Whistleblower Marlon Ray was fired for complaining about lucrative contracts awarded by DC Public Schools to the Relay Graduate School of Education, which is the educational equivalent of a three-dollar bill. Ray was fired along with elementary school principal Dr. Carolyn Jackson-King, who refused to implement Relay’s “no-excuses” model in her school. She said it was racist. They are suing the district.
Yet Marlon Ray, the whistleblower, who is suing the city, somehow persuaded Mayor Muriel Bowser to proclaim July 30 as Whistleblower Appreciation Day, honoring people she fired! Including Marlon Ray.
On July 18, Marlon Ray, a DC Public School (DCPS) whistleblower, secured a Proclamation from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser designating July 30, 2023 as Whistleblower Appreciation Day.
The proclamation celebrates the origins of whistleblower law in the United States, commends whistleblowers who are often penalized for doing the right thing, and encourages D.C. government employees to know their rights to blow the whistle.
Ray’s case is a perfect example of why these efforts are so important. Fired alongside Ray was Carolyn Jackson-King, former principal of Lawrence E. Boone Elementary, who reported and protested the use of a teacher training program that discriminated against Black students. Ray and Principal Jackson-King, known to the community as “Dr. J-K,” had been highly respected administrators at Boone. Both are now suing DCPS for retaliation.
In 2017, DCPS contracted Relay Graduate School of Education to conduct staff training. Contrary to what the name implies, Relay is not in fact a graduate school. As Education historian Diane Ravitch explained, “[Relay] has no scholars, no researchers, no faculty other than charter teachers. It is a trade school for teaching tricks of test-taking and how to control black and brown children and teach them to obey orders without questioning.”
Relay supervised training and evaluation with 20 DCPS schools – mostly from schools in majority Black and low-income Wards 7 and 8. Jackson-King felt that Relay training contributed to the school-to-prison pipeline by militarizing schools and trying to strip educators and students of their agency.
“Kids have to sit a certain way, they have to look a certain way,” Jackson-King told NPR WAMU 88.5. “They cannot be who they are…Those are all the ways they teach you in prison — you have to walk in a straight line, hands behind your back, eyes forward…I just feel they attempted to control Black bodies.”
Another faculty member at Boone commented on the training asking, “Why should the Black and brown children be subjected to move a certain way or respond to certain commands? They’re not dogs. They’re kids.”
Early in the 2019-2020 school year, Jackson-King shared her concerns with Mary Ann Stinson, an instructional superintendent who began overseeing Boone in 2019. At the end of that year, Jackson-King received her lowest evaluation score in 30 years of teaching: a 2.75/4. She tried to appeal the score, but Stinson informed her that the score meant she would not be re-appointed as principal. She was fired.
Marlon Ray, a 20+ year DCPS employee and the former director of strategy and logistics at Boone, was one of the community members involved in protests after Jackson-King’s termination. He had also filed previous whistleblower complaints, including for the overpayment of Relay Training.
Ray was first retaliated against by Jackson-King’s replacement principal, who reprimanded him for participating in the peaceful protests. He became the only school employee required to work five full days a week in person at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak. Ultimately, Ray was let go in 2021 after being told his position was terminated for budgetary reasons. However, DCPS made a job posting to fill the same position just two months later.
In February 2022, Ray and Jackson-King filed suit against DCPS and the District of Columbia, alleging that DCPS violated the Whistleblower Protection Act and the D.C. Human Rights Act. They seek reinstatement of their jobs.
Both Ray and Jackson-King are prime examples of whistleblowers who risked their jobs in order to do their job correctly. These local heroes stood up for students who were subject to unjust and racist education policy, and who may not have had the information or the power to stand up for themselves.
This makes Mayor Bowser’s recognition of Whistleblower Appreciation Day all the more meaningful. Siri Nelson, Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center (NWC), who received the mayor’s proclamation alongside Mr. Ray said that “local whistleblowers are critical to increasing governmental recognition of Whistleblower Appreciation Day.”
NWC hopes that the day will help government agencies – local and federal – change the culture of whistleblowing. Whistleblowers support government agencies in accomplishing their mission more effectively and holding them accountable to their own policies. It is therefore vital that they are protected and celebrated.
