Recent Posts
Stop Saying That
by George Wood
When the governor of my state announced his plan for a new school funding formula, he said, "this is not about teachers, this is about the students." I wish he, and others, would quit saying that.
We hear this refrain almost every time there is an announcement about school reform or funding. It is meant to send a message: teachers do not care about kids.
I had hoped that after Newtown, with teachers selflessly giving their lives for their students, the 'teachers don't care' mantra would stop. Wrong again.
But here is the deal: this type of rhetoric is not only unhelpful, it is just plain wrong.
First, rhetoric like this does not help. We never hear it about other public policy debates. (Imagine: "This farm bill is not about farmers, it is about cows.") I cannot for the life of me figure out why policy makers think teachers are the enemy when it comes to education reform.
Four More Years?
About this time four years ago I was on my way to Washington to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama. I was looking forward to his administration, hoping that having Linda Darling-Hammond as the leader of his education transition team meant good things for public schools.
I have to say I have been disappointed. While there have been some good things, there has been much to puzzle over.
I wonder why there has been so much support for Teach for America and so little support for teacher preparation and teachers in the classrooms. I am not sure why Title 1 has become more of a competitive grant program with mountains of paperwork as opposed to the anti-poverty program it started out to be. And I cannot figure out why interest in charter and specialty schools--those that serve so few of our children--eclipses a focus on supporting traditional public schools to which this nation owes a great debt.
I am not making the trek to DC this time. While I did support the President's re-election, I do not have the same sense of optimism in the next term. And I have lowered my sights for what I hope he does in the next four years for public schools. Here is that agenda, though I am not sanguine about the possibilities.
A System Where Every Poor Child Is a Winner
by Janice Resseger, Minister for Public Education and Witness, United Church of Christ
Our Witness for Justice column going out today is about public education, more specifically the danger of transforming Title I--the federal civil rights program created in 1965 as the centerpiece of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--from a formula program driving additional funds to schools serving a large number or high concentration of very poor children, into a grant competition by which the U.S. Department of Education rewards what it calls innovation. In the church, our concern is that Title I should be retained as A System Where Every Poor Child Is a Winner. Historically, the Title I formula has been a primary tool for equalizing educational opportunity as a civil right for every child.
