Tag Archive for 'Nevada'

Who’s To Blame for Bad Schools? Look in the Mirror

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 27, 2009 in Education Leadership, Education News, Higher Education and Parents. 16 Comments

<a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=OXQs8ykQ0dg&amp;feature">http://youtube.com/watch?v=OXQs8ykQ0dg&amp;feature</a>

Nevada’s public education system is a “disaster” says the state’s university chancellor, and Nevadans have no one to blame but themselves.  In a remarkable and scathing “State of the System” speech ostensibly to rail against proposed cuts to the state’s education budget, James Rogers calls Nevada’s parents to account.

The state of K-16 education in Nevada is where the public–that is you out there–has allowed it to sink.  Your only relationship with the education system is to ship your unprepared kids to school not with the expectation of success, but with the demand that an education system, inadequately funded, develop and/or repair children that you as a parent did not prepare for school or support while your children attended school.  If you want a competent and productive education system, tell your Governor and legislators to fund it. They do what they think you want them to do.  That’s why they’re called public servants.  It is the public–that means you– that has created this disaster of a public education system. 

It’s a blistering Jeremiad.  Nevadans once hoped to see their kids go to college, but today are satisfied if their children graduate from eighth grade, Rogers says.  And don’t blame educators for the state’s poor schools.  The founder and owner of Sunbelt Communications Company, which owns and operates 16 NBC and FOX affiliate television stations in five western states, Rogers says when he became Nevada’s chancellor five years ago he came to the job with a sense that education was “an overweight, lazy, unproductive massive intellect, with no direction and little desire to get there fast.” 

Well I have looked at the alleged inefficiencies, not only in higher education but in K through 12.  The majority of educators work very hard, are much smarter than their critics, and are far more organized and efficient than their critics.  If they have a shortcoming it is that they are for the most part not aggressive, mean-spirited people, but are instead caring, concerned individuals who want to teach, not fight….and the success of your children is more important than their own success.

Neither are school administrators to blame, according to Rogers.  “I have looked at the administration of the education system,” he notes. ”I find them no less productive than the administrators of the television stations I own or the banks of which I have served as a board member over the last 28 years.”

The state’s Republican party has fired back saying Rogers “owes every caring parent in the state a public apology.  For Chancellor Rogers to blame the failure of the government-run education system on parents is nothing short of outrageous.”

Rogers aired his speech on his Nevada TV stations.  You can watch it in two parts on YouTube, Part I here, Part II here.

Ms. Cahill For Congress

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 30, 2008 in Teaching. 0 Comments

When one of her 6th grade students remarked “you can’t run for office in this country unless you’re a millionaire or you know a lot of millionaires,” Nevada public school teacher Tierney Cahill insisted that in a democracy anyone can run for office.  Her students dared her to prove it–by running herself. 

Looking at twenty-eight intent faces, I knew that I had just been handed a test. Would this grown-up be as contradictory and hypocritical as so many of the adults and personalities in their lives? If our country worked the way I had said it did, and if normal people could—and should—be involved in government, then as their teacher I shouldn’t have a problem stepping up to do what they’d asked. It was as if they were saying, “Either you are what you say you are and you believe that whole line you gave us, or you’re totally full of crap, and we’re going to find out right now.” In many ways, our roles of teacher and pupil had suddenly switched.  What I say is really going to matter, and I’d better think fast, I realized.

Thoughts rocketed through my brain like simultaneous fireworks explosions.

Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?

Do I believe what I told them? Or am I simply a mouthpiece for the establishment? Are these kids going to look back and resent me someday when they think about their teacher’s rosy, half-honest introduction to politics?

She ran, and ended up winning the Democratic primary in Reno, with her students acting as her campaign managers.  Her new book, Ms. Cahill for Congress tells the story.

This has all the makings of the next big ”hero teacher” movie.  No surprise then to learn that Hollywood is already all over it.  Halle Berry will play Ms. Cahill.