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Love Letter to a Teacher

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2013 //
8

Kimberly Blanton sent this to me. She wrote:

“I am a former Boston Globe/ Economist reporter who now writes a blog at a Boston College think tank. I recently met and fell in love with a teacher. I am so amazed at how hard he works for his students, and I am even more puzzled by why teachers have become so vilified.”

Now, if only all the editorial writers and pundits had a real teacher in their lives–a parent, a sister or brother, a child, a beloved–the world’s view of teachers and education would change!

 

 

Love Letter to a School Teacher

The man who entered my life like a whirlwind, wooing me on Valentine’s Day with a sculpture of lovebirds swinging on a heart that he’d made from balloons, is now applying his handiwork to preparindg his Boston high school classroom for the new school year.

It’s the Saturday before Labor Day, when America is enjoying its last vacation of the summer, and he’s operating a power drill as he installs whiteboard, paid for out of his own pocket, on top of the antiquated chalk board in the room where he’ll soon begin teaching sophomore biology. Having decided he cannot tolerate another year of chalky, gritty hands, he’s fashioned a less-than-satisfactory solution in a public school system that has no resources for modern educational equipment. He’d already gotten a start earlier in the week on cleaning the room but has more to do before classes begin this week.

Since when, I wondered, did our teachers have to stand in as maintenance staff? The first thought to strike me as I walked into this grand old limestone building with its dingy walls and dysfunctional windows is that all the talk about public education being our top national priority is not genuine.

In this high school, it appears that the walls haven’t been painted in many years, even though a fresh coat of paint is a relatively inexpensive way to inject excitement into a tired old building. To me, the walls speak to the lack of care for the children in urban schools. The vast majority of students in my partner’s high school are recent immigrants, are economically disadvantaged, or have special needs.

Constructed in 1929, this beautiful old building speaks to our once-high aspirations for public education. Now, its tall windows must be propped open with two-by-fours and food crates. There is no air conditioning, and my partner loathes those sweltering September days when the slits in the windows bring no relief to his third-floor classroom. As the temperature rises above 85 degrees, he sweats out his lessons on evolution and methods of scientific inquiry in front of sleep-deprived teenagers also struggling in the heat.

Like many teachers, he entered the profession to make a difference in individual lives, in the Boston community, maybe the world. It is his 26-year commitment to teaching and to improving the lives of children of the working class that I fell in love with first. As the new school year kicks into gear, I’m remembering the care he took the previous spring – our first together – to find new ways to reach his students. There seems to be little appreciation in our culture for the challenges of conveying the wonders of bacteria, nutrition, genetics, and the workings of the digestive system to inner-city teenagers who may have more pressing concerns – these and other subjects are so abstract and removed from the worlds they live in.

The television that almost seems to dangle from his classroom ceiling tells another story of the history of U.S. public education. Installed in the late 1980s, it was a gift from a television station, given on the condition that students watch a 10-minute news program every morning, three minutes of which were candy and fast-food commercials. The television hasn’t worked for years. That’s probably a good thing. Today, corporate America has moved on. Via grants through their foundations, major corporations now funnel their efforts and money into charter schools, which typically employ non-union teachers.

Now that my partner has solved the chalk board problem, his next maintenance project will be to devise storage in his classroom. The two small bookshelves holding battered biology textbooks were probably part of the original construction. He needs a better place for his students to store the notebooks they’ll use throughout the year to save and organize their assignments.

If only the rest of the country were as committed as he is to teaching our children well.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Who Is Killing Democracy in Education?

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2013 //
35

Paul Horton, who teaches history at the University of Chicago Lab School, wrote the following essay for this blog:

“Democracy and Education: Waiting for Gatopia?

“John Dewey arrived at the University of Chicago in the middle of the Pullman strike. He wrote his wife, still in Ann Arbor, that he had met a young man on the train who supported the strike very passionately: “I only talked with him for 10 or 15 minutes but when I got through my nerves were more thrilled than they had been for years; I felt as if I had better resign my job teaching and follow him around until I got a life. One lost all sense of the right or wrong of things in admiration of the absolute, almost fanatic, sincerity and earnestness, and in admiration of the magnificent combination that was going on. Simply as an aesthetic matter, I don’t believe the world has seen but a few times such a spectacle of magnificent, widespread union of men about a common interest as this strike business.” (quoted in Westbrook, 87). This sense of “magnificent, widespread union” represented the definition of Democracy to Dewey; it was the very core of his writing, work, and public advocacy.

