Working to reform education in a consensus-based environment.
Referencing this older article about the complete restructuring of Detroit Public Schools, but it’s instructive for education reform efforts when parent Arlyssa Heard’s comments are considered:
“We have people making decisions who do not have children here and don’t know anything about what educators are facing in the classroom.”
Education reform efforts need to involve educators and parents, reliant on research and best practice and local influence, absent of ideology.
How Michigan’s legislators, Governor Rick Snyder, and the pro-charter school lobby circumvented bipartisanship and consensus to force a narrow ideological solution on Detroit’s schools.
When a British Prime Minister sold out Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, Winston Churchill acidly said words to the effect that he had been forced to choose between war and shame.
“He’s chosen shame now; he’ll get war later,” he said.
In Lansing this week, the Michigan Legislature had the choice between a plan that would actually give the Detroit schools a chance to revive, or selling out to the charter school lobby, which wants no restraints on terrible charter schools.
After a day of thinking about it, they unhesitatingly chose shame.
