I have had several emails from people at the NEA representative assembly asking me if I was no longer supportive of the Save Our Schools organization.

Apparently some delegate got up and said I had disassociated myself from the group.

I replied that this was untrue.

I was invited to speak this summer, and I declined but that was no indication of a lack of support, just a wish to minimize travel during the summer.

I participated as the lead respondent in an SOS webinar on June 19. I think that is a show of support.

I support SOS.

I support any organization that supports public education.

Diane

One of the readers of this blog is worried that teachers and their unions are teaching Marxism in their classrooms.

I often quote readers, because there are so many who have important things to say and stories to tell. But in this case, I am going to quote myself, a very odd thing to do on one’s blog.

The reader posted a video of two teachers in Los Angeles who were promoting Marxist views. One wore a t-shirt that said “Tax the  rich.”

I replied as follows:

You know, there are teachers who are Marxists but I have never actually met one (no, I did meet one once).
I have met many thousands of teachers and they are no different from you and me.
They love kids, they love to teach, they love their country.
They are the salt of the earth.
Our society couldn’t grow and prosper without them.
I am amazed at how they are able to handle a classroom of 25 five-year-olds or 35 teenagers.
I have heard teenagers say the vilest things to their teachers, and they take it and keep teaching.
I think you are too smart to fall for this wacko claim that our teachers are teaching Marxism.
That is unfair, untrue, and damages the good names of millions of dedicated, hard working teachers who are doing God’s work.
Diane

P.S. I believe in taxing the rich, and I am not a Marxist! The degree of income inequality in this country is more extreme than at anytime since the 1920s. This is not good for America. Squalor is not good for America. Crushing the middle class is not good for America. People who are billionaires and multi-millionaires should pay a larger share of their income than people who are middle-class. That’s what i think, and I am not a Marxist.

Last night, I appeared on the Ed Show. It was brief, possibly four or five minutes. But I have learned that in television, one minute is an eternity. Every minute is precious. Out there is a huge audience, maybe a million people. It is rare to be on any TV program where there is time for an extended discussion.

What I appreciated about the Ed Show is that it is the first television program, to my knowledge, where the host has a fundamental understanding of the historic threat to the future of public education. He gets it. He ran a clip of a protest in Philadelphia against the actions of the School Reform Commission. Ed may or may not know that Pennsylvania has systematically underfunding the public schools of Philadelphia. He may or may not know that the chief executive officer of the district, a former gas works executive, recently commissioned a plan from the Boston Consulting Group that would privatize a large segment of the district’s public schools. Boston Consulting Group is one of those ubiquitous business strategy groups that tells everyone what to do without knowing anything about their business. Romney’s former company, Bain, was an outgrowth of BCG.

Yes, there is a historic threat to public education. For over a century, we have treasured our system of public education. Now it is encircled by rightwing ideologues who see a chance to achieve their goal of getting the government out of education; by hedge fund managers who think they know everything; by corporate executives who think that a business plan will solve all problems; by ambitious politicians who see a chance to please their major campaign contributors; by for-profit entities that see a money-making opportunity; and by opportunists who teach for two years and then leave to make their name as “reformers.”

We need to see and hear more on the Ed Show. And we need other influential figures who are willing to think for themselves, stand up to the powerful, and defend the commons.

Diane

I woke up this morning thinking that today I would be unable to post on my blog. That would be a first, and I was not happy about it. Since I started this blog a month ago, I have posted–let’s see–I think this is blog #89. I didn’t want to miss even one day.

I’m on my way to Atlantic City to speak to the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. The car is bouncing a bit, but I can still hit the right keys with my one finger (yes, I can type with both hands, but this is an iPad). So I am reading articles downloaded from the Internet and posting blogs and tweets.

Why do I write so much? I’ve been writing about and studying education for 40 years, and I have a long perspective on the events of the day. I read articles about something happening today and my tendency is to put it into perspective. Sometimes I react with astonishment about the ideas being promoted, sometimes with alarm, sometimes with amusement.

I can’t believe, for example, how teachers are routinely bullied by legislatures and think tanks and the media. Everyone has big ideas about how to fix the schools or “improve teacher quality,” but those with the big ideas have almost never been teachers. In what other arena do we accord the mantle of expertise to those who have never done the work? How exactly will it improve teaching to take away or reduce teachers’ pensions or to make it easier to fire them or to tie their job evaluation to their students’ test scores? Tests measure student performance, not teacher performance. How does it improve education to allow people to teach who have little or no training or preparation?

Teachers are right to feel demoralized, but they should not feel powerless. They should use social media to the max, and let the politicians who bully them know that teachers have long memories and will be heard from at the next election.

We live in an era of magical thinking, where any bad idea will be enacted if it cuts the budget or turns a profit for an entrepreneur or claims to “save” poor kids. Most such schemes are a cover for transferring taxpayer dollars to private hands, results unknowable until someday in the distant future.

For the past couple of years I thought about having my own blog, but I didn’t know how to do it. Then I read someone’s blog on WordPress.com, and there was a button saying something like “press here and start your own blog.” And I did it a few weeks ago, and thousands of people have logged on since then.

This is what is so great. Aside from my main readership, which is in the U.S., the blog has readers in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the U.K., Japan, Russia, Nepal, Turkey, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Sweden, India, and elsewhere.

That is pretty wonderful. We are all concerned about the future of education. And whether education will create a better world or a world of test-taking robots and corporate profits. I vote for the former. I will continue to speak out and write against the latter.

Diane

I just answered a question from a reader. He/she wondered if it was really me writing this blog. He/she wondered if there would be a little line somewhere saying that I was funded by some foundation.

I answered the question but thought it was a good idea to answer it in a blog.

It is just me. Or, to be grammatically correct, it is I. And I alone.

No one writes for me, and I am not funded by any foundation.

I write every word of my books. I write every word of my articles. I write every word of my blogs. I write every word of my tweets.

I know that most if not all of the other voices in the national debate have a staff. Some have a large staff. Some have a “social media” person who writes their tweets and interacts with the public for them.

Last summer, when I debated Wendy Kopp at the Aspen Ideas Festival, I found myself in a three-way interchange, emailing with the moderator James Bennett’s secretary and Wendy Kopp’s secretary. I don’t have a secretary.

It is I and my pen, or to be more accurate, my computer and my iPad.

I write as I think, I write what I believe. I try to stick to the facts, as I know them. If I make an error, I’ll say so. I avoid ad hominem comments, and please let me know if I have not stood by that principle.

There’s lots more I could say on this subject, but the bottom line is this: It’s just me.

Diane