Open Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama:

Why are you taking New York State’s failing educational leadership into your administration?

I am one of your supporters, though I do not agree with everything that you do.  I think you are a good man and leader, and I voted for you in both elections.  I thank you for your service, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

However, on your educational policy and administration, you unfortunately get a failing grade from this retired teacher, as well as from many other educators.  The reason I am writing to you today is the recent announcement that you will take NYS Commissioner John King into your administration.  My question is, WHY?

As Commissioner of NYS Education, King has had an administration full of controversy and failure.  Criticisms of his reign are many.  Foremost, the members of the NYS United Teachers (NYSUT) voted No Confidence and called for his removal in January of 2014.  Their press release stated that his rollout of Common Core had failed… “The commissioner has pursued policies that repeatedly ignore the voices of parents and educators who have identified problems and called on him to move more thoughtfully,” said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. 

King’s response to criticism has been defensive and contentious, proving that he has little ability to listen and learn from others, and few political skills.  When criticized that he was unwilling to listen to the voices of those who had issues with the too-rapid and botched rollout of core curriculum, as well as testing that caused the “failure” of  70% of NYS students, King scheduled parent forums in October 2013.  When parents attended the forums in large numbers and pressed him for answers that he did not have, his fear of contention caused him to cancel additional planned events.  Parents were astounded at his lack of respect for the input he himself had sought, and the NYS Allies for Public Education, an advocacy group of over 42 parent organizations, called for his resignation.

He is also not an effective manager or leader.  He led the effort to create the EngageNY core-related curriculum, but once more instead of planning an effective process by involving teachers and pedagogical leaders, he funneled $12.9 million dollars of RTTT money to private corporations.  The lessons have been widely criticized by educators, students and parents.  Even NYSED has acknowledged that the lessons are weak, and they have now backpedaled and created a plan for teachers to revamp the curriculum for 2015-16.  In addition, directives and materials that have come to educators from his office have been filled with grammatical and other errors.

He is the second NYS education official to take a job with your administration this year – Amy McIntosh, who oversaw teachers evaluations, is now a deputy assistant secretary.  Under the individuals that you have taken into your camp, New York State schools and students have suffered, and educator morale is at an all-time low. 

Most vociferous in praise for Commissioner King is the StudentsFirstNY, a pro-charter reform group that seeks to privatize education.  In spite of the fact that Commissioner King lived within the boundaries of one of the best public schools in New York State (the school and staff  have received numerous national recognitions for its excellence), King chose to send his own children to a private school that does not require the abusive testing he foisted on NYS students.

President Obama, I am very disappointed at your apparent lack of care for public education, and that you have apparently bought into the pro-charter, pro-privatization line of propaganda.  The fact that you are filling your administration with individuals who are pro-charter and who by all appearances are most deliberately causing the public education system to fail, causes me great concern.  The present system of testing is abusive to students.  Common Core curriculum has many errors and is not developmentally sound for students.  The VAM and APPR evaluation model for teachers is flawed and I have no doubt that will be proven so in court cases, but my fear is that before it is, we will lose too many valuable prospective and in-service teachers to recover easily from the blow.  Some states have already begun teacher recruitment efforts in other countries.  Please educate yourself about the true needs of public education before your administration leaves a negative legacy of damage that will take generations to become fully known.

We Need Heroes

This is not going to be a pretty or inspiring post.  This is my explanation of why I have become so politically active in recent years, and it is my prayer that heroes step up to save our society.

The world is in trouble.  BIG trouble.  Conservatives continue to deny or ignore climate change in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence.  The top 1% keeps getting wealthier and will do anything to make more money, including polluting our world with pesticides and chemicals.  Our bees are dying off, monarch butterflies are disappearing.  Multigendered fish and aquatic life are showing up in our rivers.  Land formerly used for agriculture has been poisoned with toxic runoff, so badly that it will remain barren for eternity.  The ocean is full of plastic of all sizes (including nano) that has been entered into the food chain, causing endocrine changes in all of us once we eat the seafood.  Aquatic birds are dying in huge numbers because they have too much plastic in their guts and they can't vomit it up.  Mountaintops have been seared off in a search for more coal, leaving coal slurry and putris that is poisoning the surrounding environment and killing people who have nowhere else to go.  Although it has been scientifically proven that chemicals like the glyphosate in Roundup causes kidney disease and other illnesses, companies like Monsanto (that are implicitly aided by our government) continue to push it on us and are now genetically modifying plants so that the substance is inserted directly into the DNA of the plant, while we are not allowed to see a label that lets us know we are eating toxins.  In spite of the fact that water is predicted to "be the next oil" because it is growing scarce in an ever-warming climate (observe California's current predicament), the fracking industry continues to use up to eight million gallons of fresh water PER WELL.  Once contaminated, the water can never be made drinkable again.  And that does not even address the problem of the fracking byproducts and methane which pollutes our atmosphere, land and rivers.  Yet more wells appear on our blighted landscape every day, and Obama touts fracking as our best hope for energy.  Our earth is being sucked dry to the point of sink-ins and earthquakes that are occurring on an alarming scale.  Our education system is being sold off piece by piece to for-profit corporations who care nothing about creating the intelligent and critically thinking population that we need in order to survive.  We are creating a generation who knows how to bubble in a test, but has been slighted on the joy of learning and thinking.

Clearly, we're in some trouble, and we need heroes to step up.  I am looking to the progressives for sanity -- people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Zephyr Teachout.  They speak out against corruption in government.  They fight the belief that profit is everything.  They know that whether you are a student saddled by an insane amount of school debt, or a struggling worker who does not get paid enough to cover their living expenses, the right thing is to fight for them and right the inequality.  They see the need to move our country to an economy built on renewable energy and small businesses. Their predominant goal is to make sure that all of us have a voice, and that those voices are heard.  We need true representatives who care about our health, our finances, and our lives.  The progressive era in the early 1900's ushered in all of those things we have held dear in the century that has passed - things like workers' compensation, shorter work hours, food and drug safety, meat inspections, the end of child labor in factories, and social security.  We can do the same now.  Let's help make progressive change happen in our society by supporting those who stand up for progressive ideals.

For today, the Democratic primary in New York, I am voting for Teachout for Governor and Wu for Lieutenant Governor.  I'm hoping for a miracle,  If it does not happen today, we can't give up. We will need our heroes more than ever.