YPOP- That's the new acronym for the Young Politicians of Parma club that some of my students are starting. See... something good has come out of this education reform nightmare. They're vehemently opposed to the mandating of on-line classes. It has them riled up the most. On-line classes don't have to meet the same standards as classroom classes and many prestigious colleges don't accept the credits or don't give them full credit for on-line courses. According to a student who spoke at the rally on the capitol steps today, the NCAA clearing house for athletes also doesn't accept on-line classes. While on-line classes serve their purpose, mandating them and not having a quality measure to ensure the type of content being offered is just one component of a poorly devised education plan by Mr. Luna.
He sent me an e-mail tonight... not to answer the 9 questions I posed to him of course, but to respond to an e-mail I had sent to a host of individuals regarding his common standards statement. He basically just said, "I wasn't taking credit. I know teachers wanted it too.... blah, blah, blah." Tell that to the press. Say something TRUE and NICE (gee, there's an unlikely couple) about teachers in the paper. Then to open the paper today and see that his office is getting a 12% increase to its budget while we are all getting..... not the projected 35 million cut to education.... but the now 50 million (could be higher) cut to education. How does that work? I guess the same way we get new laptops and on-line providers during all these cuts.
The speakers at the rally today were excellent. A mom talked about the Reading Initiative and how it contradicts the ISATs and what a waste it is. As an English teacher I have not received a dime or benefited from it in 13 years, but it was good to hear from a mom's perspective. As Rep. Sue Chew told me tonight as she met with me-- legislators won't listen to teachers-- only "regular" people. Not only have we lost all sense of professionalism associated with our occupation, we have been declassified from "regular people" to non-regular. I feel like Trotsky in the Russian Revolution when Stalin declared him a non-person. Government from the top down. I hate to see it. I wish communities and school boards would fight to have say in their own schools.
Had a nice elevator ride with another legislator today on my way to meet with Rep. Chew. It was far more productive. He actually wanted to hear what I had to say. He did not treat me as a non-person. In fact he appreciated my researched commentary and enlightened perspective. He too felt it was a machine gun approach to the problem. Here's the biggie.... the problem is not education.... IT'S THE BUDGET. Luna ran on the campaign platform of how well our schools were doing and then instead of trying to fix the budget, he wants to overhaul schools and teachers. What?! Give the districts their budget and let them decide how they will fund their own schools. It's called local control!
The Danielson Model is already in place for evaluations across the state and benchmarks to govern assessment and adequate growth are already in place as well. This reform proposal is nothing but an excuse to impose a hasty, devastating reform tactic during vulnerable times when budget cuts can masquerade as a need to take "drastic" measures. The budget should not drive education. Education should drive the budget because it affects every other aspects of our budget..... prisons, health and welfare, etc.
Credible research and speakers presented all the obvious errors and ramifications of Luna's plan tonight. I pray that our legislators were listening and that the patrons of this state were listening. There are so many ways and funds available to avoid these other approaches and they have been presented as well. This just proves what we already knew. Luna doesn't know what he's doing. Let's just hope our students don't have to pay for it!
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