Say It Loud

I've had a classic Educat rant bubbling under for a few days now. Let's be clear on the nature of this rant: it's not about prayer in schools or diet coke with lime or most of the other million things that have stuck in my craw over the last three years. It's the reason I started this blog in the first place, and I want to get it out.

The work my colleagues and I do is good.

There is an assumption afoot that the day of the comprehensive high school is over. In the days of charter schools and magnets and the thousand other choices that any POCHHS (Plain Ol Comprehensive High School) must be a failure by definition. I haven't fully fleshed out the statistics to prove this point, but I can offer proof that it's coming.

Thank you, thank you New York Times, for proving that common education like the preschools in crappy old Oklahoma work.

Here's the deal: the kids whose parents are on top of things will get their kids into the "choice schools" (charters, magnets, etc.). I don't begrudge those parents that choice. But for the kids whose parents don't actively make those choices, they'll be schools. They'll be teachers and those teachers will be (and are) working to give those kids their best.

That's why I don't take those assumptions well. When people assume that a system made for selected kids will be the best for the masses, I don't buy in. I won't buy in. So it's time for me to reiterate.

Go ahead and call me an Educrat. I'm fine with that, but choose to add the Disney twist. Why don't you call me Educat? I'm here. I teach for the State. Get used to it.