“Later, after he had moved to Columbia University in New York, he had a major disagreement with a very articulate student, Randolph Bourne, about the media pressure to get involved in WWI. Bourne argued then and later in an unfinished essay entitled, “War is the Health of the State” that states thrived on war because war consolidated the state’s power and allowed it to repress any kind of dissent. Dewey was an outspoken advocate of American entry into World War I, but began to question his support after seeing several of his colleagues at Columbia fired for their outspoken opposition to the War. These serious doubts turned into deep regret when he saw that the Espionage Act was used to repress freedoms of speech and press. Respectable citizens, including many thoughtful journalists and political leaders like Eugene V. Debs were routinely thrown into jail. His serious doubts began to trouble him more deeply as he witnessed the Federal response to the postwar Red Scare of 1919, when many American citizens were deported without constitutional due process. He was so disturbed by all of this that he helped found the American Civil Liberties Union that sought to protect due process and other constitutional rights. (Ryan, 154-99)

“From the early 1920’s forward, Dewey became a vocal and articulate public spokes person for Democracy in all American institutions. He founded and led an AFT local at Columbia and often spoke at labor and AFT functions. He believed with every cell of his body that American Schools had to be the incubator of American Democracy. As the shadow of fascism descended over Europe, he became a fellow traveller with the United Front to defend the world from an ideology that had nothing but for contempt for Democracy or any notion of an open society. For Dewey, education that allowed the organic evolution of free speech and the discussion and respect for all points of view in the classroom inoculated American students from the threat of fascism.

“If he were alive today, Professor Dewey would be shocked by what he would see. In part, Dewey’s whole philosophy of Education was developed to countervail the corrosive influence of capitalism on communities and the gross economic power of giant corporations. He sought to defend individual growth and creativity and nurture the sense of public responsibility that was under assault from the pulverizing individualism of the dominant ideology of big business backed Social Darwinism.

“Dewey’s vision is now a major target of major foundations that are funding the push to privatize American Education. Major Wall Street investors and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation, among others, are working together with the Obama Administration to destroy what is left of public education in this great country. Combined, these corporations control approximately 50 billion dollars in assests.

“I will not take the time here to unpack the strategic plan coordinated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and three people within the Department of Education who have turn their strategic plan into a public policy called “The Race to the Top.” You should read Diane Ravitch’s new book to get a clear picture of how this has all been done very legally with the help of the best lawyers that money can buy, millions of dollars thrown at the Harvard Education Department, and with tens of millions of dollars to hire the best Madison Ave. Advertising and PR firms and the best web designers (go to “PARCC” or “Common Core” online). What you need to know is that none of the people behind this plan have any respect for public schools or public school teachers.

“Like Anthony Cody, I have been insulted several times by Secretary Duncan’s Press Secretary and friends of our president who are not open to any imput from experienced teachers. Indeed, I was the subject of a veiled threat from Mr. Duncan’s Press Secretary that I describe here: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/04/paul_horton_of_common_core_con.html.

“In another case, a good friend of the President told me when I protested the Chicago School closings: “who do you think you are kidding, only 7 or 8 percent of those kids have a chance anyway.” Several weeks later when I raised the same subject again, he gave me the Democrats for Education Reform standard line that inner city schools failed because teachers have failed. He was not interested in hearing about poverty and resource starving of schools. I called him on this. The first quote sounded eerily like what Mr. Emanuel communicated to Chicago Teacher’s Union President, Karen Lewis, in a famously closed door, expletive filled meeting.

“What all friends of public teachers and public Education need to understand is that Mr. Duncan and the Obama administration listen to no one on this issue. What Republicans and Tea Party activists need to understand is that this is not about Government corruption, it is about the fact that when it comes to Education issues, we do not have a government. Governments must read and respond to petitions: our Education Department does not seek to communicate with any citizens except by tweeting inane idiocies about gadgets and enterprise. What we have is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsoring the overthrow of the public school system to bulldoze a path to sell billions of dollars of product. Other companies like Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill and Company, and Achieve, Inc. are just coming in behind the bulldozers.

“We must teach the rest of our society that democracy still matters in schools and everywhere else. The time for talking is over! We need to get into the streets and get arrested if necessary. Most importantly every one of us needs to call the same senator or congressman every day until NCLB and RTTT are dead, Arne Duncan does not have control over a penny, and all stimulus money that has yet to be distributed, is given by the Senate Appropriations Committee to the districts around the country that are the most underserved to rehire teachers and support staff. Not a penny should go to charter school construction, IT, administration, or hiring consultants from the Eli Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, or McKinsey. Not a penny should go to Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill or any form of standardized testing. All state superintendents who took trips from any Education vendor should resign, and no state should hire an administrator or superintendent at any level who does not have proper accredited certification and ten years of exemplary classroom teaching.