“This proclamation is the second of its kind,” Nelson noted. “Marlon Ray follows Jackie Garrick who received a similar proclamation from Florida’s Escambia County in 2022. NWC advocates for the permanent federal recognition of National Whistleblower Day and these proclamations show that change is within reach. I thank Marlon for taking this incredible action and look forward to celebrating him and Muriel Bowser’s proclamation on July 27th.”
Marlon Ray will speak at NWC’s National Whistleblower Day event on Capitol Hill on July 27, 2023. Those wishing to attend the in-person event can RSVP here: https://www.whistleblowers.org/national-whistleblower-day
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We need more public school administrators like these heroes , Ray and Jackson King. Thank you Diane for posting this and please keep us informed of any future developments .
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A proposed undergraduate core curriculum for minimal preparation for future teachers of English: Course title, department(s), hours, and prerequisites | Bob Shepherd
Introduction to Theatre and Film, Theatre or Film Studies, 3
Contemporary Models of English Phonology and Syntax, Linguistics, 3
Child Language Acquisition, Linguistics, 3 (PreR: Contemporary Models of English Phonology and Syntax)
Propositional, Syllogistic, and Predicate Logic, Philosophy, 3
The Anatomy of Literary Works: Literary Structures, Genres, and Techniques, English, 3 (PreR: Propositional, Syllogistic, and Predicate Logic)
The Psychology of Narrative, English/Psychology, 3 (PreR: The Anatomy of Literary Works)
Approaches to Literary Criticism, English, 3 (PreR: The Anatomy of Literary Works, The Psychology of Narrative)
Folk Literatures: Structures, Motifs, and Archetypes, Comparative Literature, 3 (PreR: Anatomy of Literary Works)
Pedagogical Approaches for Teachers of English, Education/English, 6 (PreR: The Anatomy of Literary Works; Approaches to Criticism; Folk Literatures, Child Language Acquisition, and Contemporary Models of English Phonology and Syntax)
Education: History and Legal Framework of, Education, 3
Speech and Vocal Coaching, Speech, Theatre, or Film Studies, 3
Professional Editing and Proofreading, English, 3
Introduction to Statistics, Mathematics, 3
Educational Measurement, Education/Psychology, 3 (PreR: Introduction to Statistics)
The Psychology of Motivation, Psychology, 3
Plus minimum of 12 hours literature classes and practice teaching
It is long past time that we started ensuring that future teachers of English graduate with the requisite minimal knowledge of key fields related to their job.
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https://wordpress.com/post/bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/5423
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Wrong link. Here’s the correct one:
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What New English teachers should really know.
That there are many different professions where they would be appreciated and respected far more than they will ever be as English teachers.
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This is true.
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My core curriculum for teachers is much shorter than yours.
They could learn it in just a few minutes.
And it would undoubtedly be much more valuable over the long term (and even short term)
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In all seriousness, would you honestly recommend that anyone make the considerable investment of time, effort and money involved in preparing to be a teacher in US schools with all you know about the reality?
When I was teaching in the 90s things were bad, but since then, the situation had gone right into the toilet. I am simply amazed that ANY teacher is willing to put up with the crap from parents, administrators, politicians and students year after year after year.
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In fact, I can no longer recommend to young people that they go into teaching, not under these conditions–curricula driven by tests, micromanagement by administrators and the district office, insane demands, lack of respect, constant pressure and interference from administrators and parents, low pay, ridiculous requirements for maintaining certification, low pay, crazy hours, low social status.
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And, administrators live in such fear of parents these days and have themselves so little respect from the community that they have pretty much given up on enforcing classroom discipline, so a lot of schools, now, are madhouses.
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Administrators’ primary purpose should be to support teachers and allow them to devote their efforts to teaching rather than all the bullshit.
Administrators should serve the teachers rather than the other way around.
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Exactly. That’s why teacher councils should run schools. Administrators should be about facilities upkeep and record-keeping, and they should be hired and evaluated by those elected teacher councils.
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I think that the only people who will enter teaching out of college and stay, now, are ones who aren’t bright, have little ambition, are fine with jumping through hoops, don’t know their subjects well enough to question the inane crap that their administrators insist that they spend their time doing. The bottom of the barrel from our universities. I’ve watched this. The new ones who are at all bright are leaving after a year or two for graduate school in another field or for a job that pays double what they were making.
