-educated citizens young and/or old.
Hence, one of the reasons for getting rid of community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, unionized, traditional public education and replacing those schools with for-profit, secretive, often cherry picking, child and teacher abusing, drone factories called corporate charters.
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“Truth is powerful and it prevails.” [Sojourner Truth]
😎
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Not trying to be argumentative, Lloyd, genuinely confused and questioning, searching for answers. Why do you use the term “Alt-right reformers” rather than “neo-nazi zealots”? Why do you use their own terms which are intended to obfuscate and make their racist, violent, extremist ideology more benign and confusing to those who don’t know who they really are?
I’ve worked against David Duke at the grassroots level. I’ve spent a lifetime studying their beliefs and history. He and his fellow travelers like Steve Bannon, Milo whatever, and the like use the term “white nationalist” to hide behind the reality that they are nazi fascists. Words and descriptions matter. When the opponents of nazism use the term “Alt-right”, the nazis have won a major victory. And that, in my opinion, make it easier for the supporters and followers of our Dear Leader to deny that they are nazi fascists who hide behind false, selective readings of American history and constitutional law.
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Call them whatever you want. I call them one thing in a public forum. I call them something else in the privacy of my home. Turds have more value than they do.
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I guess that’s our difference. I call them the same thing in public as I do in private; it’s more accurate both ways. Also, I can assure you that words matter to them. You chastised me for using the term “our Dear Leader”, yet I find it is the most accurate summation of this individual and how his followers perceive him. It also gets under their skin, probably because, deep down, they understand the truth of it. Again, I am not trying to be argumentative because I believe, deep down, we are in full agreement. It’s just a matter of degree and semantics—that matter more than mere words.
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Did someone say “Parkland” and “AP”?
Isn’t this the point where David Coleman is supposed to make another sales pitch for AP?
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People who underestimate young adults seem to have never studied history or literature. They may not be acquainted with men and women who quite commonly in the past competently left home at a very young age and became successful adults. What these conspiracy nuts do not realize is that just because they were incompetent at a young age and even now, doesn’t mean everyone was or is.
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Take that, Betsy DeVos! Great kids, great teachers, great resources, great PUBLIC schools!
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With great AP classes.
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Classses can be great without being AP.
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“Classses can be great without being AP.” — Of course they can. But in this case they are structured by the College Board because of, you know, $900K median home price in the neighboring area. Yup, another win for David Coleman.
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I am retired high school teacher. I still sub. The level of ability of these kids does not surprise me. These are typical public school kids. What surprises me is that everyone sees this as so remarkable. Our teens are amazing and throughout the country their teachers are amazing as well. Our kids are on continuous display through the country in athletics, choirs, debate competitions, all sorts of performances of their incredible abilities yet fools want to classify them as a bunch of tide pod eaters. These are typical American teens and they are tired of the idiotic processes that stand in their way.
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Thank you for this post, Diane.
Hooray for Foster and MSD students. So proud of them ALL. Go MSD HS.
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I have lost three students to guns and one to suicide. The first time was 33 years ago this week. S was 11 years old and he had a job helping out at the bodega around the corner from his home. As he stepped out on the sidewalk, sweeping out the store before closing, he was shot in the head with a 22 caliber bullet fired from a gun held by a man shooting at another man. S just happened to step in the way.
Some of our students witnessed the shooting; many others witnessed the aftermath. S remained hospitalized for about a week as his parents debated removing him from life support. They were poor people who lacked formal education beyond primary school; they didn’t speak English well at all. I’m sure they understood little of the information the medical team may have conveyed. Their older son was also in our middle school.
The district sent no one to the school to help us, no social workers, no psychologists, no trauma team. There were 3 of us who taught in the bilingual program, and though the principal was supportive and we had allies from other programs, it was left to us to figure out what to do and how to support our students. We helped families fend off tabloid news crews and we organized to transport those kids who wanted to attend the services, but whose parents had no means to take them.
Because S had just had his haircut into a buzz before he was shot, the funeral home used a wig to cover the wound. The kids did not recognize their classmate in the open casket. This gave rise to the rumor that it wasn’t really S at all, that he was alive or that angels had rescued him and taken him to be in Puerto Rico with his grandparents. A few weeks after the shooting, the family left Boston and did indeed go back to the little town in the mountains where the boys were born. But the repercussions echoed all year, and continued until we had graduated all those who were students during the shooting. It was exhausting and completely unpredictable as to when a child might break down. If you’re poor, you don’t get PTSD because there’s no mental health care.
