Rebloggd form NANCY BAILEY’S EDUCATION WEBSITE
For years America’s public school system has had to endure individuals in educational leadership positions that have no real education degrees or background involving how children and adolescents learn—and who have scant experience in the classroom.
Think about state superintendents. There’s John White in Louisiana, or Kevin Huffman who once ruled in Tennessee. Of course, there was D.C. SuperintendentMichelle, tape their mouths shut, Rhee in D.C. Most of these individuals had 3 years max in the classroom and were Teach for America groomed. Some administrators like White, and Robert Bobb, Detroit’s one-time emergency financial manager, attended the Broad Superintendents Academy.
There’s many more. Ask yourselves, where does our superintendent both district and state come from.
These individuals have ruled with reform initiatives that sank public school classrooms and teachers and students through draconian testing. The factors involving poverty were ignored. Students were to pull themselves up by their bootstraps with no excuses allowed.
For most real career teachers, who played the game fairly and got education degrees and credentials when they mattered, taking directives from the new unqualified was a bitter pill.
Test-and-punish policies are still running rampant through America’s educational system—there’s still too much of an emphasis on “rigor” and aligning standards, and, of course, Common Core State Standards haven’t gone away.
But if you scan the landscape thoroughly, you will find a bit of hope.
We are beginning to see a few places resorting to real teachers as leaders again—like what we recently saw take place in the troubled Detroit Public School System.