Take the CEO and Policymaker Challenge—Teach A Year in a Poor Public School!
I would like to challenge CEOs and education policymakers, and anyone else who thinks they know best what teachers should do, even though they have never been in a classroom, except perhaps for a few photo opts, to take the teaching challenge.
Spend a semester teaching in a poor public school, which now, due to funding cuts, includes what used to be considered middle class schools.
I am talking about all those who intentionally or unintentionally demean teachers and what they do as ineffective. If you have spent a nickel funding Teach for America, this challenge is for YOU!
If you have time to redesign schools, and tell teachers how to teach, you have time to get in there and actually teach how you preach!
Let’s call it CEOs or Policymakers for Public Schools! This is not an odd idea.
Early in 1974, Florida’s Gov. Bob Graham impressed many when he spent time working, a full eight hour day in different jobs. He experienced first-hand the hard work and problems found in those work positions. His jobs included service as a police officer, park ranger, iron worker, bus boy, railroad engineer, construction worker, Take the CEO and Policymaker Challenge—Teach A Year in a Poor Public School!:
