Webster’s defines “ignorance” (n) as (a) “lack of knowledge,
understanding or education.” On the
other hand, the word “(to) ignore” (v) means “refuse to take notice of; or
acknowledge; disregard intentionally; pay no attention to; fail to consider or
reject”. Although these words have the
same root “ignore” does not mean to be in a state of “ignorance”. Last
week I wrote about the frustration of being ignored by the State Education
Commissioner and other education and state officials, which I described as a “strategy
of ignorance”. I went on to say that
they hope by “ignoring” me/us that we would just go away. At
this juncture, my dear readers, you may be asking the question, what’s the point
of this discussion? To use an old
cliché, some people say “toe-ma-toe” and others say “toe-mate-toe”. In the end what does it matter?
However, as an educator I feel compelled to provide accurate
information and to correct mis-information when warranted. In light of the foregoing definitions, I need
to restate that what I and others have encountered is not a strategy of
“ignorance” but one of “ignoring”. It’s an important distinction. When confronted by the former, we could
educate, inform or raise the awareness of the State officials through dialog,
communicating new information and/or teaching.
With the latter, however it’s not possible to initiate a dialog as attempts
to communicate, inform, raise awareness or teach are refused, rejected or
simply not acknowledged. Ignoring is
deliberate, calculated and willful in its intent.
Since mid-December I have been vocal in asking for answers
to a number of straight-forward and critical questions concerning the future of
our school district. I am not alone in
raising these questions. In fact,
advocates here and across this state have many of the same concerns. State imposed receivership threatens to strip
our communities of local control of our schools. The recent release of Governor Cuomo’s Common
Core Task Force recommendations, however, raises considerable doubt about the validity
of the standardized tests, which were used to identify the receivership
schools. An additional caveat is that
most of the receivership schools are located in urban school districts, which
are disproportionately poor and of color. Urban communities are under siege throughout
this country. They are targeted for
takeover under emergency management, receivership or other tactics designed to
limit local democratic agency. We only
have to look to the tragedy unfolding in Flint to understand the importance of
not tolerating a strategy of ignoring.
It is not my intention to compare our situation to the
deplorable one in Flint, but what has happened in Flint should be instructive
and demonstrative of what can happen in any community whose voice is ignored
and marginalized. For example, there were red flags raised years
before the catastrophe, which were met by indifference, dismissiveness and
rejection. We see a tunnel vision
response that labeled questioners as complainers or whiners and their concerns
as insignificant or baseless. Advocates were
discounted and disenfranchised because they lacked the resources, and or status,
to make their voices heard. There was a
top down bureaucracy that had little respect for or valuing of the opinions of
the “little” guys. In many instances, stakeholders were not even
given the courtesy of an acknowledgement of their letters, petitions, calls,
etc. Does this sound familiar? It’s the “art of ignoring” as practiced in Michigan
as well as in our own State by agencies and individuals who should be
responsive to constituents.
What makes this strategy of ignoring even more salient and
troubling in the case of Buffalo School advocates is that my colleagues and I
are publicly elected officials, informed and very involved Board and
community members. However, even these
credentials aren’t enough to warrant a professional, informed, timely response from
State Education officials, to our questions about receivership, the use of standardized
tests results and the Common Core Task Force recommendations. (With one notable
exception; I want to thank Senator Timothy Kennedy, who took the time to meet
with me last week. He listened to the
issues and the rationale for the request to the Commissioner and the Board of
Regents. He has promised to look into the matter)
Last week, I posted an online petition for supporters of the
request for an open, transparent and inclusive process that would engage the
community in a dialogue about the implications and implementation plans of the Task
Force recommendations. I’ve been
requesting this dialogue with local and state educational officials since the Task
Force Report was released in December 2015.
This online petition has received nearly 500 signatures since being
posted on January 24th. These
are in addition to the 115 sent to Commissioner Elia and Chancellor Tisch last
week. Thanks to all who joined us to bolster this request. You can still sign the PETITION.
Commissioner Elia, the strategy of ignoring is unproductive
and ultimately detrimental. Over 600
education stakeholders are asking NOT to be ignored; disregarded; or rejected. We are asking that you pay attention to our
questions and our concerns. We are asking
that you acknowledge us and we look forward to hearing from you!
The title of this blog catch me to read this from here. An extremely good content is this. To get the college paper one can visit at college essay writing service which is located at USA.
ReplyDeleteThough things are different now for most of the people around porn reviews, people think that blow pass is thing of past. But sooner or later blowpass going to make a come back and they even shared a big post about blow pass quality in a blogpost on devil reviews.
ReplyDelete