At least it was before standardized testing mania.
That shooting did not occur on school grounds, and there was just one victim. Teachers did not face death trying to protect their students, or the death of their colleagues. I cannot begin to fathom how Jeff Foster and the other teachers at MSD have managed to carry on, while lifting up their students in the face of this unspeakable, unnecessary tragedy.
Our nation is in their debt.
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A lot of killings occur in Chicago but nobody seems to care since they are black students and adults who are being abused and killed.
……………..
Listen to ‘The Daily’: When Gun Violence Is a Daily Threat…NYT
Students on the South Side of Chicago joined protests spurred by the Florida school shooting, but they also felt frustration. Why hadn’t gun violence in their community earned the same outrage?
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Yes, this is outrageous.
A colleague had an eighth grade boy shot to death on the street after basketball practice, four days before the state tests. The school petioned the state for a waiver or at least a delay, as the child hadn’t yet been buried and his empty classroom seat had become a makeshift memorial.
The request was denied, then the school was sanctioned because scores had fallen.
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Christine, that is SICK. Those poor kids were suffering and all that mattered was taking worthless tests.
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It gets worse, Carol. A few years after this shooting, we were negotiating a successor contract and trying to stem the tide of tying teacher evaluations to student test scores. We had made all the arguments about bias, SPED, ELL’s and pointed that only about 1/3 of teachers had scores tied to actual kids. The lawyer for the school department insisted they had a guy with a great algorithm, so we asked to have him meet with us to answer our questions.
The dead student’s teacher asked whether the algorithm would be responsive to the emotional impact of a child’s death. The algorithm guy was pushed out the door when he answered, “No, of course not.”
After he left, the lawyer nearly lunged across the conference table, accusing my colleague of making up a ridiculous story. He calmly cited chapter and verse of the incident, which had been widely covered in the news.
Poignantly, the child’s family held signs along the route of Saturday’s march, asking that the crowd remember their child.
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Christine, I will never understand the lack of caring, compassion and understanding that some people exude. It makes no sense.
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https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-nys-teacher-evaluatio?source=c.em&r_by=230426
please sign!
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These kids are clearly the product of an admirable school system.
I’d be very interested to know about the administration of MSD High School.
Public Schools have lots of great teachers. But it takes a great admin to enable and support teachers to be great in a public school system.
I wish I worked in a district with great admins…
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This guy sounds like a great teacher. A few things that struck me from the article:
Emma proudly showed off her voluminous notes –this implies having listened to lectures.
By coincidence, the kids had just been learning about the NRA prior to the shooting. In other words, their minds were stocked with relevant knowledge.
Jeff Foster has been teaching government, but is about to start teaching geography too –another knowledge-drenched subject.
Please take note, those who bash lecture. The “authorities” in my county would likely have condemned Foster as a bad teacher because he was a “sage on the stage” which “everyone” knows is the worst form of pedagogy. Wrong: listening to a good lecturer is probably the best form of pedagogy.
Please take note, those who say skills are more important than knowledge. Would these kids have been immediately articulate about gun control if they hadn’t just been taught about it? if, say, they had just been writing persuasive speeches about the school dress code? There is no all-purpose articulateness skill that can be taught. All we adults can do is transmit as much core knowledge about important subjects as we can, and then kids will be articulate on those subjects. Teaching knowledge IS teaching skills. Trying to teach skills without stocking the mind with knowledge is teaching airy nothings.
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Just want to point out here that classes and teachers in school — government, history, psychology…whatever — can be good, informative, effective, and inspirational withOUT being AP courses. In fact, the research on AP finds that it is far more hype than it is educationally beneficial.
As to AP in Broward County, the AP participation rate has declines a bit there.The Ap test pass rate is 53 percent, The average score is about a 2.7. In many courses, there is a large discrepancy between class grades and AP test scores.
If a teacher has helped and encouraged students at Stoneman Douglas High school to become involved politically to address the gun violence problem, that’s terrific.
But to suggest that somehow it’s because of AP is a stretch….though David Coleman and the College Board would dearly love for people to believe this.
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It’s not just students at MSD who are very eloquent.
It’s students from all over the country (including Chicago, South Central LA and DC)
Democracy Now! taped many of the speeches at the recent March for our Lives
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/26/one_life_is_worth_all_the
Naomi Wadler, who is only 11, had one of the most powerful speeches of all.
Her speech starts at about 36:35
You can tell from her speech and the way she communicates with the crowd with nonverbal cues that she is much much older than 11 intellectually, undoubtedly because of what she has been through.
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