Missing in Action Good Stewards in our Public Schools

 

During the last twenty years it appears that high-stakes testing and school choice without equity policies driving education reform, and all they have achieved is demoralized teaching force, Common Core State Standards, and schools as racially segregated at before the landmark 1954 Brown vs the Board of Education ruling.  I find myself asking where are the good policymaker stewards speaking up and defending children, parents, teachers in communities of color? Where are the stewards asking the tough questions of why has nothing changed after spending nearly two trillion dollars on education reforms? When do we send stewards to speak with and deeply listen to our teachers, children, parents, and yes administrators? In my humble opinion our policymakers have not done what Massachusetts first Commissioner of Education Horace Mann did for six years on the job. Horace Mann visited every public school in his state, noted inequalities, listened, and engage educators and communities in discussion about the valued of public education. Who are our policymakers listening to? From my view it is CEOs, Non Educators, lobbyists, and publishers?

Understanding why teachers leave their chosen profession. Requires leadership seeing leadership that time and time again seeking to please CEOs. Not doing right by our children, teachers, and local community schools.

Good stewards are committed to selfless service. There is no desire for power. They do not need to be in charge or exert control over others. Everything about No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top, School Choice, and the closing of local community schools begs to ask the question; Where are the good stewards of public education? These education reforms are deeply rooted in power and control, and teachers fleeing are leaving because they reject being controlled.
I stand with these fleeing teachers,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
Uniting to Save Our Schools
Proud Badass Teacher

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk this morning, it's that classic Crosby, Stills and Nash "Teach Your Children"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vnYKRacKQc

Book banners fear their children becoming empathetic

These book Banners, these Anti Critical Race Theory haters, are not afraid their children might fell hurt by reading diverse books. What they fear most is their children might feel empathy for others. When you look beyond the slogans of indoctrination, you’ll find that future hate depends on rising new generations of haters. Nothing kills Hate like empathy. Empathy builds understanding, teaching us to walk a mile in another’s shoes. In other words, empathy teaches children to value, respect, and appreciate others. There is not anything that threatens future generations of hate other than empathy.

In 1990 Dr. Rudine Sim-Bishop wrote her seminal essay Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Doors. See the short link shares 25 years of African American Read-In inspired by Dr. Sims-Bishop herself. 
 https://ncte.org/blog/2016/02/windows-mirrors-sliding-doors/ 


Bigots hate mirrors, fear windows, and lack the empathy to walk in another person's shoes. Their very existence depends on growing future new generations lacking empathy. Hate is unable to look in the mirror, for if it does it breaks. 

Reading diverse books, bring us together, teaching us to treat each other with dignity, but most of all give us the courage to see ourselves in the mirror, and wisdom to see we are far more alike than we are different.

I read Diverse books,

I teach with Diverse books,

I value Diverse books,

Not for others,

But for that America Langston Hughes dream about:


“O, let America be America again,

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.”


Trust me these book banners, these Anti-Critical Race Theory haters, are not afraid that diverse books will hurt the self-esteem of their children, but that their children might discover an empathy that “might bring back our mighty dream again”.
Looking forward to our CCSU Literacy Center celebrating Black History month and participating in our 23rd African-American Read-In,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner 
CCSU Literacy Center Director 

If you like to hear from Dr. Rudine Sims-Bishop herself talking about diverse books, this clip opens the door to her thoughts about the transformative power of diverse books in 90 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AAu58SNSyc

This teacher shortage: A tale of two teaching worlds

 

Teaching is a tale of two teaching worlds.
 

If you teach in an affluent community?
You earn more money, 

You have more say in curriculum choices, 

You have better health care,
You have better retirement packages,

You have more resources,

You have more specialized staff support,

You have beautiful, fully staffed libraries, 

You have more choices for sports,

You have better maintained and cleaner buildings, 

Your students have access to more books,
Your students have more access to 

You have meaningful professional development.

You have more respectful treatment from administrators.

Yes, you still have struggles, challenges, and hard work to do,

But, it does not wear you down. Teachers are not fleeing poor schools, because they don't want to teach.
They are fleeing abusive working conditions,
They are fleeing abusive learning conditions,
Conditions, that are doing great harm to the children they teach,
They are fleeing failed unjust leadership,
They are fleeing the inhumanity of a system that regularly spends 20 Billion Dollars more on wealthy schools than poor schools,
Their hearts are broken,
They are fleeing, because they can't take it any longer. 

First, Truth to Power moment about our teacher shortage. There will be no teacher shortage in affluent public schools. This shortage is real, but it will not be happening in our Affluent Public Schools. 

Second Truth to Power moment, give our teachers teaching in our Poor Communities all the above, and there will be no teacher shortage. The lack of our policymakers and legislators' will to bring equity to our public schools for children harms both child and teacher. 

Third Truth to Power, America is willing to see the collapse of public education rather than do the right thing for all our children. 

Last Truth to Power, give all teachers what wealthy schools have, and watch learning bloom for all of America's children.  

Rise up:
Teachers,
Parents,
Students,
Building a public will for doing the right thing for all children, teachers, and public schools is the only way to end this teacher shortage. Anything less increases the prison population and increases teacher flight from our poorest public schools.

Silence and apathy are the biggest threats to our public schools,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner 
Uniting to Save Our Schools
Proud Badass Teacher

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk, it "Teach Your Children Well" by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQOaUnSmJr8

"You, who are on the road

"Must have a code

That you can live by

And so become yourself

Because the past is just a goodbye"