Governor Sam Brownback, child abuser (my words)
I live in Kansas. I am an educator. My state has just eliminated teacher licensing requirements for six school districts, including a major suburban district known for the affluence of its students. On paper, this is being spun as a positive thing.
Supporters of this decision claim it will allow experts to fill teaching positions that would normally be occupied by certified generalists (those with Education degrees who have a sub-specialty, as most teachers in the state do). In reality, it is a continued assault on education in the state of Kansas.
Not only does it open the door for unqualified people to assume the responsibility of managing a classroom and imparting knowledge to students, but it is a transparent effort to recruit "educators" more in line with the anti-science, anti-secular, anti-critical-thinking agenda of the Kansas GOP.
The current GOP legislature has made gutting our public education system one of its top priorities. Their school funding scheme was found unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. Budget cuts have resulted in many smaller school districts being forced to close early, and according to friends who teach in these mostly small, rural communities, teachers are no longer permitted to charge their phones in their classroom or use a lamp at their desks, since the state needs to save electricity.
Governor Sam Brownback has an open disdain for public schooling that has trickled down to the legislature. The man LOOOOVES his school vouchers, which are a handy way to direct tax money to private schools while blustering about "options."
Much of the justification for the de-certification shenanigans has come in the form of the oversimplified logic that a high degree of subject knowledge means one will automatically be a competent teacher. Apparently, an "expert" reading from a book is preferable to actual teaching.
Methods, processes, and practices of education have no worth in Brownback's Kansas. In other words, nice pedagogy you've got there. Would be a shame if anything were to happen to it. It's also a slap in the face to students, who are served best by passionate, creative teachers who have been exposed to the appropriate teaching methods and practices of their discipline.
The de-certification is being lauded as an "innovative" idea, as if further neutering educators is going to somehow turn Kansas into Silicon Valley. That's a pretty tough idea to buy, given the level of anti-intellectualism rampant in the state.they are replacing the 3 R's with their own indoctrinating curriculum designed to make those kids in the image of the STEPFORD FAMILIES 21 century mindless hate filled racist and bigots that act without question and that next generation will carry the water of the republican ideology or idiotology. they know they are losing membership so the next and boy to i hate applying this oxymoron to republicans but logical thing to do is create more in their image White man's got a God complex, and should be charged with contributing to minor.
