A Wealthy Businessman Takes Teachers to Task Over the End Product....

Thank you Sandy, I'm not a gifted writer and I know that my writing will always need a good edit.  However, I can't allow that to stop me from speaking from my heart.  My advocacy for teachers has always been focused on bringing teachers back into the conversation, therefore we would have solutions to the current challenges and political mandates being placed on them by punitive educational policy, written by non-educators.  Wishing you my best as you continue to be that one caring adult that is having a significant impact on the lives of your students.

Please... clean this up by introducing paragraphs and other tricks of the trade. While this is deeply and profoundly true, it’s also completely watered down in a world that has access to fonts, attachments, bold, italics, etc., to bring the Voice out.

Teachers have been saying this for well over 100 years. This is not new. That’s the sad thing... that adults get so wrapped up in “adulting”, they look down upon anyone who elects to work with children, falsely assuming its irrelevant to adult life.

We are the ones that nurture tomorrow’s adults. 

Thank you Christy, I promote conscious discipline and their wonderful tools. I was referring to the invasion of business models that have become educational policy, it’s a very real problem across the country. Thanks for make no the difference in countering the punitive mandates. 

We have used the concept of changing education and schools from a factory model to a family model in Conscious Discipline for years.  Please check out consciousdiscipline.com for more information.

Can't wait to buy your book!!!

Jim Sporleder posted:

The business model that has invaded our educational system, from my perspective is one of the very guarded secrets that has been able fly under the public’s radar and continues to attack the very core of Publc Education. I’m not aware of any books that have been written to expose the punitive impact on our students of Color, Poverty, LGBT, that should be protected from the injustice that is out of control. 

I couldn't agree more.  I have long wondered WHY it hasn't been challenged by others.  Then again, I can add it to the list of things I can't seem to wrap my head around.

Thanks for the validation;  helps me to know that I am not the only one outraged by these kinds of injustices.

The business model that has invaded our educational system, from my perspective is one of the very guarded secrets that has been able fly under the public’s radar and continues to attack the very core of Publc Education. I’m not aware of any books that have been written to expose the punitive impact on our students of Color, Poverty, LGBT, that should be protected from the injustice that is out of control. 

Jim Sporleder posted:

I can’t express any better than your excellent response Emily

That's very kind, thank you.  And I am serious.  Someone needs to write a book about this.  I have looked for one about this topic - if some one has already written it (with a trauma-informed lens), I want to read it.  If not, we need to write it!

I can’t express any better than your excellent response Emily

Okay...we need to write a book about this - together - for real. 

I will NEVER forget when I first started as a school counselor in 2001 and the shift that was happening to align public educational reform efforts with principles of profit making in business.  I am NOT KIDDING. 

I recall distinctly that the "for profit" charter school market was taking off - especially in the area where I worked (Wilmington, DE and Philadelphia, PA).  I was horrified.

The "manual" all the surrounding districts were using to "groom" new educational leaders - the bible of leadership - was "Good to Great."  "Great companies" were defined as companies that had record profit margins.  I would say to my husband (then boyfriend at the time), "why are you studying about leadership that is defined in profit terms? WE WORK IN SCHOOLS - with kids AND HUMAN BEINGS."  

The movement for "accountability" in education has done FAR MORE HARM THAN GOOD.  It has diminished some of what was essential in engaged and connected classrooms of the past - time for socializing, playing, having fun, teachable moments, even moving.  It has over stressed educators to be held "responsible" for their students performance.  Students are "stressed to the gills" with a desire to perform beyond expectation or that they fail to meet expectation.  We have created a giant "pressure cooker" without concern for what is doing to all those involved.  And we wonder why anxiety is at record levels among school age children?

My own children groan and bemoan the extensive formal testing they have been through in their short # of years in school.  They begin testing in the first two weeks of school!  No lie!

And what do we have to show for it?  Our test scores against other countries are NO BETTER than they were prior to No Child Left Behind.

Don't get me started...must go breath and regulate now.  But for real, let's write a book, Jim.  It's a story that needs to be told and federal legislative mandate that sorely needs to be challenged!