It is important to remember that in the education reform debate, teachers, unions, school administrators, government officials, parents, and students all have a lot at stake. Each party in the reform movement, however, is either fighting for personal reasons (i.e. for government officials to keep their jobs), for selfless reasons (i.e. what’s in the best interest of your child), or a combination of the two. While all of the sides may disagree about the problems within the American education system as well as the perceived effectiveness of proposed solutions, each party in the reform debate does not have to be disagreeable. One would hope, that at least on some level, all parties involved are advocating for greater success among American public school children, and that is a goal that we can all agree on. Unfortunately, education reform debates have turned ugly in many areas recently.
Olivia Demas, a mother of three from Ohio blogged Sunday on the Students First website about the actions that many opposed to education reform measures are taking to halt progress. While I’m sure that both sides of the debate have, at times, been less than civil, the drastic responses from teachers, unions, and other official outlined by Demas must end. Active debate in the education arena should be encouraged, but when that debate turns into the usurpation of free speech rights and the intimidation of parents and teachers who want the best for their kids, we fail to have a constructive dialogue and all parties in the education reform domain lose out, one way or another.
The article, published on StudentsFirst, can be found here: http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/a-call-for-civility/
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