Especially for those of us who have taught high school for many years, this is true: If you shake us awake at 2 AM we can immediately recite a list of reasons why one should not be too reckless in this life. It’s because we witness the recklessness of teens daily and in very large numbers. Continue reading The Deeper Issue That Could Kill the Teaching Profession
I really don’t measure my life from one January 1st to the next. Somehow, it’s easier for me to measure what has happened since last Thanksgiving. And there have been some pretty amazing people who have entered my life since then, in one case someone from the past, but in a new identity. And so, since last Thanksgiving… Continue reading Thankful for the Amazing People in My Life!
In just three weeks, employees of Market Basket, a regional chain of grocery stores based in Massachusetts, pulled off an upset in the world of labor relations: They successfully drove that company’s board of directors to re-hire their loved CEO who had been fired by other distant family members in a boardroom squabble over control of the company.
This successful strike organized by managers, supervisors and workers has much to teach educators about how the power of numbers can offset the power of the rich.
Continue reading What the Market Basket Grocery Strike Can Teach Educators
One of the most frustrating experiences for those of us on the left at the beginning of the Obama administration was seeing him continue to hold out hope that he could change the ways in which Washington politics work and move forward with both Republicans and Democrats working together.
Because of that, Democrats lost precious momentum in the first two years when they had control of both houses of Congress and the White House.
History teaches us that Obama’s strategy didn’t work.
Continue reading The Right Will Always Hate Obama — Time to Move On
For profit charter school corporations have proved in several states that they aren’t likely to abandon their crusade to turn the public good of public education into a private investment opportunity.
This is fair warning: They won’t quit in Oklahoma, either.
And leading up to the November elections this year, voters in Oklahoma have every right to ask for answers about each candidate’s policies toward for-profit charters, how transparent they should be, and who will control those charters.
Continue reading For-Profit Charters Still A Live Idea — Let’s Demand Answers from Candidates
Right on cue, she delivered.It’s just what we were expecting. Amazing.
There was a larger-than-usual crow
d gathered at the Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting yesterday, June 26th. The room filled completely although the location had been changed to a huge Oklahoma Senate hearing room to accommodate it.
After some formalities, Supt. Barresi started off saying that she wanted to first make “some brief comments”. Here is about the first 2 1/2 minutes of those opening remarks. If you can’t take even that much, just stop it and keep reading.
Continue reading Barresi Misses the Fact That She Is the “Power”
The election of Janet Barresi was the culmination of many years of planning and working by the Far Right in Oklahoma to reduce and eliminate the power of a large group of intelligent people who just ask too many pesky questions: teachers.
Contempt for teachers, administrators, and inexplicably the students, has been at the bottom of most of her administration’s missteps. It was the main reason she was elected in the first place. Now it’s time to remove her because of that contempt.
Continue reading June 24th Matters – So Does the Plan for the Next Day and Following!
Equivalency journalism assumes that there are only about two sides to anything and that they are equally valid.
When practicing equivalency journalism, once two sides to an issue are found, then the only task of the journalist is:
What we know from real life, though, is that no two approaches to anything are objectively equal. But the myth of equivalency is what drives most media organizations today.
There are 3 education questions that, when answered or dodged, tell all about a politician’s stance on public education:
Continue reading The 3 Education Questions We Should Ask All Candidates for Public Office
Our children deserve our political protection as much as our face-to-face protection in the classroom.
It is time for Oklahoma teachers in even larger numbers to claim what we know from what we see every day in the classroom. That view is very different from that of lawyer legislators or corporate chieftains.
Continue reading Teachers: Oklahoma Children Deserve Political Protection, Too