My fellow charter operators, lend me your ear!!

THE APOLOGISTS ARE COMING!!!!!!!!
THE APOLOGISTS ARE COMING!!!!!!!!
THE APOLOGISTS ARE COMING!!!!!!!!
THE APOLOGISTS ARE COMING!!!!!!!!

If you read the April 19th issue of the Education Week newspaper, you may have come across the Commentary in which Mr. W. James Popham suggests that it is the TEST’s fault, not the teachers’/educators’ fault, that they—teachers/educators—are helping their students cheat on NCLB-required state proficiency testing (AIMS here in Arizona). 

I am so tired of always hearing the blob “blaming the test”; blaming the accountability component of their job; not taking responsibility for their students’ actual achievement, especially the lack thereof.  Of course there is always the “lack of funding” (teacher salary) excuse—better yet, that parents are either too rich or too poor—but never stepping up to the plate and taking personal responsibility for their students’ performance.  And we wonder why we continue to slide down the list of the “developed nations” in the academic performance of our children!

Every educator has to make the commitment to ensure their students’ success…or they need to get out of education. Go find that 9-5 job where you will be appreciated for your lack of commitment! Somewhere you don’t have to take your job home with you. Oh, by the way, those only exist in the service industry, or maybe as a phone solicitor. Oops, my error; that approach isn’t even consistent anymore with the requirements in the kitchen at McDonald’s!

Every professional position—engineer, architect, accountant, business manager, marketing executive, administrator (you’ll notice I didn’t include doctors and lawyers)—they all take their jobs home with them, working whatever hours are necessary to accomplish their projects and goals.

We as educators have projects and goals: They are to teach kids and set examples; unlike Charles Barkley we are role models! We don’t cheat or let our students cheat on their tests, homework, projects, AIMS...or cheat themselves.

The world has changed, and the U.S. education system is letting every student down who is saddled with an unchallenged, uninspired, classroom baby-sitter who models dishonesty, laziness, or lack of interest in front of our nation’s children, and then BLAMES the test!!  It is too important to our collective future to tolerate this level of performance.  If we don’t want to continue the slide into a Third- or even a Fourth-World country of illiterate and immoral people, we cannot continue to blame the test and forsake the personal responsibility we have for our children’s future.

Do not tolerate the Apologist! Your children’s success—our nation’s future— depends on your commitment to them both.  I just had to get that off my chest.  I just can’t believe any responsible adult, let alone an educator, can blame the test for their lack of personal integrity!!

gmiller@challengecharterschool.net