Was it Maya Angelou who said when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time? Here is a transcript I prepared of the public comments of Williamson County school board member Dan Cash, at last weeks work session, concerning diversity in our school district. In my opinion, he should resign. “To put [the teachers] in a situation where they have a diverse twenty or twenty-five children that, when they look at their roster in the fall they’re looking down there and they’re going, oh wow, wow, yay, yay, oh my gosh not him, oh my gosh not them, you know how it goes, and these are how the rosters come out, you have three little kids who can’t hardly speak English, how do you teach that vast majority of people a standard? And I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, I fear for the teachers, I just, I don’t want to get in a position where they’re not getting their raises or whatnot or promotions because they have a class of real diverse people. Member Robt Hulett then asked him to clarify his remarks, which were met with gasps from the audience and some staff or board members. Dan Cash elaborated: “I’m saying, what I’m saying, is, when you get a classroom roster, for instance, we have a diverse county here. We have, jeez, up in Brentwood a huge Korean population, we’ve got some Chinese, these are, they speak different languages, we’ve got Hispanic immigrants, we’ve got, we’ve got every walk of life in America right here in Williamson County. When we compile all these folks in a classroom and expect a teacher to be able to teach all those students to a standard, that’s a pretty tough task because there’s so many differences in these kids. I never said that you can’t teach a child that has a different language, I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that is putting a teacher in a real bad way. And I know we’ve got provisions for learning in different languages and teaching English and whatnot but if a teacher happens to get a roster like this, it’s gonna be tough on them and I don’t think they should be held to that standard, it should be based more on the reality of what’s going on. That’s all.“
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 19:16:19 +0000
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