I’m going to blather here for a bit. You can be sure I’ll be writing a more complete post about this in the near future, but this will have to do for now.
I’ve been pondering Governor Larry Hogan’s proposal for an Inspector General of Education in Maryland. We have recently gone through some very hard times with our school system where having such an office would have made it much easier to get to the bottom of some long standing problems. And I know some very good people locally who support Governor Hogan’s proposal.
And yet.
I can’t look at this proposal in a vacuum. It comes from the same Governor who has given credence to school vouchers and school privatization, both of which weaken public education. And this is the very same Governor who called teachers “union thugs”.
That’s my husband he’s talking about. My friends. My daughter’s teachers.
When I hold this concept of an Inspector General in one hand, all by itself, it appears to have merit. I can see what prompted it. I can see the problems it is meant to address. But when I put it in context with other things that the Governor has said and done about Education, I am concerned. I see how it might become a sword to weaken public education, rather than a lifeline to help it up.
If such a proposal were coming from a champion of public education, who really understood teaching and children and how public schools work, I might feel differently. But, at the moment, I’m not entirely convinced.
I’ve been pondering Governor Larry Hogan’s proposal for an Inspector General of Education in Maryland. We have recently gone through some very hard times with our school system where having such an office would have made it much easier to get to the bottom of some long standing problems. And I know some very good people locally who support Governor Hogan’s proposal.
And yet.
I can’t look at this proposal in a vacuum. It comes from the same Governor who has given credence to school vouchers and school privatization, both of which weaken public education. And this is the very same Governor who called teachers “union thugs”.
That’s my husband he’s talking about. My friends. My daughter’s teachers.
When I hold this concept of an Inspector General in one hand, all by itself, it appears to have merit. I can see what prompted it. I can see the problems it is meant to address. But when I put it in context with other things that the Governor has said and done about Education, I am concerned. I see how it might become a sword to weaken public education, rather than a lifeline to help it up.
If such a proposal were coming from a champion of public education, who really understood teaching and children and how public schools work, I might feel differently. But, at the moment, I’m not entirely convinced.
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