Thoughts on #Red for Ed

RED FOR ED RALLY IN INDIANAPOLIS – NOW WHAT?

Thousands of teachers, parents, and public education advocates rally in Indianapolis November 19, 2019

How many of the 15,000 – 20,000 Indiana teachers, ESPs, parents, and supporters of public education who rallied at the Capitol on Nov. 19, and the additional thousands who “wore Red for Ed” in their local communities, will fall back into the pattern of voting for the supermajority candidates who brought public school teachers, and public schools…

• the loss of seniority and lessening the value of experience or advanced degrees on salary schedules

• declining salaries (when adjusted for inflation)

• the loss of the right to collective bargain things like class size, prep time, and supervision

• the loss of due process

• the overuse and misuse of standardized testing

• the diversion of public education funds to charter and voucher schools

• teacher evaluations and school grades based on test scores

• and, beginning in 2020, Governor-appointed majority (8 out of 10) on the state school board as well as a Governor-appointed state superintendent of public instruction.

THIS STATE REALLY HATES PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS

The current make-up of the state government is blatantly disrespectful of public education and public school teachers.

That is why the Governor’s teacher-pay task force has no active educator on its panel.

That is why public schools, which educate 90% of Indiana’s children, will get a 2% increase in both 2020 and 2021 while charter schools (10.3% and 10.47%), virtual schools (5.25% and 9.14%) and private/parochial school vouchers (9.28% and 5.6%) will get much higher increases. Those percentages certainly show where the state’s priorities lie.

That’s why Indiana teachers, of all the nation’s teachers, have seen the lowest amount of money in teacher raises since 2002.

That’s why you can become a teacher in a public high school in Indiana without a degree in education or pedagogical training.

That’s why you can become a teacher in a charter school in Indiana without a degree in education or pedagogical training.

That’s why Indiana’s testing programs, which seem to change yearly, continue to label students, schools, and school districts as failures because they have high populations of children in need. The assumption is that schools must cure the problems caused by poverty, not the legislature, even though out of school factors have a powerful impact on student achievement.

That’s why Indiana has singled out teachers as the only group of professionals in the state who need to donate some of their time to local businesses in order to learn how the “real world” works. Every Hoosier teacher is aware that neither the Governor nor members of the legislature are required to donate some of their time to public schools in order to learn how they work.

That’s why the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the person who is responsible for all the public schools in Indiana, will henceforth be a position appointed by the Governor instead of being an elected official. Some states with appointed State Superintendents have elected State Board of Education members. Some states with appointed State Board of Education members have elected State Superintendents. Indiana now has neither. They are all appointed.

HOW ARE YOU SUPPORTING OUR KIDS?

How many of the “Red for Ed” supporters will disregard Fort Wayne Community Schools Superintendent Wendy Robinson’s words,

The presidential campaign may receive the most attention, but on this issue, it is not the most important. Take a look at how your state representatives have voted when it comes to funding public education and supporting teachers. You might be surprised at how the people you voted for may say the right things in mailers or commercials or even to your face but vote the other way.

When educators band together for a cause, they can make a difference. Look at the 2012 election for State Superintendent of Public Instruction: A change was made because educators and friends of educators banded together. It can happen again, but only if you carry on what you start on Nov. 19.

Educators, parents, and supporters of public education in Indiana cannot continue to elect the enemies of public education to the state legislature.

If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll keep getting what we’ve always gotten.

‘Great day’ for teachers

As the rally wrapped up, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick posted the following to her Twitter account:

“Great day today, Indiana. Now … it’s about the tomorrows.”

Alison Schwartz, a senior elementary education major from Ball State University, said of the Red for Ed Rally,

This is important because our teachers are important, and our kids are important. If you can’t fully fund your teachers and your schools and support them, then how are you supporting your kids?

We need to support our kids…at the ballot box in November of 2020.

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Indiana: Still hating public education after all these years

For the last two decades, the Indiana General Assembly has done its best to hurt Indiana’s public schools and public school teachers. This year is no different. But before we look at this year, let’s take a quick trip back to the past to see what the General Assembly has done to hurt public education in general, and public school teachers in particular.

