My First Political Post: Thinking Ahead To The Next Presidential Election. I Vote Education All The Way

Dear Potential President of the United States,

I am writing this Monday morning with first thoughts about the next Presidential election and referencing the video above: Add Tests and Stir - Education Reform in the 21st Century. I've been a teacher for the last twenty years, ten in the classroom and ten in higher education. I've worked in urban, suburban, and rural schools. Although the majority of my time has been spent interacting with public facilities, I've also collaborated and assisted educators in Charter Schools and teachers who work for Teach For America.

I am always for students. I believe in high standards. I believe in literacy. I support choice as an effective practice and I trust differentiation to help a heterogeneous population of youth to achieve amazing things.

I'm not a fan of the test-crazed culture that has overtaken our nation or the post traumatic stress disorder that it is causing public school teachers and students. Many of my teaching champions - individuals I look up to and admire - have contacted me about exhaustion, frustration and a total lack of hope that has been caused by the reforms since No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top. Personally, I was a fan of No Child Left Behind because it made my colleagues accountable to every student in our classrooms: (1) we had to contact parents/guardians, (2) we had to demonstrate our flexibility in practice to meet the needs of all kids, (3) we had to hold standards high be high for all kids, and (4) we were forced to be reflective of our work.

The change that occurred, however, has been with assessment. Kentucky's highly celebrated writing portfolio system, for instance, was altered to on demand writing assessments and easier-to-measure multiple choice questions. The pressure to teach to the tests began trumped the college and career readiness that came with having students write in multiple genres. Powers that be began to doubt the portfolio process and, at the Brown School, research and culminating project processes we held in place to raise the bar for all our students were also nay-sayed. Ten years after leaving the classroom,  the portfolios of Kentucky and the expectations for seniors have disappeared, all because the nation moved to a state of fear and the panoptic police state of trickle down, state bureaucracy.

In my experience, all students want to learn and a vast majority of teachers are in schools to teach. The disconnect arrives, however, by mandated curriculum, page-by-page preparation for state assessments, and limited windows into student learning these assessments provide. In short, they've almost ruined the profession for educators and they are harming young people from the potential they truly have inside. I have hope, however, as I continue to read about resistance and opting out trickling across the nation.

I am looking for a President who will restore common sense, sanity, and hope back in American schools. Sadly, President Obama's Hope campaign did just the opposite for public school teachers and students. His policies and Arne Duncan's charge have created a state of Hopelessness in schools across the United States. For these reasons, I am bulleting the following as possible first steps:

• End the tests. Return assessments back to professionals in each state. Do not necessarily lose the Common Core State Standards, but expand them to allow creativity, history, science, the arts, and extracurriculars so they begin to matter in our national conversations once again.
• Do not ignore national organizations and their standards. For centuries, like-minded professionals have worked hard to advocate for effective practices - these arrived from teachers who worked in K-12 schools and who have actual experience with children.
• Lose the corporate dazzle. Yes, they fund campaigns and paint billboards with glittering glory and exaggerated partial truths, but many of the well-financed Charter movement mega-chains have created Gladiator arenas that award the most competitive and vicious individuals, both children and the adults who work with them.
• Invest in professional development with a teachers teaching teachers model, such as that promoted by Critical Friends Groups and the National Writing Project. Find ways to put money into schools so that teachers can attend local, state, and national conferences to stay abreast in their school.
• Work collaboratively with institutions of higher education to better establish supportive systems that solve educational problems and raise the bar in effective, not punitive, ways.
• Contact teachers. Talk to them. 
• Contact kids. Talk to them. 
• Contact Administrators. Talk to them.
• Contact Parents. Talk to them. Solicit knowledge on what works from their perspectives and ask their opinions.
• Lose the blame game. Yes, society has tremendous ills in education. The struggle, however, is one of poverty. Rather than harass teachers and students, work harder to find economic opportunities for more families. Figure out away to close the economical gaps and  the achievement gaps will lessen.

The video above has a lot of talking points to consider (yes, it is long, and yes, it is one-sided in many ways). But Wendy Lecker, Jonathan Pelto, Yohuru Williams, and Thomas Scarice advocate for democracy, truth, equity, and justice. What they are stating here is the reforms are horrible. The reforms have bastardized the civil rights movement and exploited poverty to make a few wealthier.

I'm voting for any individual who comes back to earth and understands the world of schools. I don't care what side they are on as long as they get public school teaching and the passion for America's youth. If they don't...I don't want them leading our nation. They have no business at the helm.

Thank You,

Bryan