I AM SICK TO DEATH OF ACCOUNTABILITY. The destruction in our public schools that is justified by our Republican state legislators in the name of (wait-for-it): accountability. Accountability for them means testing the heck out of our kids and creating a stressful environment with a focus on a score and not the whole child. What about the accountability for fully funding schools so that all of Indianas children have access to that which turns them on to learning-- the arts, P.E. , and music taught by certified teachers in those fields? Accountability for the state legislature means punishing 8 year-olds with a reading test (IREAD-3) that would flunk them and forever label them failures if they dont pass, despite the context of their lives...despite the fact that learning occurs on a developmental continuum? What about accountability in their mania for data.. and the fact that all research shows that retention is damaging to kids and does NOT help them learn to read? Accountability for these people means that teachers of difficult-to-teach kids (the children in poverty, with disabilities, learning English as a new language) will be judged on a test score that is SET UP FOR THEM TO DO POORLY ON..but not on a host of things that show growth and learning and meet kids where they are? What about the accountability of supporting teaching as a profession? Indiana no longer has a single dollar devoted to professional development of teachers in the budget. The state board of education (appointed by Governors Pence and Daniels before him) just passed REPA3 allowing ANYONE with a 3.0 in ANYTHNG (no education background, no student teaching) to become a teacher. What kind of accountability is it when the chairman of our house education committee, Rep. Bob Behning, is upset that so many of Indianas teachers were deemed effective or highly effective (threatening to take away local control over those evaluations) while at the same time de-professionalizing them by supporting these reforms? LASTLY: I am sick to death of state legislators who vote for all of these reforms and give the talking points of school choice and teachers unions as the root of all evil (what??) while NOT listening to the public: parents like me who are angry at our kids in pressure-cooker schools, losing funding for programming, wasting precious time on testing and preparation for testing, and losing engaged families to these voucher and charter schools. These same legislators WONT EVEN SHOW UP to forums by the League of Women Voters and Indiana Coalition for Public Education and answer questions in person to those most affecting by their policy-making. WHAT KIND OF ACCOUNTABILITY IS THAT?! (And heres another thing: Im sick to death of the same people who feel like I do but who do NOTHING to help change these seats in the state legislature. Get going... Have you volunteered? Just a little time? Do you have a sign in your yard? Have you walked a neighborhood? ) End of another rant. (I need more sleep).
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:46:01 +0000
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