Blake West, a math teacher from the Blue Valley school district who is currently serving as vice president of the Kansas National Education Association, has a bold suggestion: The next state education commissioner should be someone who has worked in schools and has a thorough, up-close, personal knowledge of what goes on there, he told Eagle editorial board members last week. Ordinarily, that would be a given. But conservative members of the State Board of Education de-emphasized education experience in the evaluation criteria, and the main qualification of two of the five final candidates seems to be that they are political conservatives.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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24 Comments
I hear Mike Brown is available. His resume has a large section on his accomplishments in education..quite an impressive candidate on paper.
What a concept! An educator for education commissioner? It’s so logical it’s beyond the scope of the state board. We’ve got to get rid of the ultra-conservatives on the state board of education.
Try this concept: Win an election.
Then you won’t have these problems. Sounds to me like this is one more elite educrat picked by fellow educrats proposal to me.
I suppose we should elect the faculty at all our research universities too, And while we’re at it, let’s get the boards of directors to change corporate rules so that employees elect the management team. Sometimes elections aren’t aren’t the proper mechanism for the best outcomes. That’s part of the reason many juducial positions are appointed offices rather than elected offices.
“Sounds to me like this is one more elite educrat picked by fellow educrats proposal to me”
Jimmy you seem to be frighten by educated people. Did a teacher frighten you when you were a child?I bet you showed them, never did your homework, never completed a class assignment, threw spit wads at your fellow classmates, cut class in high school?
I for one want my children to not only survive in this world but get an education to excel in this world. Nor do I want them to be taught things devoid of real science.
Anything less would be to doom my children to a life of saying “Would you like fries with that?”.
Jimmy,
Have you noticed we don’t elect everyone? We don’t elect military commanders, the Supreme Court, or the Cabinet? Achievement and wisdom are oftentimes more important in certain fields of endeavor than electability. Knowledge in particular shouldn’t be made to compete in a popularity contest. The education commissioner is there to make sure that students learn even unpopular theories if those theories have survived peer review and comparison with experiment. He/She is there to make sure students get to read important works of literature with controversial themes even if they offend the sensibilities of the “locals”.
I certainly don’t want to see a return to the ‘good ole days’ of Nazi Germany when ‘Jew Science’ was expelled from the curriculum to the shouts and applause of the German public. That ‘Jew Science’, by the way, led to the development of the weapon that ended WWII earlier than expected, the development of the nuclear power industry, and to practically all of the modern conveniences science and technology have been able to give us since then.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s things like this that make me downright giddy about my homeschooled children.
I think we shouldn’t appoint someone who is presently part of the educational establishment. That lobby is already too powerful in this state. Whenever someone tries to introduce common sense to our schools, the education establishment cries “But it’s for the children!” That seems to be powerful enough to stop any discussion.
Proudman–
Speaking for all the other liberal posters, thanks for keeping your kids at home.
Proudman–
Speaking for all the other liberal posters, thanks for keeping your kids at home.
BTW, Hitler escapee and Puny alterego, R.D.,
Sind Sie Stille voll von der Scheiße?
Hmm–is someone posting under Galahad again? Or am I missing something…?Of course, it’s 10 AM here (ridiculously early) and I haven’t had my coffee.
Am I the only one who is positively thrilled about the BOE’s bungles? The last time they made us a laughingstock, the public voted in moderates. I’m guessing Connie Morris’s days are numbered.
Galahad,kein bin ich Ruhe wegen ich spreche nicht Scheiße!
Hey you guys, if you’re gonna talk about manure, let the rest of us in on it.
I’ve tried using my Google translater, but that German syntax is just too complicated. Reminds me of what my grandmother used to say: “Back in the front, already, yet” – hard to follow . . .
He asked me if I am silent for the shit.
I told him I am silent because I do not talk shit.
And yes German is so what backwards. Instead of “I like cheese” translated into German and back to English it would be some thing like ” I cheese like”
R.D.L. has already forgotten that he said he was a Holocaust survivor. I figured he must know German as a first language.
Too bad you can’t keep the lies straight, dude.
Not a problem Galahad, I’m happy to help you out.
Don’t worry about the other assistance I provide for you socialists. Things like your healthcare, security, roads, retirement, etc. Maybe one day you will be a producing member of society, but until then we’ll just have to help you kids along.
Yeah, good point, Proudman. Stay off my roads too . . .
BTW, what does Pat Robertson “produce”?
One hell of a fortune! Last I heard, he was personally worth better than half a billion.
Ya’ know, I really hate it when a ‘man of the cloth’ has worked the system and acquired a vast personal fortune.
The rest of us have to work a day job to support ministry, why not them?
PM,Oh yes, Robertson is a piece of work! For years he was a flack for the apartheid government in South Africa, and thought it a pity they didn’t just go ahead and execute Nelson Mandela. Turned out he had considerable holdings in gold and other mining operations there, and didn’t want to lose his pool of near-slave laborers. More recently, he (and God) threw support to the vastly corrupt government in Liberia for the same reason. He’s also a major wholesaler of herbal remedies, which he hawks daily on his “religious” TV shows. Sold tons of ephedra and lots of other shit your doctor wouldn’t want you taking. Everything the guy does is about worshipping mammon. Long, long way from Jesus, who probably never had more than two sheckels to rub together, and warned repeatedly about the dangers of excess wealth!
Oh yeah, name some inestuous teacher hack for comissioner. What a bunch of shit. They’ll just go on preaching Zionism to the world.