Breaking the Silence: Why It’s the School Leader’s Responsibility to Speak Out

Originally posted on The 21st Century Principal

Why do public educators and school leaders largely remain silent while politicians and government bureaucrats bash public schools and inundate them with harmful school policies? Why do teachers, principals, and district leaders automatically ask the question, “How can we implement this educational measure?” rather than asking the tough questions about implementation issues and possible harmful effects on the public education system, its students, and its employees? Is it fear? Has our public education system become so hierarchical, with emperors and kings sending down mandates, and the educator’s job is to unquestioningly accept whatever those mandates are and carry them out?

In the current education climate, our silence on issues like standardized testing, accountability, education budgets, and poverty does create the vacuum into which the enemies to public education, sometimes allied with well-meaning education reformers have poured their ideas. They have captured the marketplace of “what’s-best-for-kids” because educators and school leaders choose to be silent, and in this, when it comes to our current educational climate, we’ve only ourselves to blame.

It is time, time for us to speak up. It is time for us to let our politicians know how their budgets and laws affect lives and our education mission…  Read the full post>>