Logic Is Not a Requirement for Serving in State Government
The logic portion of my brain is imploding. Does Governor Fallin want teachers, administrators and parents to have local control over their schools or not? I guess it depends….
It’s just so hard to keep track.
First, she supports State Superintendent Barresi’s top-down, high-stakes testing stranglehold on Oklahoma’s school children, the most recent being the Reading Sufficiency Act. You know the one — the one that came from Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. You know, the Jeb Bush in Florida? Here are the current members, which include Janet Barresi: http://chiefsforchange.org/members-page/
I’m not sure how this can be construed as local control of our schools.
And here’s an interesting article about how corporate interests are reaping profits from public schools, thanks to policies pushed by the Chiefs for Change: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2747
I still want to know why Florida is pushing school policy in Oklahoma. I thought our policymakers wanted local control? Could it be about money? Bye-bye local control.
A few minutes ago, I got a news alert from the Tulsa World in my inbox that says Gov. Fallin vetoed a bill that was passed in both chambers that would have returned some local control to parents and schools regarding retention of third graders. The bill loosened the terms of the Reading Sufficiency Act to allow a team consisting of teachers, the principal, a reading specialist and a parent to decide whether or not a student would be promoted to fourth grade. That’s sensible.
Gov. Fallin vetoed it. Logic implosion.
Last night on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, there was a story about the 2013 Moore tornadoes and the lack of tornado shelters in schools.
Half a million schoolchildren in Oklahoma are at risk during a tornado because their schools have no shelters.
But in this instance, where Oklahoma children’s lives are at stake, Gov. Fallin wants to keep the state government’s nose out of requiring schools to have shelters, saying that that should be left to local control. Here’s a link to the segment if you want to watch it:
I guess in this instance, Gov. Fallin supports local control.
And then there’s Common Core. She was for it, but is now against it. Do we want higher standards for our students or not? I guess it depends on where those standards are coming from. Even though teachers had already started using Common Core standards, Gov. Fallin got some political heat and jerked the rug out from under them.
It’s just so hard to keep track.
