I am Educator, Hear Me Roar! Alamo Kick Ass Video!

[roxiejules]

MUST WATCH KICK ASS VIDEO AT LINK!!!!

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/03/i_am_educator_hear_me_roar_an.html


"BAIL OUT THE BANKERS AND BANKRUPT THE TEACHERS....I WILL FIGHT TO SECURE THEIR FUTURE. I WANT NO PART OF THE AMERICAN CASTE SYSTEM!"


Open Letter:

From: John Kuhn, Superintendent, Perrin-Whitt CISD, Texas
To: Senator Estes, Representative Hardcastle, Representative Keffer, and Representative King during these grave times:

Gentlemen,
I am besieged, by a hundred or more of the Legislators under Rick Perry. I have sustained a continual Bombardment of increased high-stakes testing and accountability-related bureaucracy and a cannonade of gross underfunding for 10 years at least and have lost several good men and women. The ruling party has demanded another round of pay cuts and furloughs, while the school house be put to the sword and our children's lunch money be taken in order to keep taxes low for big business. I am answering the demand with a (figurative) cannon shot, and the Texas flag still waves proudly from our flag pole. I shall never surrender the fight for the children of Perrin.

Then, I call on you my legislators in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy of public schools is declaring that spending on a shiny new high-stakes testing system is "non-negotiable"; that, in essence, we must save the test but not the teachers. The enemy of public schools is saying that Texas lawmakers won't raise 1 penny in taxes in order to save our schools.

If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and fight for the kids in these classrooms like an educator who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his community. Make education a priority!

With all due respect and urgency,

John Kuhn
Superintendent
Perrin-Whitt CISD



"The school reform movement is populated by self-promoting snake oil salesmen, and our elected officials are buying their tonic by the truckload. It's hard for me to watch this train wreck slowly unfold.

The narrative of the school reformer is a simple formula: kids are victims, teachers are the villains, and some administrator is the messianic hero. A dynamic personality comes into a bad school and doesn't accept mediocrity. He or she cleans up the discipline and fires all the bad teachers, confronting the wicked teachers' union along the way. The hero is this lone special individual and the administrative mechanisms the he or she put in place. It is, basically, the Heroic Ballad of the Bureaucrat. It sells books and dupes legislators. It makes people rich. It only requires a certain amount of arrogance and duplicity to pull it off. It relies on the same dangerous logic that tyrants use to justify lording over peasants and restricting their liberties. In this case, the benign dictator is a self-promoting principal or superintendent with all the answers, and the poor clueless peasants in dire need of a paternalistic leader are the teachers."

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. The public should be made aware of the fact the taxpayers fund the banks but not the teachers

Obama should start working on this

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Everything they are doing is the precise opposite....

of what needs to be done to create and maintain good schools.

Accountability-based bureaucracy is *bureaucracy* and it has a logic all its own.

Mix "accountability" with education bureaucracy and you have got yourself one powerfully toxic bowl of S T U P I D stew.

[roxiejules]

3. I read this quote recently

and it seems like a good way to frame the discussion in order to get more support:

Every time Democrats say or write "middle class" instead of "working class", they are driving another nail into their own coffins. If you want to help resurrect the fortunes of poor, exploited, employed and unemployed Americans, then help resurrect their Democratic Party by never again speaking "middle class", and by telling fellow Democrats and Green Party members to always think and speak of themselves and their allies as members of the best class there is, "the working class" !

[yurbud]

9. I disagree. Even the working poor want to think of themselves as ''middle class''

Few self-identify as poor, blue collar, or working class, and many take it as an insult, especially after decades of the right glorifying the rich and calling the poor lazy.

[bertman]

4. John Kuhn is my new hero. Thanks for posting this, roxiejules. REC.

P.S. I agree completely with your post about using the term Working Class instead of Middle Class. 'Middle Class' includes a lot of workers but it leaves out a huge number of folks who are workers but not middle class. Poverty class is more like where they are.

[roxiejules]

6. He is an inspiration

and I admire the 'fire' in his speech!

I keep trying to think of ways we can become more effective with our legislators. We seem to be missing the boat in getting the common man to raise their voice about corporate greed - perhaps changing our verbage to 'working class' would help. Note how John Kuhn invoked the 'caste system' term as he spoke?

Maybe we need to single out just a couple of issues for a short period of time and become very vocal about those so the message is STRONG. Right now our voices are so scattered among many different Progressive organizations as we deal with Wall Street fraud, animal rights, gay rights, women, children, education, peace, poor, Social Security, health care, elections, etc. Imagine if we all concentrated on just 2 at a time!


:hi:

[midnight]

5. "BAIL OUT THE BANKERS AND BANKRUPT THE TEACHERS.

It makes no sense to caring people...

[roxiejules]

7. Yet...

it still happens.

:(

[yurbud]

8. if you've ever read anything written by an education adminstrator, this is shocking in comparison

usually it's bureaucratic mush with extra helpings of jargon and blandness. This guy either wants an early retirement or he's been pushed past the breaking point.