“Now is the time to preserve the legacy of John Dewey and teach the rest of the country about Democracy in Education or wait like sheep for Gatopia to numb us all!”

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Obama, Pearson, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Texas, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. education, Unions

Teacher: a Letter to My Union Leader

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2013 //
108

Randi, Dennis, I have a B.S. in Biology from UCLA and have
a M.S. from Texas A&M University. I decided to go into
public school teaching to share my love of science with children .
However, ever since I entered the public schhols in NYS, I have
been placed in the most economically challenged school districts
(South Bronx and now Newburgh NY). My evaluations based upon
observations have been, so far, glowing over the fifteen years I
have been teaching Chemistry and Living Environment, but my
students performance is dismal (especially in Chemistry) because
they either simply don’t care or they were placed in a course that
was above their academic ability. I also feel that my
administrators are giving me the most behaviorally difficult and
academically challenged students and with the new evaluation taking
effect, my tenure will be threatened. At the same time, my district
is giving the honors students to novice teachers straight out of
college or those with the inside connections despite seniority. As
a result, I am very frightened that in two years, I will be deemed
ineffective and my employment threatened. I am 55 years old with
virtually no further prospects for future employment. I strongly
feel that this is all by design to defame high salary teachers and
dismiss them. I told my colleagues when this all was mandated that
we have lost the protection that tenure was supposed to protect,
namely, the firing of teachers that aren’t part of the “good old
boys club” which is patently obvious in my district-those teachers
who went through the district or are married into it (or are lower
in the salary scale) are given the best students and those that are
not of the former are given the worst students. Is there any
recourse I have? I am convinced that the local, state and national
unions will only afford one a token gesture of support to teachers
in my plight for the sake of politics. Can you help a teacher put
out to pasture too soon?

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Everything You Wanted to Know about Teacher Evaluation But Were Afraid to Ask

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2013 //
24

This is a terrific new book with essays showing what a farce the current test-based evaluation of teachers is.

It includes the work of several distinguished scholars who understand that it is farcical to judge teacher “quality” by using the scores on standardized tests.

I was happy to write the introduction.

Read the description and you will want to read the book.

One major finding: No state is using the teacher evaluations to improve instruction, only to punish and reward teachers.

This is a hugely valuable book that will help push back against dumb ideas.

Categories Accountability, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

The Secret Thoughts of a Florida Teacher: “Get Out of My Room and Leave Me Alone!”

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2013 //
93

This comment came from an elementary teacher in Florida–who is a National Board Certified Teacher– whose school got an F on the state’s useless and invalid grading system:

I have no doubt that the whole point of what the conservative Republican NC legislature has done and what the “reformers” nationwide are doing is make sure that as many of us as possible leave the profession so that the NEA and AFT are ruined and, so their thinking goes, the Democratic party by extension.

The sad irony is that the neo-liberals in the Democratic party are happy to help this happen; they are more than willing to trade union support for corporate and Wall Street support and let teachers and public schools die in the process and the two political parties become one party that represents the plutocracy.

My Florida school received an “F” last year on Florida’s insane School Report Card scam. We have been in session for exactly 10 days. I have been “observed” daily since the 6th day of school, as have all of my colleagues. The district and the state are sending in these “observers” to collect “data” so they can create a “reform plan” for our school (and the 9 other Title I schools in our district that received “F” grades this past year).

I can’t begin to explain how annoying, humiliating, and nerve-wracking these anonymous and silent observations become, day after day. I feel that my first graders and me are fish in an aquarium or animals in the wild while these cold, nameless “observers” appear and disappear, marking down everything we say and do on their clipboards without ever acknowledging that we are human beings and not scientific oddities.

There is no allowance for humanity at all in this system. No bad days for teacher or kids and no lousy lessons that fall flat are allowed. With the Danielson rubric it is easy to make sure that every lesson is lousy in some way. Although they delude themselves into thinking that they are there to “help” us in reality all they do is raise tensions and create animosity and fear. I guess that’s in keeping under our newly revealed surveillance society and the NSA.

