On October 23, 2015, Wendy Bradshaw posted her resignation from the Polk County Florida Public School system on Facebook. It went viral.
Today I resigned from the school district. I would like to share with you what I gave them. Feel free to share it if it strikes you as important.
She goes on to explain what many of us who actually listen to educators or are educators already understand—the culture of testing is bullshit in no uncertain terms, from how it evaluates students' performances to how it evaluates teachers' performances. Wendy Bradshaw knows early childhood development and the curriculum and the testing she must subject her students to is anathema to everything she knows about early childhood development.
The children don’t only cry. Some misbehave so that they will be the ‘bad kid’ not the ‘stupid kid’, or because their little bodies just can’t sit quietly anymore, or because they don’t know the social rules of school and there is no time to teach them. My master’s degree work focused on behavior disorders, so I can say with confidence that it is not the children who are disordered.
The disorder is in the system which requires them to attempt curriculum and demonstrate behaviors far beyond what is appropriate for their age. The disorder is in the system which bars teachers from differentiating instruction meaningfully, which threatens disciplinary action if they decide their students need a five minute break from a difficult concept, or to extend a lesson which is exceptionally engaging.
The disorder is in a system which has decided that students and teachers must be regimented to the minute and punished if they deviate. The disorder is in the system which values the scores on wildly inappropriate assessments more than teaching students in a meaningful and research based manner.
“My first reaction was: I understand her frustration and I generally agree,” said Polk Superintendent of Schools Kathryn LeRoy. “The problem is that the accountability system is smothering everybody.”
“We can't afford to lose any more good educators,” she said. “I don't know what's going to happen to our public education system if we can't recruit or retain good teachers.”
Their brains aren't ready for some of the things they do. And Bradshaw says that with confidence because she has studied and researched early childhood development, with the degrees to prove it.
“It makes zero sense,” she said, and is not necessary. “We got to the moon and back without learning how to read in kindergarten.”this is what will happen, right wing business comes in and with republican support privatizes the school system. they are already changing curriculum in order to dismiss common core in order to teach their own brand od education setting those kids away from what every other kid is taught problem is it's their rewrite not actual history or fundamental proverbial 3 r's it is indoctrination designed to have all kids they can reach be in lockstep marching along like those pics of Communist military learning how to be obedient racist and bigots and other than American.
republicans know you can't run an invisible tyranny unless your subjects are dumb down and have no knowledge of how or what is happening to them, for them the mind is a terrible thing and must be stopped in their lifetime.
