drjamesarnold.com

Dear Mr. Duncan,     We haven’t met. I would be happy to do so, but considering our respective views on education, leadership and what constitutes constructive education reform I rather doubt we will have that opportunity.  I do have several questions  and observations I would like for you to consider.  Let me say first that we seem to agree on the importance of teachers in the educational process.  Teachers do indeed make a difference in the lives of  children.  They do indeed deserve more respect and financial compensation than they currently receive.  I think, however, that our agreements end there.   I believe that teachers more often succeed in our educational system in spite of your “reforms” and not because of them.     I would suggest that you, as Secretary of Education, should be a leader in  support of public schools and the efforts of thousands of teachers to make a difference ...

Five Things I Learned From PAGE’s HSRI     If you want to start an argument with any teacher, simply bring up the topic of professional development.  One of the more interesting professional conversations I ever heard centered around the issue of whether “professional” and “development”, similar to the conundrum of “rap” and “music”, were oxymoronic or mutually exclusive terms.  Over the past eight or so years, Georgia teachers have been subjected to endless hours of handouts, death-by-PowerPoint presentations and monologues on an endless line of topics from well-meaning, kind hearted presenters, more often than not keenly aware of the antipathetic attitudes their subjects hold silently in their thoughts as they cross their arms and prepare for yet another in a long series of near death experiences that allow no time for questions, clarification or disagreement.  In most cases these presentations are held after a long work day or even worse, during...

    Are you defined by a test?  If you were born before 1985, chances are the answer is no.  If, on the other hand, you were born after that date you and your public education experience are data points on an administrator’s school or district or state data wall responding to the policies enacted by the No Child Left Untested law.  Notice I said public education.  In spite of the inanity in the name of accountability imposed upon students in public education, no such laws or requirements have been extended to the 7% of students, give or take a percentage point, in private or religious schools.       Let’s pause for a moment to listen for the outcry from the teachers, parents and politicians over the omission of that 7%  from the mandates and benefits of standardized testing and accountability…oh my...I can’t hear their poor, weak untested voices, can you?     Right now your child in public...

This speech was originally given at the 2010 graduation ceremony for W.H. Shaw High School, and has been printed in several venues since that time.  I believe the information remains relevant and bears repetition. Graduates, parents, students, faculty, families, and honored guests – Welcome to our celebration of the culmination of the secondary school education of the Class of 2010 – the thirty second class to graduate from William Henry Shaw High School.  Parents, together we have gotten them through high school but after tonight they are yours – we will implement a strict no return policy.  I understand that several of you are offering a take one, get one free special at the end of tonight’s program. Seniors, I would like to introduce you to Tiger.  Tiger, as his name implies, is a small stuffed tiger that belongs to my grandson Justin.  Justin is 4, and Tiger goes everywhere Justin goes - to school, on visits, to naptime and espec...

This article was originally published in the Fall 2012 edition of JOLLE - UGA by the author. Rotten to the (Common) Core     I must state from the outset that I am innately suspicious of the underlying motives or educational benefits of any initiative – Common Core included -  supported by the Governor that instituted austerity cuts in 2003, led Georgia to be one of the only states to use teacher furloughs to balance the state budget and consistently under funded public education in order to promote quality fishing.     Common Core is a standardized national curriculum.  Why is this problematic?  From an historical context, a centralized school curriculum serves the goals of totalitarian states.  It’s also illegal.  The General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act all forbid or protect against the USDOE sticking its nose into the cur...

Public education is in the midst of a perceptual crisis. The public-school-as-smorgasbord proponents, the privatization faction, the voucher believers, the private school crowd, and the transformers—those small but vocal minorities who insist that every public school is mediocre at best and that students do not stand a chance in today’s competitive market after graduation from these dumbed-down anti-God institutions that are little more than attendance monitors for minority students—all proclaim loudly their way is better and will lead to the miraculous and marvelous reinvention of our failed system of public education. Choice seems to be a constant theme in these insistent complaints that public education has failed us and that our way of life, our political system, and our form of government are at risk because we cannot educate every child to the point he or she can have a seamless entry from secondary school into work or college.  Baloney. My personal belief is that segregati...