Indiana Parent Speaks Truth to the Indiana Legislative Branch of ALEC

With the way many of our school systems are being run, I feel that it’s important to re-post this blog about Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, an Indiana mother’s address to her state legislature. If you are a parent or grandparent of school children, you may feel this is as important as I do.

Diane Ravitch's blog

Cathy Fuentes-Rower went to the Indiana legislative hearing about the teacher shortage, and she patiently waited seven hours to testify. Cathy is a parent, not a teacher. She was forced to listen to a lineup of “experts” who insisted there was not too much testing, compared to Florida; and there is no teacher shortage, because the superintendents who reported a shortage are biased, and the conservative NCTQ said the data were inconclusive.

When she finally testified, she spoke out boldly.

She said:

I am a mother of four children in public schools.

I know that my children’s learning conditions are their teachers’ working conditions.

This educational environment has become a pressure cooker for our kids and teachers because the legislature has decided that somehow educators weren’t accountable enough. The learning and teaching process has been transformed into a test-taking, data collecting nightmare to somehow prove accountability… at the root…

View original post 825 more words