Breaking News. . . Our Public Schools Are Not Failures!

The latest accurate news about public schools is described in this editorial in the Charlotte Observer.  The article cites two important studies. Please click on the link and take the time to read this short article and send it to your colleagues, school parents and friends. Here is the summary:

Our public schools are not "broken"!

Public schools are not "failing"!

When our public school students are compared by socioeconomic status with other countries, they are rated at the top of the rankings!

I also want to state the following for the record:

• Our public school teachers are dedicated and competent, not lazy and uncaring
• Most teachers and local school administrators work longer hours than other comparable professions because they care about children
• All children have a real opportunity to succeed in our public schools

The two studies described in the Charlotte Observer article point out that the problem is not with our public schools but with too many children who come to school not ready to learn. Students from high poverty homes start school with only half the vocabulary of middle class students. Many children in U.S. public schools are so deprived, so ill fed, so transient, and so influenced by negative role models, that it is a wonder they can concentrate on school work at all.

Education reformers in Louisiana and in the rest of the country have been attacking the wrong imaginary issues, and not the real problems. By attacking the teaching profession and blaming teachers for some major problems they can't even come close to addressing, the reforms are doing a lot more harm than good. Meanwhile some of our best teachers have taken early retirement and cannot really be replaced.

School privatizers have seized the opportunity of our alleged "broken public schools" to steal funding and to promote predatory charter and voucher schools.

If you are a public school parent, a teacher, or a school administrator, please join the fight to take back the initiative in favor of public schools. 

Just send me an email at louisianaeducator@gmail.com and tell me you want to participate in our Defenders of Public Education email system. All I need in addition to your favored email address is your zip code so that I can place you in the correct legislative districts.

When legislation is proposed, or BESE policy is considered, or Federal laws are proposed as in the post below, I will send you an email with all the facts so that you can in turn write emails to your representatives and tell them what will really improve education.

Thanks,
Mike Deshotels