There’s a back story here that’s kind of convoluted, as most back stories are. But the gist of it is this: A group of parents, retired educators and community leaders have come together to speak up for the rights of teachers and students. We have watched Common Core be thrust upon our country and people take positions of authority in our education system that truly appear to not have children’s best interest at heart, much less any background in education. We see a removal of recess and the addition of more testing as an issue. And we do not like the amount of pressure being placed on our kids with these standardized tests that even many adults could not pass.
Our group came together and volunteered their time and energy to help elect a new school board member. We did so honestly and openly and ran a clean, grassroots campaign. Our candidate won. Our candidate and our group garnered some followers and some dissenters. None of this is surprising. But this happened two months later:
Our group was spied on.
Yes, someone, who remains a mystery, paid a Private Investigator to drive by our meeting place (a private citizen’s home) and copy down all the license plate numbers of those in attendance. Yes, this concerned us, as you can imagine. Why in the world would someone care enough about who we are and what we were doing to PAY an investigator to snoop on us? Sounds like a John Grisham novel to me.
Here is a link to the editorial column written yesterday about this article from last week. Read them both and then read my comment below. (You can actually read them in any order you choose… this isn’t one of those tests!)
Then I would love to read your comments on your take on the status of our nation’s education system. Do you follow it at all? Some do, many don’t. Does it scare you at all? Would it bother you to have a meeting you attended be under surveillance? What would you do?
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MY COMMENT:
I see some of you have questions about the group of concerned community members who occasionally meet to discuss our education system. You may have passed judgment on these people because of alliances you may have with a previous school board member.
I do not blame you one iota.
However, every pancake has two sides. Our group is genuinely concerned with the turn our county and our nation are taking in education…
Change is never easy. Change for the better is tolerable. Change for the worse, is a crime against our future.Our children deserve a solid education by teachers who are respected and treated fairly. Teachers who are not bullied into teaching questionable curriculum in an unreasonable timeframe. Teachers who are not stressed that their careers hang in the balance of results from a standardized test which may or may not be prepared purposefully to confuse students or test them on skills they are too young to have acquired.
We worry about our community’s future. We worry about our nation’s future. You should, too. Do you have young children or grandchildren? Don’t you want what’s best for them?
I presume you do because you are most likely an intelligent and caring person if you are reading this. Please, ask me any question you may have about our group. Ask me what we talk about when we meet over coffee. Ask me how we threw our collective volunteer efforts behind Mary Cantrell and why. We have no hidden agendas. No power plays. No mudslinging. We simply want education run by educators, people with the children’s best interest at the TOP of their priority list.
Education was once an institution for learning. Now it’s become an industry for business. That’s unfortunate. And that’s really all this is about. Do we want education to become a cookie-cutter mold to turn out cookie-cutter kids while business people make a buck? Or do we want our brightest and best to learn and grow and make a difference in the world?
What do you want, dear reader? In your heart, what do you hope the future looks like for our children? Remember, these are the people who will be in charge when we are in our Golden Years and beyond.
Feel free to contact me. I would be happy to meet you for coffee. And you can bring your friends who may also think negatively about people trying to keep education for and about educating children in an environment of mutual respect and integrity.
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