Breaking News: Whose Opinion Matters?
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I watched “Education Nation” MSNBC with real teachers. The Garfield High teacher from Seattle who led a testing boycott gave me a lot of hope. Another teacher from Oakland stuck out for me too. At the end of his opportunity to speak the Seattle teacher mentioned that Bill Gates, also from Seattle, went to an expensive Prep School there in Seattle that doesn’t use standardized “accountability” testing.
Why is it that the elite expensive prep schools in America don’t use the tests?
The overwhelming sentiment from teachers on the program, as I saw it, was that elites, who make policy, are not allowing “real” teacher voice, i.e., public school teachers. Also there were many comments about societal teacher bashing and Brian Williams, the moderator and others did a nice job pointing out how unconscionable those thus engaged in that in the past have been!
The teachers highlighted on the show were career teachers, not flash in the pan TFA types like Sec. Duncan. The absence of “charter school” advocates was note worthy on this program. The Exxon-Mobile advertizements continuously run throughout the program for Common Core and other misleading messages were in contrast to the sentiments of most teachers, I thought.
However, I do thank you Exxon-Mobile and Bill Gates for financially supporting the program. So, “whose opinion matters” remains an open question- those footing the bills with their $billions or the teachers voices we heard? Diane Ravitch raises these questions about the role of foundations and corporations and their access to opinion and policy making. This program, I thought, at least put real teachers into some focus.
This is from a small necessary high school teacher who is working alone for the past three years. That is working alone where for 20 years two certified teachers handled the same class loads. This is just one very small example of the effects on budget cuts in public school education across America. The effects in urban areas are much worse.
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