Sunday, March 18, 2012

Welcome words for teachers | The Journal Gazette

Welcome words for teachers | The Journal Gazette: "policy"


Welcome words for teachers

Albright
Mullins
So starved are Indiana educators for affirmation that an overall discouraging address last week seemed to spark hope and reinforcement. Its effect would be even stronger if voters took it as a cue and demanded an end to the attacks on teachers and public education.
“Despite what your state superintendent Tony Bennett says, the root cause of poor achievement is not teachers, but poverty,” Diane Ravitch told an audience of more than 1,000 at IPFW’s Omnibus Lecture. “We must stop the trash talk about schools.”
Her words drew applause from professionals who have seen their work denigrated, their motives questioned and their jobs transformed by what Ravitch, an education historian and former U.S. Department of Education official,