The Ed Reformers have made this profession, which used to be dominated by extremely well-educated middle-aged women into something nonprofessional–the teacher as monitor of hours of online test prep demanded by administrators, for example. Admin in my last school loved the morons on their staffs–the ones who didn’t know better than to do the idiotic crap they were told to do.
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It looks to me as if an “administrative class” has developed in the US not only for k-12 but also for higher education.
Like George Dumbya Bush, this class seems to fancy itself as the “Deciders” who decide what is best for teachers and students.
But it’s not really surprising given that many of these people are now coming out of programs that were modeled after business schools.
The whole school as a business idea is just completely wrongheaded in every regard.
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My last department chairperson was LOVED by our admin. She literally told me that she did test prep worksheets with her 6th graders until April, when they took the state test. Then, she said, “I have a month to teach English.”
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Administrators should be like busboys for waiters and waitresses, setting and clearing tables and bouncing the occasional drunken, belligerent patron.
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Well, a bit more than that, but close. They should have superb Excel skills.
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Or maybe the administrators should be like the farm boy in the princess Bride
Teacher: “Administrator boy, make me some photocopies”
Administrator Boy “As you wish”
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I surmised that the administrators who asked for this had no idea how to grade on a curve either, so that’s why they accepted whatever the teachers ended up doing in response. They were probably passing along an idiotic directive from some administrator above them.
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You would think that even the most superficial teacher preparation program would teach teaching candidates a handful of standard grading procedures.
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Meme o’ the day:
If studying History always makes you feel proud and happy, it’s not History you are studying.
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If it were up to me, I would address pretty much every other aspect of education in the US before addressing teacher training.
The whole system from top to bottom is set up so that teachers will fail.
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This became of pet peeve of mine because I met so many English teachers who didn’t know their subjects. It was crazy.
My department chairman, seeing me with a copy of Yeat’s plays:
“YEETS? He writes poetry, right? I don’t read poetry. Never liked it.”
Our school “Reading Coach”:
“9th-grade teachers: Some of you have asked about The Odyssey. Yes, you are required to teach the entire novel.”
Colleague in the English Department:
“It says here we’re supposed to be doing gerunds. What’s a gerund?”
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My experience as a science and math teacher might have been an anomaly, but I worked with some very competent people, every much as competent as the engineers and scientists I worked with in industry.
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I did as well in the old days, SDP. But they were mostly older women. Not the case now. I am not pleased with English teacher preparation programs.
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Every bit as competent”
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Admin decided that we should all give a standardized end-of-term test and that it should be graded on a curve. Who knows why. There was no explanation. Just a mandate. That’s how things worked.
Then, I had to write out instructions and send these to all our department members because no one in the department but me knew how to do that.
I sent very clear, step-by-step instructions. Most of them ended up not using them because the fifth-grade math involved was just too hard. LOL.
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In other news, McConnel.exe encountered an error and needs to restart.
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Some of us who work in public school systems are bound by additional ethics. As a school nationally certified Speech Language Pathologist I follow a code of ethics from my certifying agency, American Speech Language Hearing Association. It is an obligation to perform ethically at all times and this includes to step forward to report and correct through proper channels suspected or obvious wrongdoings. I was in a tough position and to this day regret that I tooted a whistle but did not blow it. I was a single mother of 3; I needed my job desperately and knew I would be outcast from my job and even need protection.
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Yup, and that’s why there are so few whistleblowers. I’m remembering the hell that Jeffrey Wigand, whistleblower on the tobacco industry, went through as depicted in the 1999 movie “The Insider.” The very first things Wigand did before blowing the whistle were to downsize to a small house, and leave his job as biochemist with a tobacco mfr, taking a job as a teacher! (He lost his family anyway.)
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And how execrable that you were required to cut corners on commitment to your professional ethics in order to keep a roof over your kids’ heads.
We have been seeing barely-regulated capitalism– &/or political “shiny-object” shenanigans– dominating the spheres of public goods for decades now. Most recently, public health safety vs ‘reopen everything regardless’ on the covid front. And flight of ob-gyns/ med students from states where clumsy/ punitive anti-abortion laws restrict drs from best med practice for pregnancy complications. And best pedagogical practices chilled by clumsy/ punitive anti-“divisive concepts” state ed laws.
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