2011 was the watershed mark for public education in Indiana. We had all been suffering through No Child Left Behind with all its onerous requirements. Then Governor Mitch Daniels (now President of Purdue University) with his sidekick, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, worked diligently with the Republican supermajority in the legislature and the Republican-leaning State Board of Education, to make things as difficult for public education and public educators as they could. Subsequent Governors Pence and Holcomb have continued down the same path. Governor Pence, especially, was blatant in his support for private schools over public (see For Further Reading at the end of this post).

Here are a few things that the Daniels-, Pence-, and Holcomb-led supermajority has done to public schools and public school teachers in Indiana

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

The collective bargaining process has been gutted. Just like other anti-union Republicans, the legislature has passed legislation to restrict collective bargaining to only money and benefits. No longer is it required that school boards negotiate work-related conditions such as class size, preparation time and hours of work. For years, politicians said that all teachers were interested in was “their wallets.” The new collective bargaining law prohibits teachers from negotiating anything else.

CONTINUING EDUCATION

When I started teaching in 1975, Indiana teachers were required to have or work towards a master’s degree. Once the advanced degree was achieved teachers were moved to a higher salary schedule which recognized and rewarded advanced education. Teachers are no longer required to get an advanced degree but are still required to participate in “continuing education” in order to keep their license current. However, an advanced degree or hours above the bachelor’s degree are no longer automatically rewarded; the salary schedules are gone. The educational experience of teachers apparently no longer matters. Testing counts, of course, so Indiana still “rewards” teachers whose students achieve high test scores. Years of experience and advanced education? Not so much.

REPA III

Politicians and pundits will often talk about how we only want the best-qualified teachers in our classrooms. So it’s easy to be confused about the rules that allow untrained educators to walk into a high school classroom on the first day of school. If you have a degree in a high school subject, biology for example, and you have worked in the field for a minimum number of years, say as a sales rep for a laboratory, you can walk into a high school class on the first day of the school year and “teach” biology. Education/pedagogical training is required, but not right away. You can start with no experience or understanding of child/adolescent development, classroom management, or understanding of the learning process. So much for the best qualified.

DUE PROCESS

For years teachers were protected from arbitrary dismissals by the requirement that the administration prove incompetence or other reasons for dismissal through due process. An impartial arbitrator would listen to both sides and make a judgment. A principal who didn’t like a teacher couldn’t just fire a teacher without just cause. That’s no longer the case. The only recourse a teacher has now for an unfair firing is to request a meeting with the Superintendent or the local school board, neither of which would be considered impartial.

FUNDING

Public school funding was cut by $300 million during the Daniels Administration. This money has never been replaced.

Vouchers, which began in 2011, have siphoned more than $800 million from public education. Charter schools, including virtual charters, have also taken money once designated for the public good and put it into private pockets.

CURRENTLY

The bills and amendments discussed below have not yet passed the legislature. They still give an indication of the way in which Indiana public educators are disrespected.

School Safety

School safety has been an important issue especially with the frequency of school shootings and the number of children killed by gun violence every day. Many schools have initiated “active school shooter” training so that the staff would be prepared for an emergency.

Indiana made the national news in March when a local school district allowed the Sheriff’s department in their community to shoot plastic pellets at teachers in order to make the training “more realistic.” Teachers, some of whom sustained injuries, were told to keep the training procedure a secret.

A current amendment to a bill (HB1253) allows this to continue.

Do teachers need to be shot in order to understand the need for school safety? Are teachers unaware of the dangers of gun violence? One teacher who was shot with pellets commented,

“It hurt really bad,” said the woman, who said she was left with bruises, welts and bleeding cuts that took almost two weeks to heal. “You don’t know who you are shooting and what types of experience those individuals had in the past, whether they had PTSD or anything else. And we didn’t know what we were going into.”

She described the training as frightening, painful and insulting.

“What makes it more outrageous is they thought we would need to have that experience of being shot to take this seriously,” she said. “When I thought about it that way, I really started to get angry. Like we are not professionals. It felt belittling.”

Great. So let’s pass a bill which allows people to do that again.

Teacher Pay

Governor Holcomb has called for an increase in teacher pay this year.

Because of a constitutional cap on property taxes, the state legislature is charged with the responsibility of making sure schools have enough funds to operate. So much for “local control.”

Indiana teachers’ real wages have dropped by 15% since 1999. We are well behind the increases in pay given to teachers in surrounding states. The legislature, in order to increase teacher pay, has proposed to increase funding for education by 2.1%. Last year’s inflation rate was 1.9%. The proposed 2.1% will also be used to pay for increases in support of vouchers and charter schools. How much will be left for public school teacher raises?

