Death by Education: An American Autopsy by William Wieser (Used, New, Out-of-Print) - Alibris
In his book, he addresses the fact that writing his book was his last resort. He ran out of money fighting the appeals after he won in court.
Last night, a group of parents gave up their right to speak their opinions during their allotted time frame at the HCPS school board meeting. In the end, it appears they were snookered. For those school administrators seeking good PR relations, what could have been a phlegmatic announcement of a principal's transfer turned into an apparent soapbox for harangue. Why bother to concede one's position to have it carried out in that fashion?
Yesterday, there was another event that occurred over on The Gradebook, a local blog administered by the St. Pete Times. Read the public comments to gain understanding of the issues here:
Comments vs. content
This may be of interest to some:
Wrightslaw - Retaliation: School Administrators Develop an "Enemies List":
"The Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) represents over 14,000 California school administrators. This group surveyed their membership to identify groups and parents who had been critical of schools.
The School Administrators Association organized the survey responses into a secret Enemies List. This document included the name of the group, and names of parents who were identified with the groups, and name of superintendant. There was a section for comments about the parents' subversive activities - what actions they took that earned them a place on the Enemies List.
Someone leaked the Enemies List to the press.
The Association of California School Administrators was confronted with their Enemies List,. The Association said they were just trying to identify 'disruptive' individuals and groups.
A copy that was circulated shows that the report is organized by district, with columns for the name of the superintendent, the name of the group, followed by names of the parents involved in the group. There was also a section for comments describing the activities of the groups and what they did to earn a place on the list.
Targeted parents were guilty of 'disruptive' acts that included questioning special education placements, filing complaints with the Office of Civil Rights, and objecting to the way Parent Advisory Groups were set up.
"The existence of such a list confirms the worst fears of many parents - that schools single out parents who advocate for their children. It further suggests an adversarial and repressive attitude towards these parents - a precursor to the retaliation reported by many."
Posts
4 comments:
This was posted over at the Alafia Blog:
Anonymous said...
I am excited about the prospect of new leadership and will certainly do all that I can to make the new principal feel welcomed and supported.
That being said, I am unhappy with the turn of events of last night. I sent this letter to April Griffin's blog today:
April,
I was very disappointed in the course of events that took place at the Board meeting. Mr. Hegarty spent an inordinate amount of time making phone calls and speaking to parents directly, trying to silence their voices. When that did not work, you approached the parents with a similar plea. April, we respected you and abided by your wishes. After hearing Mrs. Elia speak, I realized I was duped once again, and felt all the more violated because I had allowed myself to be manipulated by what I thought was the last untainted individual on the school board. I now realize that there is not one of you that can be trusted. You took an oppressed group and further victimized them by facilitating Mrs. Elia's ability to speak her untruthful words unanswered. Mrs. Elia admitted to Mrs. Smith's countless faults at the parent meeting. She could not come up with ONE SINGLE QUALITY that made Mrs. Smith an appropriate candidate to lead Alafia. Yet she was allowed to take the posture that Mrs. Smith had been treated unfairly without rebuke. I know that numerous parents would have liked to point out the falsehoods in her statement, but they were robbed of that opportunity. You played a major role in that travesty by exploiting the trust that parents had in you.
I hope that you will print this letter and explain your actions.
I see this has popped up again. I saw that April gave a response to this on her blog.
This list is disturbing, but lends credence to what many have already suspected.
What are honest, concerned citizens to do about something like this?
Increased numbers of public awareness may be the key.
It is very difficult for most parents to overcome the psychological and sociological tendency to "trust your caregiver", in this case, the public school system. We all want to trust, over and over, and it takes a while before a parent "gets it" that they can't trust the system.
The psychological fallout to all of the parents involved in the Alafia debacle is something that many, many parents of special ed kids live all of the time. Most people don't get it until it happens to them. If you have followed my blog, a lot of what happened was predicatable, as I have seen it many times.
What the system doesn't get, or maybe they do but see it as a necessary cost, is that once the system loses the parent's trust, this mistrust creates increased stress on the system.
Optimal educational settings for kids need positive relationships between the adults and the kids. The younger the kid, the more this is critical.
Most parents don't have a clue what they are up against nor do they understand the need to address issues in a more formal manner than "just mom and/or dad" talking to the teacher/principal/area director etc.
I have written a lot about how the system is more about maintaining an imgage than providing substance. The Alafia debacle should have been taken care of a long time ago. The real reason that it wasn't, which the public will probably never know, is something the system won't be honest about.
Alafia was not an isolated incident except there was a combination of parents and employees that were able to work together and withstood the techniques being used against them. The combination of all of those factors rarely happens long enough to get results.
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