By Colleen O’Connor
Time to be blunt. Teachers, students and children are the new electoral battering rams amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just as I wrote in June of last year, the 2020 Presidential election it was “not Biden v. Trump, but COVID-19 v. Trump).” And the GOP’s own confidential postmortem report (as quoted on Politico), confirms it.
“The autopsy says that coronavirus registered as the top issue among voters, and that Biden won those voters by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. A majority registered disapproval of Trump’s handling of the virus.
“Most voters said they prioritized battling the coronavirus over reopening the economy, even as [Trump] put a firm emphasis on the latter. And roughly 75 percent of voters — most of whom favored Biden — said they favored public mask-wearing mandates.”
Now, the Republicans hope to flip the script and blame all the COVID ills on the Democrats.
Thus, the 2022 Governor’s and Congressional elections will not be about Democrats v. Republicans, or San Diego’s Mayor, Kevin Faulconer v. Governor Newsom (plus the recall effort) but Democrats v. COVID-19’s effects on schools, children and teachers.
As GOP leader, Senator Mitch McConnell telegraphed the drive last week, “The obstacle is a lack of willpower. Not among students. Not among parents. Just among the rich, powerful unions that donate huge sums to Democrats and get a stranglehold over education in many communities.”
Back to being blunt. New likely GOP bumper stickers. “Save the Children. Blame the Teachers. Defeat CONTINUE READING: Teachers Are Not the Problem, They Are the Solution – So Work With Them
There are many lessons to be learned from this mess, including lessons about the usefulness of government. Also, I'm sure, plenty of scientific disease stuff.
But I notice that, particularly in the education arena, we keep coming back to trust. Black and brown families are hesitant to return to school buildings because they aren't sure they can trust the institutions that have failed them so often before. Teachers are reluctant to return to the buildings in those districts where they don't believe they can trust their district to keep them safe and/or follow through with their promises to do so. Critics of teachers unions don't trust (or at least pretend not to) teachers to do their jobs, or to even want to do their jobs. And distance learning, lacking the immediacy of face-to-face gathering in the same room, suffers from students and teachers unsure of just how much they can trust each other.
Where trust is strong, these issues shrink to insignificance. And that provides a major--well, two really--lesson about trust.
Trust is a basic, absolutely essential part of the foundation of a functioning school (any workplace, really--go reread the works of W. Edwards Deming). It has been demonstrated time and time again (here's a source for examples). And yet so many leaders resort to the stick, to management based on fear and distrust.
I've watched school administrators who approach every discussion with staff worried first and fore CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Pandemic Lesson #1: Trust Matters
2020 was a difficult year, I had COVID fatigue, then got Covid, election fatigue which is sadly ongoing, and the realization my employer doesn't care about me, my colleagues, or my students. Nothing DCPS says can be trusted.
In the last month, the media has reported how DCPS cooking the books about discipline and COVID, or you know two of the last things they should be doing so about.
From First Coast News,
A new statewide grand jury report studying school safety issues lambasted the Duval County School Police Department for "outright fraud" and underreporting incident and crime numbers to make a better impression.
While the interim report largely focused on Florida's mental-health systems and deficiencies in funding, separately, the report pointed out issues with schools' abilities to differentiate criminal behavior from simple misbehavior. Duval School was used as the key example.
Out of Florida's 67 counties and 74 school districts when alternative and virtual districts are included, Duval County was the only school district singled out.
"It is also apparent, though, that some incentives to 'decrease the statistics' are perverse," the report said. "Administrators are rewarded with promotion or better jobs in larger districts; school police chiefs tout phony CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: A sad but true fact is DCPS can't be trusted