The legislature, trying to act like a state school board, suggested that school systems be required to use 85% of their state money for teacher salaries. So much for “local control.”

Collective Bargaining

There’s an amendment to a bill (SB390) which will require that a maximum of three collective bargaining meetings between school boards and local teachers associations be private. All the rest of the meetings must be held publicly.

The only reason I can see for this amendment is to make things more difficult for the teachers union. There’s no research to support the idea that schools with open negotiations meetings save more money than schools which negotiate in private. There’s no research to support the idea that this will help teachers teach better, or improve student performance. There is no reason to do this other than to make things more difficult for teachers.

Where is the corresponding legislation to require the same public meeting policy for administrators’ salaries? legislature staff salaries? state department of health workers salaries?

INDIANA HATES ITS PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS

This year, just like in the past, the state of Indiana, ruled by one party with a supermajority in the legislature, has worked to disrespect public schools and public school teachers. The only way to fight this, aside from the daily grind of contacting legislators about every single damaging piece of legislation, is to elect people who don’t hate public schools and public school teachers.

One would think we’d be able to get the teachers, themselves, on board with this…

For Further Reading:

More about the damage done to public education in Indiana

A telling story of school ‘reform’ in Mike Pence’s home state, Indiana

What Did Mike Pence Do For Indiana Schools As Governor? Here’s A Look

Curmudgucation: Posts about Indiana

The basics of everything: Your guide to education issues in Indiana

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Kill the Teaching Profession: Indiana and Wisconsin Show How It’s Done

THE INDIANA PLAN

Indiana provides a lesson on how to destroy the teaching profession.

Beginning in 2011 the state legislature, with the help of then State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, and then Governor Mitch Daniels, initiated a number of school “reforms” guaranteed to damage public education and public school educators. Their reasoning was two-fold.

1. Public education received large amounts of tax money which could be used for profit by friends, investors, and colleagues. Privatization of the public sector was and is a goal of Republican politicians.
2. The Indiana State Teachers Association generally supports Democratic candidates for state offices because Democrats (usually) support public education.

In order to damage public education and speed up privatization, denigrate public school educators, and bust the teachers union, the following effort has been made by the Republican dominated state government since 2011.

• Collective bargaining rights for teachers have been restricted. No longer can discussions of things like working conditions, class size, grievance procedures, and evaluation processes be required at the bargaining table.

• School districts and teachers cannot agree to a contract which lasts longer than the state’s budget biennium. Extended contract lengths are no longer allowed which means that schools and their teachers must meet more often whether they want to or not. Clearly, this has an impact on school systems, not just teachers unions. A bargained contract is an agreement between TWO parties.

• The state began what is now the largest private/parochial school voucher program in the nation, which, along with increased funding for privately owned and operated charter schools, has drained millions of dollars from public school funding.

• The state – with the help of the voters – passed a property tax cap amendment to the constitution, and shifted state funding of public education to the state legislature. Some schools systems (notably Gary and Muncie which are now in serious financial difficulty) lost up to 10% of their funding when the system changed.

• Loss of tenure (due process) and seniority protections for teachers. Permanent status – or tenure – for teachers used to provide teachers with the right to a hearing before they could be dismissed. That is no longer the case. School systems no longer have to show any incompetence or wrongdoing in order to fire a teacher. 

• Reduction of the importance of experience and education level as a factor in teacher salaries. Experience matters…except for public school teachers in Indiana. 

• Accountability requiring teacher evaluations to be based on student test scores despite lack of validity. Note that legislature, policy makers, and politicians are not held accountable for funding, societal issues, etc.

• (I’m sure there are more that I’ve forgotten. Let me know…and I’ll add them here – – – –)

As expected, this attack on public education had the desired (by the Republican privatizers) effect. Schools are losing money. Teachers are fleeing the classroom (see here and here), retiring early, and fewer young people are entering the teaching profession.

Indiana faces shortage of first-time teachers

Aug. 2, 2015

First-time teachers have decreased more than 18 percent in the past five years, leaving districts in a scramble.

