Bashing teachers in the name of education reform

[proud2BlibKansan]

Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — 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.

A quote by Tony Bennett, Indiana State Superintendent of Public Education, has stuck with me with particular power: “I’m tired of hearing all the reasons why something may not work. What we’re doing now isn’t working. It’s time to try something different.”

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.

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