I loathe these people and wonder how a teacher can abandon their original mission of educating children to become a member of the reform inquisition where they spend their days working to end the careers of their former colleagues and providing the evidence to deliver the “death penalty” as NY governor Cuomo calls it, to long-term neighborhood schools.

Although I have dearly loved my profession for nearly 2 decades now I honestly don’t know how much longer I can continue to work under these circumstances. The pressure to speak up and tell these people to get out of my room and leave me alone builds every day. My blood pressure problems and stomach ulcers are returning after a summer free from stress. I want to teach my children to pick up a clipboard and sit in a circle around these hated people to make little marks on papers while staring coldly and unfeelingly at them for 40 minutes to see how it makes them feel.

Every morning I tell myself that I’m doing it for the children but that mantra is becoming tattered and worn out and doesn’t make it any easier when I know that my classroom will be a daily exercise in humiliation, degradation, disrespect, a source of mistrust in my own professionalism and abilities and that I am forced to actively participate in my own destruction.

The people who are “observing” and controlling me all chose to leave the classroom and quite teaching for one reason or another. None of them have achieved any of the things that they claim I must now do — overcome lack of English speaking ability, physical, mental, and emotional handicaps, and extreme poverty and oftentimes neglect and abuse to produce the ever-rising test scores the state demands.

The district eliminated our school librarian’s position this year. We have little to no money to purchase materials to help these kids catch up due to an austerity budget. Seven of our colleagues were laid off last June and only three of those positions will be restored. Everything being done to us is designed to prevent us from succeeding. None of it is helpful or supportive — it is all punitive, shaming, and soul-destroying.

And still I go in every morning and smile at my six year olds and read them stories all while I am dying inside and living in fear, anxiety, and under tremendous stress. I want out and I know that’s what the reformers want most of all — for me to leave just a few years shy of a good pension that they won’t have to pay. The question has become “Is this job worth sacrificing my good health and mental stability for?” and my answer has become “No.”

I don’t want to give up and let them “win” but I don’t want to destroy myself either. This twice former “teacher of the year” and National Board Certified teacher with 2 masters degrees has just about thrown in the towel and that makes me feel even worse but I can’t maintain my best work under these circumstances and I can’t give my children 100% when the “observers” are sucking out my soul, hour by hour, either.

Categories Florida, Teachers and Teaching

South Carolina Teacher: What Keeps Me in the Classroom

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2013 //
13

Kay McSpadden is a high school teacher in York, South Carolina, and also a columnist for the Charlotte Observer.

In this post, she writes about the students she has taught, the difficult lives they lead, the courage they display.

Even as the kids are grappling with hard lives, the legislators in North and South Carolina are wreaking destruction on one of the few stable institutions in the children’s lives: Their school.

She writes about her students:

“In this rural school district where the majority of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, my students often write about how hard their lives are, about their parents who are absent because of work or divorce or restraining orders or death, about how poor health and homelessness and bad choices keep them from a more hopeful future.

They are not self-pitying but matter-of-fact – which is, in itself, heartbreaking.

One girl wrote that for years she worried she was also doomed to divorce because all the adults she knows – from grandparents to aunts and uncles to her parents – have separated.

“Then one day I had an epiphany,” she wrote, putting to use a word she said she had learned in an English class. “I don’t have to be like them. It was liberating, realizing that I can make my own destiny.”

Her pluck and resilience might seem remarkable except that so many of my students echo it – from the girl who was sexually assaulted as a toddler to the teenager who lost a brother to drug use. Despite catching the school bus before 6 a.m. and not getting home until 12 hours later – and despite not always knowing where they will sleep when they do – the students I know show up most days glad to be at school.”

Why do they come back day after day?

“They know that the adults there care about them – from the cooks to the principals, the custodians and the attendance monitor, the teachers and aides and librarians and secretaries and resource officers. All of us keep coming back because we make a difference in the lives of children. No one works long in education who doesn’t believe that.”

Meanwhile, back in the state capitols, the adults are making life worse for the young people:

“The governors and the legislatures of both states have decided that corporations rather than children should be their priority, and their actions prove that – cutting resources for public schools, diverting money to vouchers and charters, forcing schools to eliminate essential staff and programs, devaluing the work teachers do to improve their skills and earn advanced degrees, keeping their wages low, encouraging inexperienced and temporary teachers to rotate in and out of their school districts, evaluating teachers with invalid metrics, emphasizing standardized testing.

I don’t blame anyone for bowing out of the classroom. At some point in the future I may have to do the same.