Study: Indiana ranks among lowest for teacher recruitment, retention

Sept. 15, 2016

Indiana ranks among the lowest states for teacher recruitment and retention, according to a new nationwide study that anticipates a growing shortage of educators as fewer people enter the profession and demand grows.

In Indiana, more than a quarter of teachers say standardized testing makes them worried about job security — the highest proportion in the nation. Hoosier educators also earn starting salaries lower than the national average but face among the largest class sizes.

Those factors led to the state’s low rating for attracting professionals to the classroom in a report released this week by the Learning Policy Institute. Indiana scored a 2.17 out of a possible 5 points in a review of educator data, including teacher compensation and working conditions. Just three states, Arizona, Texas and Colorado, and the District of Columbia received lower scores.

The shortage continues…

Indiana facing teacher shortage

October 24, 2017

School districts across Indiana are dealing with teacher shortages. According to a new survey, even more districts are feeling the impact now than in 2016. So, what’s going on?

More than 130 District Superintendents in the survey said they have a teacher shortage right now.

Some Republicans claim the teacher shortage isn’t actually happening. Note that the article linked here includes licensed teachers who are not in the classroom as part of the “excess.” Why are they not teaching? Did they leave the classroom because of the deterioration of working conditions and salary?

Nevertheless, in order to offset the loss of teaching staff in the state, rules for becoming a teacher have been relaxed…

…because nothing says increased achievement more than hiring under qualified personnel.

Controversial alternative teaching permit approved by Indiana State Board of Education

Sept. 3, 2014

The Indiana State Board of Education on Wednesday approved a controversial proposal to provide another way for people without a teaching degree to teach high school students, despite outrage from teachers who said it would devalue their profession and subject kids to unprepared educators.

REPA III – Deprofessionalizing Education

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

The final step in making our public schools as much unlike successful nations’ schools as possible, is to demoralize teachers and deprofessionalize the field of education. Instead of increasing requirements for becoming a teacher, we decrease them. Instead of doing what we need to do to attract the “best and the brightest” to our public school classrooms we make a career in the field of education so difficult and so filled with mind-numbing test-obsessed insanity that fewer and fewer students are going into teaching and older, experienced career teachers are leaving the field in greater and greater numbers.

REPA III requires training in some “related field.” Would any of the seven REPA III supporters on the Indiana State Board of Education want to be treated for an illness by say, an anatomy professor who never attended medical or nursing school, but who promised to learn how to practice medicine within a month? Would any of them go to a former police officer for legal help, for example, if the officer decided that s/he wanted to practice law and would start on her/his law degree during the first month of handling their case?

Do any of them send their own children to schools with untrained teachers?

ON WISCONSIN

Marquette University dropout and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker hates teachers (and most other public sector workers, as well) and ran his campaign on a platform of union busting. How has that worked out?

Apparently not so well for the students of Wisconsin. The “unintended” [sic] consequences of Walker’s attack on public schools, public school teachers, and public sector unions, has, believe it or not, reduced the number of people who want to become teachers in Wisconsin. Go figure…

This Is Just How Badly Scott Walker Has Decimated Public Schools in Wisconsin

“Rather than encouraging the best and the brightest to become teachers and remain in the field throughout their career,” Wisconsin state Senate Democratic Leader Jennifer Shilling said during a press call on Wednesday, “Act 10 has demonized and devalued the teaching profession and driven away many good teachers. These serious implications have left schools across Wisconsin struggling to fill teaching positions.”

That shortage is only starting. As time goes on and fewer people enter the field, the state’s school districts will struggle to find teachers to fill open slots. Already for the 2016-2017 school year, the state’s Department of Public Instruction had to relax the rules for teacher licenses so that more people could get one-year emergency approval to fill shortages.

In response, Wisconsin, like Indiana, has decided that Walker’s successful attempt to drive teachers away from Wisconsin means that they need to lower standards for teacher candidates.

Below you can read about a lobbyist for Wisconsin school boards. He doesn’t come out and say that Walker is the reason for the teacher shortage. Instead he claims that there haven’t been teacher salary raises since the Great Recession. Also, for some unexplained reason, the status of teachers isn’t as high as it once was.

DPI expanding teacher license options to address staffing shortages

Dan Rossmiller, lobbyist for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said the teacher shortages being felt in Wisconsin reflect a national trend of fewer high school students studying in college to become classroom teachers.

