Tag: Polk
We must end the Test-and-Die era, part 2: “Why do people think I’m a school shooter? What have I done to deserve this.”
The Saturday after the Douglas shooting, I listened to a recording of school resource sheriff’s deputy interrogating a Polk County 11th grader with autism. The interrogation occurred in the child’s own house the previous Thursday night after the shooting. It was accompanied by a search that found nothing. Prior to this year, this child has no hint of a school…
We must end the Test-and-Die era, part 1: You can’t untangle mass school shootings from school grades and stress-based education
This may end up as a five or six part series. Bear with me. I will get to guns and the sheriff — who has not yet made a formal proposal — in part 3 or 4. I will do so calmly and rationally. But I want to start all of this with a history lesson and a correlation that…
“Bully”: How we bury childhood suffering beneath an impossible act of administration
This is the latest installment of my “Education and the English Language” series. Previous essays are: Introducing “Education and the English Language,” a periodic series. I explain how George Orwell’s famous “Politics and the English Language” essay anticipates beautifully modern political education’s vapid use and outright abuse of language. I focus on “Failure Factories” as an example. “Union”: the only…
This. is. our. public. school. system. Celebrating the overwhelming success and crucial lesson of the Starbucks Rebellion.
Today is Super Bowl Sunday. Whether you like football or not, are mad at the players or not, it’s a sort of quasi-national holiday. For me, it’s also become a Polk County national holiday, a day of celebration and reflection. Two Super Bowl Sundays ago, Wendy Bradshaw and I held an impromptu public meeting at high noon at the Lakeside…
The ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Chronicles, part 2: Lazy editorial editor of struggling community newspaper slanders 7,000 teachers — and makes it harder for reporters, the executive editor, and the publisher to find subscribers
Late update (8:30 p.m.): GREAT NEWS. Just had a fantastic conversation with Brian Burns, Ledger publisher. He received more than 120 emails from you guys today. There will be a full correction. But more than that, The Ledger is going to write a big editorial addressing the issue and soliciting teacher voices for a big editorial page blowout (maybe Sunday.)…
Join the 7069 suit, part 2: the public must take back the power to kill VAM and drive common purpose
I have taken to saying recently that the state government in Tallahassee is a disease on education — and that local districts present the symptoms. I know nothing that better represents this than our most recent VAM transfers. These transfers also represent how little power the voting public has to influence the educational policies of their own communities and state….
Join the 7069 lawsuit, part 1: an elegant fight for good faith in state government
America’s worst, most corrupt School Board sits in Tallahassee in comfy state legislator chairs. Your vote for a local School Board member matters little or nothing to them. Their behavior shows they believe they can do anything to you — or allow anything to happen –and get away with it. Therein lies the elegance of the 7069 lawsuit. It’s not…
How money matters in community education, part 1: 1200 teachers to hire
This series of posts is primarily aimed at Polk’s business community and the wider community that doesn’t follow the intricacies of education policy and politics. It’s aimed at answering some basic questions: What are the real world consequences of years of self-defeating state stinginess in education funding? What does money buy? Why are community districts talking about money? Buying the…
