Posted on by grumpyoldteacher

Burn! (as That 70s Show Used to Say)

Wry humor, but with a kernel of truth. Often overlooked, safety is a huge consideration when parents try to choose a school for their children.

As we move into the third (or is it fourth) decade of school degradation and the end goal comes in sight, the charter wars have transmogrified into the voucher wars. Neither option is good for the preservation of a free and appropriate education for all children, but this is where we are as the second Trump administration takes hold of the levers of federal power.

As public education advocates continue to point out the issues and problems with using public money, that is, your tax dollars, to pay for private education that not all children can access, which include bankrupting state treasuries, first amendment issues as state resources are handed over to religious institutions, and the quality of education being provided … strange how the calls for school accountability die down when it comes to private education … all of which is appropriate and necessary, but are we forgetting a basic precept? Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

No English teacher will sleep tonight as they hash over whether the above paragraph is a run-on sentence or not.

But that’s not Maslov. It’s a joke intended to make you smile before we dive into the gist of this piece.

I remember days gone by when parents would come into the school office griping about the school grade, “Wow. They have really bought into that BS.” And then trying to tell them about why the school is a good place for their children. Chief among those reasons are that we keep them safe.

I can’t speak for elementary, but when it comes to making the middle school transition, parents care less about academic quality, testing, and school grades than they do safety, fairness and equality (all kids are treated the same,) transportation, and food.

If you are on a level or in a stage of life where you can battle over funding and who’s getting it, I applaud you. You are doing good work to demand that states stop defunding public education.

But if you are a local teacher, administrator, or a low-level district staffer whose job is always on the chopping block of budget shortfalls, focus on that bottom level of the pyramid.

  • Will my child be fed or go hungry?
  • Will you provide reliable transportation?
  • Will my child be safe from bullying, fights, and other hazards of gathering hundreds of children into a building where only a few dozens of adults provide supervision?

If you can provide satisfactory answers to questions like these, parents will flock to your school to enroll their children. The fight to save public education will not be won at school board meetings, legislative town halls, or in the many avenues of opining.

It happens with each parent, one by one, to assure them that we care for their children as much as they do.

Posted on by grumpyoldteacher · 1 Comment

Blatherskites

If you’re a C-Span junkie like me, you have been watching the Speaker vote in the House of Representatives, in which Mike Johnson fell short of election by two votes in the first round of voting, the official tally was delayed for about 45 minutes, two votes then switched, and the result was announced: Mike Johnson is re-elected Speaker.

The ceremonies commenced and Johnson is now blathering on about his agenda and his views on American government. Among the gems was this, “we must take back control of education from administrators and give it back to parents” or words to that effect.

As the late, great Joan Rivers would say …

Can we talk here? Will the blatherskites of education think tanks, Moms 4 Liberty, and foundations with an agenda stop for a moment? Can we just simply talk?

PARENTS HAVE ALWAYS CONTROLLED THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN.

THEY NEVER GAVE IT UP AND NO ADMINISTRATOR, TEACHER, SUPERINTENDENT, OR ANYONE IN BETWEEN HAS EVER SEIZED IT.

Maybe you’ve never been in a parent conference where the administrators danced around, berated the teacher, and ordered everyone within earshot to do exactly as the parent wants.

Maybe you’ve never received a district notice that a parent has lawyered up and everyone must appease the parent so the district doesn’t get sued.

Maybe you’ve never talked to neighbors about how they are sending their children to private school or parochial school because they don’t like their local public school option.

Maybe you’ve never attended a neighborhood block party where parents brag about ‘correcting’ the teaching of public schools and instilling their own values into their children.

Maybe you’ve listened too often too much to blatherskites like the late, not great Rush Limbaugh who never had children of his own.

What is a blatherskite, you may ask? From dictionary.com, it is “one who is given to voluble, empty talk,” which dates from the middle of the 19th century, was originally and remains mostly an Americanism. Blatherskite is a variant of Scottish bletherskate, which dates from the mid-17th century and is a compound of the verb blether or blather “to talk nonsense” and the Anglo-American slang word skate “person, contemptible person, broken-down horse.” Another variant, bladderskate, appears in the traditional Scottish song “Maggie Lauder,” which was popular among American soldiers during the American Revolution.”

Empty talk that goes on and on seemingly without end. You’re welcome for the new word of 2025 to add to your vocabulary.

But don’t be fooled, Parents are in control. Sometimes, they despair over their children’s adolescent agenda of breaking away. It is at those moments, during many parent conferences, when I would remind them that they remain the most important person in their children’s lives and that their children are always listening to them even when they seem to be most hateful.

As a wise counselor once said, “The adolescent must reject their parents’ values so that they can adopt them as their own.”

Parents have always been in control and will remain so.

Don’t let the politicians tell you different.