Monday, June 4, 2012

For the sake of public education (and Wisconsin's future) vote to remove Walker on June 5th

Conservative education expert and former private school voucher advocate, Diane Ravitch, writes:

If you are concerned about the future of public education in Wisconsin, vote to oust Gov. Scott Walker.

Since his election in 2010, he has proved himself to be a steadfast enemy of the public schools. In the world according to Walker, the best way to reform public education is to demoralize its teachers, attack the teachers' union and hand over more taxpayer dollars to privately managed charters and voucher schools...

Walker thinks that he will improve education by getting rid of the union, which is the collective voice of the state's teachers.The nation's highest performing states-Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut-have strong unions, while the lowest performing states-in the Deep South-have weak unions or none at all. Very likely, what Walker really wants is to remove the teachers' voice when legislators are cutting the schools' budget. The best way to silence the strongest voice for public education in Madison is to weaken the teachers' union.

...No high-performing nation in the world demoralizes its teachers and creates alternatives to public education. The best performing nations in the world have built a strong public education system. They respect their teachers. They do not judge them by student test scores. They do not launch public campaigns against their unions (in high-performing Finland, all the teachers and principals belong to the same union). The most successful nations recognize the importance of having teachers and principals who are dedicated professionals, not a revolving door of young college graduates. They understand that successful schools establish a culture of collaboration, not a culture of competition.

The entire op ed is linked here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that you mention Finland. As you are aware, Finland and Norway issue educational vouchers directly to the students. The families then are free to spend their voucher in any school they choose. There is competition between the schools for the students. Students have choice.

Anonymous said...

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2012/05/22/10-Insanely-Overpaid-Public-College-Presidents.aspx?index=1