Bashing Teachers in the name of Education Reform...

[YvonneCa]

...by Stephanie Salter:

http://tribstar.com/opinion/x1293919796/Stephanie-Salter-Bashing-teachers-in-the-name-of-education-reform

As I read the Tribune-Star’s recent Page 1 news packages about the governor’s push for education reform, I kept seeing faces.
Faces of all the women and men I know who make their living as public school teachers. Faces of so many of the kids these teachers work with, nurture, rescue, educate, empower and, more than you’d imagine, come to love.

>>>>>>>>>snip

I looked at the list of 29 Vigo County public schools. I imagined the nearly 16,000 children and teenagers inside them and the 1,650 or so teachers, administrators and support staff spending seven to 10 hours each day working to make those kids better readers and writers, helping them learn to solve math problems and grasp scientific principles, and enabling them to try to grow up and be productive citizens. I pictured walking into each of those buildings, opening the door to every classroom, interrupting the teacher’s presentation, the test or student report, looking each and every adult and kid in the eye and saying, “What you are doing isn’t working.” That science fair for which you are preparing? The math contest? The debate tournament? The creative writing project? The history, social studies, political science, economics or typing quiz you’re taking? Forget them.


The chief of Indiana’s public education system (and, by proxy, the governor) says what you do, day in and day out, for more than nine months a year, is broken. It doesn’t work and needs to be overhauled to the point of near-abandonment. The chief calls what you teachers have dedicated your lives to, what you students do in response to your teachers’ efforts, “a mess.” He compares your system of operation to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He has a PowerPoint show — stocked with everything he finds wrong, but devoid of anything you do right — to prove what a mess you’ve made.


And he and the governor have numbers. Short on context or edifying comparison, long on political spin, the selective statistics damn Hoosier public schools and the people who teach and learn in them.

[AndrewP]

1. Good article. n/t

[RufusTFirefly]

2. Bashing teachers may be short-term, but destroying our public spaces and our unions...

... are the gifts that keep on giving.

The goal is obvious to anyone who cares to look at things with a clear and dispassionate eye:

Destroy one of the last bastions of unions in the US of A and privatize one of the few remaining public spaces in America.

[senseandsensibility]

14. k and r

Keep posting; I learn something from all of your OPs.

[Catshrink]

3. WOW

That is a great article!

[progressoid]

4. It's even a popular sport within the Democratic party.

Some of the most heated discussions I have had about education are with Democrats.

[Catshrink]

12. Here even.

[YvonneCa]

15. Sad. n/t

[teacher gal]

5. Thanks

for posting this.

[YvonneCa]

9. You are very welcome...

...teacher gal. :hi:

[Honeycombe8]

6. Wow. That crosses the line. I believe in examining systems, but that's ridiculous.

Not even discussing what's been done right? It's unhuman, and inhumane.

[YvonneCa]

11. I do, too, and I believe we need to get education...

...right. It is EXTREMELY important for the country. But teachers need to be a part of the discussion in order to make that happen. There are some EXCELLENT teachers in TITLE I Schools.

[Starry Messenger]

7. k&r

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. K & R!!

[YvonneCa]

13. Thank you! n/t

[Angry Dragon]

10. Follow the money

A lot of money changing hands in education
Then they will raise taxes because admin salaries are not big enough
Then there will be service cuts to feed the mighty beast