by President-elect Obama’s nomination of his unqualified basketball buddy, Arne Duncan, sends one very clear message to American educators. “Not a single one of you or the leaders you respect is qualified to run our nation’s public schools.”
A basketball metaphor might be timely.
Wake up teachers! If we don’t start playing offense, teaching in the United States will enjoy the same level of joy, purpose and security as working on a General Motors assembly line.
Apparently, “Change you can believe in,” stops at the schoolhouse metal detector.
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.
So, one concerted effort to have a powerful voice on education in Washington. Hmmm. Ever been done? Why or why not? How?
I just don’t see it happening because the unions (the only ones with enough money to get in to see the pres from the education industry) cannot get along long enough to agree that this is not the change we need and exactly what that change should look like. The unions do not have visionary leaders. Those folks are doing what they are paid to do: get the most for the teachers while limiting additional burdens on them.
We need a president who makes regular trips into schools throughout the country and invites educators into his office to discuss the issues. While many thought he was on the right track, the train got derailed today.
Very disappointing to say the least. Hope springs eternal, but hope isn’t action, and it’s certainly not change. I wonder what a body has to do to get the ear of the president-elect?