Even though experienced teachers as a group have a high degree of love for their students and their work, they are leaving education in large numbers. The teacher brain drain has been happening for about ten years now, and very little grief expressed. Why? Continue reading Education Reformers Engineer a Teacher Brain Drain
Education reformers love to strike a heroic pose as they refer to themselves as engaging in “disruptive innovation”. Thing is, that’s not what they are doing. It’s more like what corporate raiders did in the 1980s. Continue reading Education Reform is Not Disruptive Innovation
Eleven days out from the election and the all-Republican, Fallin-hand-picked Oklahoma State Board of Education is a model of affability. Continue reading They Still Don’t Get It — Teachers Can’t be Bought
How many failures will it take before we allow ourselves to know that societal problems impede education just as a lack of education impedes progress in society? It’s not either/or. It’s both/and.
Continue reading Success Still Hinges on the Student’s Life Outside of School
Activism becomes easier if there is a big figure who is openly defiant and antagonistic toward the position of the activists. Think Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War or Richard Nixon during the end of the anti-war protests and the Watergate hearings.
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Janet Barresi has been that bigger-than-life, openly hostile, antagonistic figure for anti-reform education activists in Oklahoma. Rather than coming from some experience of education in her background, she is a dentist who suspended her practice to run for the position.
Continue reading Barresi Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving for Anti-reform Education Activists
This is the 3rd in a series of three posts pointing out how corporate, investor-owned charter school organizations have chosen to experiment at the expense of children who are mostly from poor families.
Continue reading The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 3 — Newark
Democrats had two unusually good choices in this runoff race for the State Superintendent nomination between two long-time, dedicated education leaders: Freda Deskin and John Cox, the winner.
Now it is a race between John Cox and Joy Hofmeister. Both have a long track record of personal integrity. Both have a long track record of dedication to educational leadership and compassion for children. Both are highly personable, winsome, likeable people who understand the motivations of teachers and administrators.
Check.
Unless Hofmeister shifts positions, what will distinguish these two candidates will be their stance on “reform” as ALEC defines it, which means corporate charter schools and management corporations profiting at taxpayer expense.
Continue reading Charter Schools to Be Defining Issue of Okla State Superintendent Race
The first day of classes for Oklahoma City Public Schools was Monday, August 3rd.
That district is the biggest and most criticized school district in the state. It is also the most ethnically and economically diverse. School “reform” advocates love to show just how bad they think it is in OKCPS. The A-F school grading system is meant to show that.
It is up to the rest of us to remind “reform” folks of reality, which is more complex than their portrayals.
And it is not just out of charity that we move in close to stop the shaming and advocate for OKCPS. Many of the problems with economic and cultural diversity present in the core of the OKC metro are coming to our communities eventually.
Continue reading No More Shaming — Stand Up For OKC Public Schools!