Oops…I meant “More on education policy in NY”. Silly me.

It appears that the willingness to place those with little understanding, experience, connection or empathy into positions of influence over education policy is fairly common. I don’t care if you are Joel Klein telling make believe stories about a scrappy disadvantaged youth nearly lost to the mean streets of the urban jungle in Queens,  or John King telling stories about a childhood where it was only a great teacher that was able to save his life, the need to legitimize and lend weight to the opinions and experiences of those entirely unlike today’s public school students is sad.

The Klein thing is just a joke, please, but I do say  Mr. King losing parents so young is tragic. Still, imagine if all children had families that were educated, valued education, and set you up to be the type of student accepted into Harvard. The need to so weakly and ineffectively craft stories of desperation and struggle to prove that an elite few has more to offer regarding educating the neediest is transparent. It appears the “boots on the ground” aren’t welcome-but that’s nothing new.

But back to the morons…I mean more on people in education policy. This is a share, not mine, but it has to do with education policy in New York. I think it is a fine example of the foolish and clueless talking points used to deflect from honest conversation about public education. Whether it’s puffing up your tough, scrappy, disadvantaged, no chance but for one great teacher bona fides, or this Senator Marcellino who pridefully defends his position with empty and even dangerous claims and non-facts.

Enjoy and thank you to Bonnie F. Kelley Buckley and rosemary Garofolo.

Senator Marcellino is chair of the education committee in the NYS Senate. Although you may not be in his district, his position impacts all of us who care about public education in NYS and our future since children are the future. Please read and share widely.

Yesterday Bonnie F. Kelly Buckley and I had an appointment to meet with Senator Marcellino (Senate education committee chair) to discuss our concerns regarding the graduation requirements in NYS. Many of you may not aware that NYS no longer has a general diploma. All students, regardless of aspiration or ability must pass required regents exams in order to obtain a diploma in NYS. So the boy who wants to be an iron worker, plumber, electrician and the girl who wants to be a hairdresser must pass these 5 required exams including one in English written on a 14th grade level. Thats right 2nd year college level.

In 2015, more than 15,800 students, over 1,400 on Long Island, completed 4 years of high school without receiving a diploma as quoted by Newsday June 12, 2016.
http://www.newsday.com/…/vote-monday-may-ease-path-to-diplo…

I discovered first hand Carl Marcellino is completely out of touch with reality. He is another elitist who needs to be voted out. He is the most arrogant, rude, ignorant individual I have ever had the displeasure of wasting my time with.

Senator Marcellino was so rude, arrogant and quite frankly ignorant of the current state of education in NYS. I now have another mission to add to my list. That mission is to bring awareness to what an outdated elitist he is so that James Gaughran defeats him in November. He said that he was being interrupted when in fact he was so disinterested that he was the one being rude and interrupting. He never allowed either Bonnie or myself the opportunity to lay out the real facts of the current graduation requirements and our full proposal for resolution. He threw us out of his office right after I respectfully called him out for his obvious disinterest in what we had to say. I told him that he could have lied, pretended he was listening (this was after he threw us out) and his response was that he doesn’t lie. Well, I for one don’t believe that for a minute and neither will voters who care about public education in NYS. Oh and one last thing, I along with many others, will be directing NYS students who were unable to achieve a HS diploma due to failing Regents exams to Senator Marcellino for that list of “1000s of living wage jobs” he told us about so that can begin a prosperous future.

Please read my friend Bonnie’s blog. She has written this meeting up much more eloquently than I could.
https://bbuckleymomadvocateeducator.wordpress.com/…/ive-be…/

I just heard this story through a Facebook contact on the page “Multiple Pathways to a Diploma for All”. It is discouraging to think that this is how citizens and voters are represented, but sadly Carl Marcellino seems to be one more representative wed to an agenda and divorced from the facts when it comes to education policy in New York.

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Is Mr. Marcellino your Senate Rep? Whether or not you agree with the writer or the rep-unacceptable for one who assumes a public service position. It is this arrogance that is epidemic in education policy and those held up as reformers.