“The pipeline is definitely narrower and weaker than it used to be,” said Rossmiller.

Rossmiller said factors contributing to fewer people wanting to become teachers include a decline in the reliability of teacher pay raises since the Great Recession.

“For whatever reason, the status of teachers is not being seen as high as it once was,” said Rossmiller. He said when teachers stopped receiving pay raises to keep up with cost of living increases, the attractiveness of the profession declined.

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE

Indiana and Wisconsin – along with other states across the nation (looking at you, Florida and North Carolina among others) – have found successful ways to weaken and destroy teachers unions, lower the quality of teachers in the classroom, and damage public education. It consists of a few simple steps.

• First, claim that public schools are failing and that teachers are at fault.

• Second, use the false narrative of failing public schools to pass laws which damage public education further and make the teaching profession less attractive.

• Third, lower the qualifications for teachers in order to find enough bodies to fill classroom positions.

• Fourth, blame the decimated and demoralized teaching force for not increasing student achievement.

• Repeat.

Student achievement isn’t even considered except as a tool to bludgeon public schools.

I doubt that Walker (or Bennett, Daniels, and Pence in Indiana) are at all worried about the teacher shortage.

That was part of the plan all along.

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There’s More to Teaching Than Telling

It’s important for teachers to have content knowledge before they try to teach. Peter Greene – Curmudgucation – wrote,

Expertise

Yes, teaching is both a skill and an art and to do a good job, you have to know the skill and the art of teaching. But just as you can’t have waves without water or air, you cannot have “teaching skills” without content knowledge– and all the teaching skills in the world will not make up for lacking knowledge. You cannot make an awesome lesson about adding two plus two if you do not know that the result is four. You cannot lead your students through an illuminating and inspiring study of Hamlet if you have never read the play yourself.

This is true, absolutely.

It’s also true for teachers of young children. Early childhood educators and elementary teachers need to understand the reading, math, social studies, and science they teach, just as much as a physics teacher needs to understand physics. Curmudgucation agrees…

Content knowledge is the foundation of everything else. You cannot be an expert at teaching without being an expert at subject matter. Yes, even teachers of the littles, who in particular need the security of knowing they are in the hands of a grownup who Knows Things.

However, what is often misunderstood by non-educators who think they know all about teaching (I’m looking at you, “reformers”) is that content knowledge is only one part of the teaching skill set.

Elementary teachers – and most educated people in general – are already experts in elementary school content. The average college graduate, for example, can already read, do basic arithmetic, and is familiar with basic science and history. This is the likely reason that non-educators think teaching elementary school is “easy.” As one parent said to me when I was explaining why his son was struggling in first grade, “Just tell him. Just tell him what he needs to know.”

Indeed, many people think that you “just tell” children information and they learn it. They don’t understand that learning is more than information. They don’t understand that teaching is more than simply teaching content. Elementary students need more than someone who “tells” them stuff.

In the early 1980s I had been teaching for about 5 years…and had started on my masters degree. I was discussing this with a group of people and someone asked, “When you get your masters, will you be able to teach high school then?” I tried to explain that teaching elementary school was more than just telling kids stuff. The misunderstanding was, and still is, pervasive.

This ignorance about learning has led to things like REPA III (Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability) in Indiana which allows people with no education training to start teaching content areas in high school. If you have a degree in biology (and a B average), for example, you can teach biology. According to REPA III, there is no education degree required…no need for pedagogical training…no need to learn about classroom management, child development, teaching methods or student discipline. Those are things you can apparently pick up while you’re teaching.

The same sorts of rules are now in force in other states like Arizona and Utah.

But that’s wrong. Teachers need training before they can take on the sole responsibility of a classroom. That’s why legitimate educator training programs include a significant amount of time in classrooms as well as a full semester (or more) of student teaching.

Of course, content knowledge is important, but it’s only part of the teaching story…

One of the comments to Expertise contained an excellent list of what knowledge is necessary to teach…

NY Teacher June 6, 2017 at 7:39 AM

…Might I add, the importance of knowledge goes beyond subject area content:

Knowledge of pedagogy and methodologies
knowledge of child and adolescent psychology
knowledge of mob psychology (Ha!)
knowledge of cognitive learning theory and brain development (and damage)
knowledge of local community and families
knowledge of school community and happenings,
knowledge of your students – as people
knowledge of your limitations
knowledge of classroom management techniques and policies

And that’s just the knowledge side of of being a good teacher.
Work ethic, professionalism, judgement, personality and many more come into play. Maybe the clueless tweeter and all the other know-nothing reformers that came very late to this 150 year old party will begin to understand just how complex and nuanced the skill set required to a “good” teacher. It’s no wonder they don’t grow on trees.

