Our school district (somewhere in the western half of Texas) has a whole new leadership team and their whole focus is the test and every bit of gadgetry they can get their hands on to “help” the students “improve” in this “Crisis”!

You’ve heard of “drinking the Koolaid”, right? Well these folks are main lining it!

And, their rule is something right out of Machiavelli! Disagree with them once… Dare to utter a peep that murmurs anything other than their latest mantra or buzzwords and it’s ‘don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!’ They have made it abundantly clear that everyone below the rank of Director is a meaningless thrall to them and demotions and firings are the words of the day for those who would DARE to speak out.

Thus the alias name and e-mail account shown above… I know that several of the admin from my district look to see who comments on your blog and Facebook site. If I am caught doing so, I WILL be fired. I apologize for my cowardice of hiding behind the continued feeding of my children. They are very serious and not afraid to ruin people’s lives at the drop of a hat!

But, I do agree with everything you have said and have written. I got the first chapter of your book that you sent out. Nicely done.

Although to speak openly is a guaranteed path to the unemployment line, I am starting to work silently to get as many teachers and administrators as I can to read your work and to really understand the damage we are doing with this madness!

Thank you for all you are doing and for your courage… I hope one day to gird myself to match your bravery. But, right now, all of my friends in my district (who already see what is going on and agree) are hunkering down in real fear of these people. I wish I could afford to stand up into the light and lead a brave charge up the hill and rid our city and state of these horrid and damaging policies!

Until that day, there are several of us who are putting together a “Resistance Movement” similar in some ways, I suppose, to the French Resistance of WWII. It disgusts me that it has to be so…

It is my hope that we all may eventually have the force and bravery (and safety) of overwhelming numbers to change this whole thing (from repealing “No Child Left Behind” to the abolishment of all “high Stakes” testing)… Perhaps we can even cause districts such as mine to hire administrations that really do actually CARE about our children’s education and the teachers and other employees that do the actual work of making that happen rather than those who are here to enforce the improvement of testing scores at any cost up to and including destroying the lives of anyone who might cause even a small bump in their path…

Thank you for your kind words for our teachers today… I saw your message on Facebook about how 23 people had seen this so far… For me, I was just too busy until now to see it!

Fight on!
Admiralkarg
Middle School Science Teacher