But for now my students keep me there. Too many of them have already been let down by the adults in their lives, the ones who know them personally as well as the ones in Raleigh and Columbia who make decisions that add to their suffering. I want to be like the other committed adults who work in my school, people who make it a place where every child belongs, where every child matters.

 

 

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/08/30/4276767/difficult-times-for-teachers.html#.UiJRAhYgtWh#storylink=cpy

 

 

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/08/30/4276767/difficult-times-for-teachers.html#.UiJRAhYgtWh#storylink=cpy

 

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, North Carolina, Teachers and Teaching

Robert Rendo: Why Are We Destroying Education? ForWhat?

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2013 //
24

Now here is a first for this blog. A comment that appeared
on the blog by Robert Rendo was picked up and posted by blogger
Jonathan Pelto. It was indeed a brilliant statement, and somehow I
failed to turn it into a post. So
I am taking the post from Jonathan Pelto’s blog and
posting it here so everyone can read it. Rendo explains how Common
Core and the high-stakes testing mandated by No Child Left Behind
and Race to the Top have degraded schooling and education. Here is
a sample: In fact, we have stepped a long way back into a
new epoch of factory style education, where every student is a
widget, and every widget is hyper-inspected along the conveyor belt
to see if its frame will hold up once sold to the consumer, who is
now the future employer. And if the person hired to do the assembly
messes up just a few times, they are fired and replaced. This
process happens knowing full well the conveyor belt is moving at 45
MPH, up from 10 MPH several years ago. Who can
really produce that many widgets when the belt is rolling by so
quickly? It conjures up the imagery of the classic factory
chocolate making scene from “I Love Lucy”. But
it’s anything but cute or funny. Students are
not widgets. Teachers are not robots. The process of teaching and
learning is a humanistic endeavor. There are bonds to be forged,
even while measuring situations and outcomes with data. The data
used to help contribute indispensably to that human bond.
Presently, the bonding has been devalued, thrown aside, and the
data has become the new humanism.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Teachers and Teaching

Miletta: Lessons from Harry Potter for Teachers

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2013 //
17

Alexandra Miletta is a teacher, like her mother, in New
York. When I was in graduate school at Teachers College in the late
1960s, Maureen Miletta and I were in classes together. I am happy
to see Alexandra carrying forward her mother’s legacy as a devoted
educator. Alexandra thinks we can all find inspiration in this
particular Harry Potter story.

Thoughts on education from a teacher
educator.

Dumbledore’s Army

In case you are not a fan of the Harry Potter saga (as I am) allow me to
sum up an interesting moment in the story when it seemed there was
no hope of learning to defeat evil. (For the longer summary with a
bit more context, read this.) The part that I find interesting is
when Hermione (my favorite character) tells her peers:
“Well…erm…well, you know why you’re here. Erm…well, Harry here had
the idea – I mean” – Harry had thrown her a sharp look – “I had the
idea – that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense
Against the Dark Arts – and I mean, really study it, you know, not
the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us” – (Hermione’s voice
became suddenly much stronger and more confident) – “because nobody
could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts” – “Hear, hear,” said
Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione looked heartened – “well, I thought
it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands.” (p.
339 in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2003) In the
movie version, this is simplified to the line, “We need a teacher,
a proper teacher.”

The students of Hogwarts realized that they were
not going to learn the real spells and magic they would need if
they just accepted the status quo being delivered by Dolores
Umbridge and her dull and useless textbook.

Hermione was intelligent enough to recognize that her friend Harry had
experience and knowledge that he could teach them. The group was
formed, a place for secret practice was found, and “Dumbledore’s
Army” was born.

Maybe the analogy of preparing for war in the
wizarding world seems extreme for those returning to school here in
New York State, but as the nation debates the possible consequences
of engaging in real war in Syria, Governor Cuomo ramped up the
hostile rhetoric today by saying failing schools deserve the “death
penalty.” Yes, you read that correctly, it’s a quote. I could
hardly believe it when I saw it. What’s really failing is the
leadership in Albany that has accepted the federal bribe money
through Race to the Top and is creating havoc with lousy tests,
inappropriate measures of teacher performance and school quality,
and a privatization plan that is unproven and as scary as the
return of Lord Voldemort.

So teachers and students, don’t despair.

You don’t have to start this year in fear – of failing, of being
unfairly judged, of seeing your school closed or resources cut to
the bone.