A child is more than a test score. A teacher is more than a purveyor of information.

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Put Professionals In Classrooms

RIO OLYMPICS 2016

Oklahoma Educator Rob Miller who writes the blog, A View From the Edge, caught my attention with his post, The Olympic Celebration of Diversity. What would happen, Miller pondered in his thought experiment, if the stars we have seen in the Olympics, were placed in different events?

What if Bolt and Phelps changed places in the next Olympics? Imagine Michael on the same track as the other top sprinters competing in the 200-meter race? Can you see Bolt swimming next to the world’s best in the 100-meter butterfly?

His point is, of course, that nearly no one is good at everything. He then moves the analogy over to education…

We have told skilled young artists and musicians that they are not as valuable as other students because they scored lower on a math test. We have elevated certain teachers because they teach “important” subjects like math, science, and reading while devaluing the contribution of teachers of “less important” electives like the arts, music, drama, physical education, history, or computers.

…this,

The true mission of education is to help each child identify and nurture their natural strengths, interests and passions and then work to hone those attributes into marketable skills.

…and also this,

To say a student is not college- and career-ready because he or she cannot pass an Algebra test is like saying Michael Phelps is not an athlete because he cannot complete a gymnastics floor routine.

UTAH

Both Diane Ravitch and Peter Greene commented on Utah’s new rules for teaching…which don’t require any training in pedagogy.

Here’s Ravitch…

In a bold move to address the state’s teacher shortage (caused by low salaries), the state board of education removed all requirements for new teachers other than a college degree and passing a test in subject matter.

In other words, if you have a bachelors degree in English, and can pass the English test that Pearson Utah develops, then the state will award you a teachers license.

Peter Greene, with his usual biting wit, wrote,

I keep waiting to hear something from one of the proponents of free market for education.

After all– no other part of the trained labor market works like this. If a hospital can’t find enough doctors to fill its staff, nobody says, “Well, okay– let’s just let anyone with a college degree work in the operating room.”

We do something like this in Indiana, too. Due to the Republican induced teacher shortage (see here, here, and here), the State Board of Education (all appointed by Republicans except for the popularly elected State Superintendent, Glenda Ritz), decided that anyone with a college degree can teach their subject at the high school level. Elementary school would have been included if the Board hadn’t succumbed to pressure from “the people” and the “evil” teachers union.

…because you don’t need to know anything about brain development, human learning patterns, or pedagogy to explain how to do a Physics problem, expound on Julius Caesar, or teach spoken French, right? You surely don’t need any training in class management or child psychology to get a class of thirty-five 16 and 17 year olds to discuss the history of the Peloponnesian War.

This is the level of stupidity making the laws and rules for our public education systems. We’re all about blaming teachers for all our “failing” public schools, yet legislatures starve public education and divert tax revenue into the pockets of Pearson, KIPP, various churches, and Gulen. Our poorest schools have scarce resources to overcome the effects of poverty while legislators who have created the misalignment of funds blame “bad teachers” for “failing schools.”

Now Utah has followed suit, doubling down on the “create-a-teacher-shortage-then-hire-unqualified-people” plan.

Would policy makers in Utah, Indiana, or any state allow their own children to attend a school filled with untrained teachers? I doubt it.

EXTENDING THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Let’s extend Rob Miller’s thought experiment to professionals. Training is important when we expect people to perform certain tasks. Because of that training certain people are better able to do certain tasks…just as Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Usain Bolt, and all other olympians have trained. What would happen if the trained professionals we rely on were asked to perform the tasks of other professionals?

Would you want a plumber to rewire your house?

Would you let an electrical engineer perform your emergency appendectomy?

Legislators and state board of education members would likely agree that it would be nonsensical to ask an airline pilot to perform brain surgery…an accountant to defend you in court…or a chemist to do your taxes.

Why, then, is it ok to allow untrained amateurs to direct the learning and development of the nation’s most important resource…its children?

These folks are not friends of public education. Click to read about them.

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