Billionaires are once again spending heavily to flex political influence in California. Much of the spending is directed toward implementing neoliberal ideology into education policy.
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There is a political strategy underway to demonize the people who teach our children. Daily on social media platforms, on major media outlets, and in public forums, we see and hear people accusing public school teachers of deliberately destructive and dangerous practices.Teachers are called offensive names, accused of the lowest crimes, and portrayed as dangerous and untrustworthy. Our commercial media and social media are permeated with this narrative.
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Republicans are fighting against a version of public education that does not exist. Critical race theory, pornographic school books, and other bogeymen haunt their platforms without any evidence that this stuff is a reality.
Read MoreYou never think it would happen to you. Then, it does. Fortunately for Grumpy Old Teacher’s (GOT) district, the procedures worked. The threat never got into the school building. Shortly thereafter, school police confronted him two blocks away and the threat was over.
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We must move on from the original test makers narrow-minded, racist ideas about intelligence and human worth. And to do that we must leave standardized testing far, far behind.
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That is why standardized tests fail so miserably most of the time. They are not designed for the same function. They are about competition, not acquisition of knowledge or skill.
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It is going to be a challenge to keep profiteers from devouring the promise of community schools.
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No amount of legal or societal restrictions and suppression can negate that necessity to become their own persons. Neither parents, nor teachers, nor society as a whole can deny that need, and it is only damaging foolishness to try.
The book and this post put the neoliberal faction of the Democratic Party in an extremely bad light. However, it is important to remember that the neoliberal market driven agenda is embraced even more tenaciously by America’s conservative community and they don’t seem concerned about “a fair chance for all, in mercy for the afflicted and help for the down and out.”
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Students should not have to submerge themselves in a sea of classmates and hope the teacher will have time to educate them. We should cut class size, not increase it. We should hire more teachers, not rely on a skeleton crew.
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After looking at the issues swirling around SUSD, I believe the district is in damaged but decent shape. As Dr. Miller takes charge, it seems like a great time for a new beginning. Her résumé indicates a professional educator with deep experience. She has administrative experience and a twenty-five year relationship with the community.
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In this book we find an authentic effort to improve pedagogy in public schools, full of useful ideas and stimulating insights. More importantly this is how teacher development should be. Fullerton State University is located in Fullerton, California just north of Anaheim in Orange County. The department of Education there hosts teacher training and programs for school districts throughout Orange County and the Los Angeles basin. These publicly supported professionals from Fullerton are improving schools, enhancing student equity and supporting education justice.
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Business partners are community school stakeholders but let’s face it, they’ve never been the teacher’s best friends.
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The Pennsylvania State Senator and Republican candidate for governor plans to introduce a bill allowing school employees to arm themselves while on school property if they have a concealed carry permit and pass a firearms course.
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The point of this is that Summer Break has many serious, important, crucial reasons for being in the school calendar. To a teacher, the cost is not two months of it-must-be-nice vacation. In the summer, teachers are not on break or a deserved vacation. They have been laid off.
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When we discuss things – as you must in Language Arts – I encourage students to agree OR disagree with me or anyone else. Either option is okay so long as they try to explain why they think the way they do.
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Finding ways to recharge and renew is something I know I desperately need – maybe as you do, too. Here’s hoping we can find the peace we need this summer. The new academic year will be here before we know it.
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I’m not so sure. No one mentioned standardized tests once in any journal. Not as a favorite thing. Not as a thing they learned from. Not as something important. Not as something they wished there were more of. In a system that seems to think standardization is everything – what students want is something… different.
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