It’s time to learn how to defend yourself against these
dark times. Here are some tips for starting the year off strong:

1. Read and get informed. That means not just the news, which is
sorely lacking in investigative journalists, at least in education.
Find the blogs, the active Twitter users, the Facebook groups, the
organizations of people who are actively working for positive
change and supporting the public schools that are under assault. A
good place to start is Diane Ravitch’s new book Reign of Error:The
Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s
PublicSchools, out in mid-September. F

2. Practice your talking points. You will need these not just for staff meetings, informal
lunch conversations, PTA meetings, or school board testimonies. You
need to start talking at dinner parties, after lectures and book
talks, at the gym, in the taxi, anywhere you find people willing to
engage in conversation so they too can be informed and involved.

3. Get inspired. Learn from history, from role model activists like
Bayard Rustin, who just was awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom posthumously (you can see a beautiful documentary about him
called Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin).

4. Show off and be proud of your many accomplishments. You have bulletin boards,
windows and walls, and strings to hang things from across your
classrooms, and websites and email newsletters, and concert and
play performances, and charitable actions and good deeds. Let the
world know that you are proud of what you do.

5. Find strength in numbers. Join up with others, make a regular working lunch date to
talk and strategize, organize pot lucks, ask for volunteers, help
people who want to get involved but don’t know how to begin.

6. Make time for play, and joy, and being creative. If that doesn’t
come naturally, maybe you can start by organizing a cardboard
challenge on October 8th for some kids and let them teach you.

7. Ask for help and support when you need it. It’s normal to have bad
days, to feel depressed and overwhelmed. Reach out to your friends
and let them know you need their encouragement and kind words.

8. Sometimes you just need to go on a march. If that seems
old-fashioned or ineffective, read about the 50th anniversary of
the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom and listen to the speeches of
Martin Luther King Jr.’s family, Rep. John Lewis, President Obama,
and others who commemorated the anniversary on August 28th.

Most of all, have a good year. Do good, and be well.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

A Music Teacher Remembers Her Kids

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2013 //
13

A reader writes:

“I retired from teaching music K-5 two
years ago. Still cannot read the children’s goodbye letters and
artwork. When the children heard (from a snarky colleague) that I
as leaving they cried and protested for 2 weeks. I remember a 3rd
grade boy in his music class who spontaneously dropped to his knees
and said, “You can’t leave! You are our only hope!” The person
hired after me phoned to ask questions about the position said she
thought they were hiring my assistant. As a graduate student she’d
read my articles and research on teaching children music… Since
leaving my wonderful students, I turned again to writing. The
manuscript is under review. Thank you, Diane Ravitch for your
advocacy.”

Categories Arts Education, Teachers and Teaching

John Wilson: Who Is America’s Most Deceptive Governor?

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2013 //
42

John Wilson, formerly executive director of the NEA, now writes in “Education Week,” where he posed the question above. Which governor ran as a moderate, then revealed himself as an anti-government, anti-teacher, anti-public school extremist as soon as he was elected?

Perhaps you think of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Paul Page in Maine, John Kasich in Ohio? Or your own governor?

No, says Wilson, the prize for the Most Deceptive Governor of all goes to Pat McCrory of North Carolina. He had been a decent mayor of urbane Charlotte, giving no hint of his radicalism . He did not campaign on a platform of destroying public education, restricting the right to vote, restricting access to abortion, and appointing inexperienced cronies to fat government jobs.

Yet he has turned out to be the governor of ALEC’s dreams, using the one-party control of government to implement a radical agenda of privatization.

“Educators know his deception very well. He campaigned as a supporter of public schools and teachers; yet he signed an appropriation bill that cut over 5,000 teachers and almost 4,000 teacher assistants, eliminated pay to teachers who earn a masters degree in the future, and refused to provide a pay increase to the state’s teachers, despite the fact that they are close to being the worst paid in America. Governor McCrory supported legislation that reduced textbook funding to $15 per student even though a reading textbook in elementary school costs $35. Hundreds of millions of dollars were cut from programs that affected the services of students directly.”

While cutting public schools, McCrory has signed legislation for more charter schools and for vouchers. His senior education advisor, be it noted, is a TFA alumnus named Eric Guckian, who formerly worked for New Leaders for New Schools and is a devotee of charters and digital education. But obviously no fan of public schools or experienced teachers. Guckian joins the constellation of TFA leaders such as Michelle Rhee, John White of Louisiana, and Kevin Huffman who seek to dismantle public education and the teaching profession.

Categories Budget Cuts, North Carolina, Privatization, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching
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