Nonprofit Quarterly: Indy school panel can't claim cooperation on school issues when they leave out teachers
09/16/2014
Last week, the Alliance for Catholic Education and the Indianapolis Mayor’s office sponsored a panel discussion on the status of K-12 education in Indianapolis.
Speakers will include Jason Kloth (Indianapolis Mayors’ Office), Rick Ogston (Carpe Diem Charter Schools), Mickey Lenz (Archdiocese of Indianapolis), Myles Mendoza (Educational Choice Illinois), Derrell Bradford (NYCAN), David Harris (The Mind Trust) and Nicole Garnett (Notre Dame Law School).
When we heard of this event, we again were struck by the lack of any representative from the teachers’ perspective who actually work with students every day in the classroom.
We weren’t the only ones who noticed the blatant disregard. The national journal Nonprofit Quarterly also noticed.
In an article titled “You Can’t Claim Cooperation on Schools If You Leave Out Teachers”, the magazine takes the event organizers to task over the obvious narrow scope of viewpoint and opinion.
The panel of entities committing to partnership and cooperation included representatives from charter schools, Catholic schools, education reformers, and the obviously pro-charter Indianapolis Public Schools. No teachers. No teachers union. It’s important…to remember that a significant component of the education equation—an organization representing teachers—simply wasn’t on the dais.
If public discussions are going to extol progress in education cooperation, they might want to include teachers and their unions as part of the process. This panel seems to have leapfrogged teachers in order to present an image wherein expanding charter schools, increasing their funding, and providing vouchers to put pupils into private and religious schools constitute an agenda around which multiple interest groups can coalesce.
Great work, Nonprofit Quarterly, for exposing the manipulated dialogue.