Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015
“Pennsylvania educator and public school advocate
Steven Singer is one of the most powerful voices in the nation when it
comes to speaking out for students, parents, teachers and our public
schools.”
–Jonathan Pelto, founder of the Education Bloggers Network
“Steven Singer wrote these five terrific posts last year. I
didn’t see them when they appeared. Probably you didn’t either. You
should.”
– Diane Ravitch, education historian
“Your name should be Sweet Steven Singer. You are a delight.”
–Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union
Hello. My name is Steven Singer, and I am a gadfly.
I make no apologies for that. It’s what I set out to do when I started this blog in July of 2014.
I told myself that people were too complacent. There was no
curiosity. People were too darn sure about things – especially education
policy and social issues.
They knew, for instance, that standardized testing was good for children. Why? Because Obama said so.
And he’s such a nice man. It’s too bad all those mean Republicans keep making him do all this bad stuff.
They also knew racism was over. After all…
Obama! Right? Black President, therefore, the hundreds of years of struggle – finished! Move along. Nothing to see here.
Yet all this “knowledge” went against everything I saw daily as a public school teacher.
Standardized tests are good for children? Tell that to
more than half of public school kids now living below the poverty line who
don’t have the same resources as middle class or wealthy kids yet are expected to magically ace their assessments. Tell that to the kids who
get hives, get sick, or throw up on test day. Tell it to the black and brown students who for
some unexplainable reason almost always
score lower than their white peers.
Racism is over? Tell that to all my minority students who are afraid
to walk home from school because they might get followed, jumped, beaten
or killed…
by the police! Tell it to their parents who
can’t get a home loan
and have to move from one rental property to another. Tell it to the
advertising executives and marketing gurus who shower my kids with
images of successful white people and only
represent them as criminals, thugs, athletes or rappers.
So when I started this blog, I consciously set out to piss people
off. But with a purpose. To quote the original historical gadfly,
Socrates,
my role is, “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the
service of truth.” It seems well suited to a school teacher. After all,
Socrates was accused of “corruption of the youth.”
It’s been quite a year. When I went to the
Network for Public Education conference in Chicago last April, some folks actually
seemed to know who I was. “Don’t you write that Gadfly blog?” was a common question.
When
I met NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and AFT President Randi Weingarten, they both said, “I read your blog.” And then they looked me up and down suspiciously as if they were thinking, “
THIS is the guy who writes all that stuff!?
THIS is the guy giving me such a hard time!?”
Of course, I am human, too. One can’t sting and bite every day.
Sometimes the things I write are met with love and approbation. Some
weeks even Lily and Randi like me. Sometimes.
Education historian
Diane Ravitch
has given me tremendous moral support. I can’t tell you how gratifying
it is to have one of your heroes appreciate your work! Her book “
The Death and Life of the Great American School System” really woke me up as a new teacher. I’m also on the steering committee of the
Badass Teachers Association,
an organization that has changed my life for the better. The more than
56,000 people there are my support. I would never have had the courage
to start a blog or do half of the crazy things I do without their love
and encouragement.
And there are so many more people I could thank: my fellow bloggers
Jonathan Pelto,
Peter Greene,
Russ Walsh,
Nancy Flanagan,
Mitchell Robinson, and
Yohuru Williams. Also the good people at the
LA Progressive and
Commondreams.org. The incredible and tireless radio host
Rick Smith.
There are just too many to name. But no list of acknowledgment would
be even close to completion without mentioning my most important
supporter – you, my readers. Whether you’re one of the 9,190 people who
get every new post delivered by email or if you otherwise contribute to
the 486,000 hits my site has received so far,
THANK YOU.
So in celebration of my first full year of blogging, I present to you
an end of the year tradition – a Top 10 list. Out of the 90 posts I
wrote in 2015, these are the ones that got the most attention. Often
they incensed people into a fury. Sometimes they melted hearts. I just
hope – whether you ended up agreeing with me or not – these posts made
you think.
Feel free to share with family, friends, co-workers, etc. After all,
I’m an equal opportunity gadfly. I always cherish the chance to buzz
around a few new heads!
Published: July 17, 2015
Views: 7,122
Description: It hit me like a slap in the face that
almost all Senate Democrats voted to make the reauthorization of the
federal law governing K-12 public schools a direct continuation of the
same failing policies of the Bush and Obama years. Heroes like Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren seemed to be turning their back on
teachers, parents and school children. And they were stopped in their
efforts by… Republicans!
Fun Fact: This story had some legs. It inspired a
bunch of education advocates like myself who are also Bernie Sanders
supporters to write the candidate an
open letter asking him to explain his vote. His campaign eventually responded that
it was about accountability!?
Published: Aug. 3, 2015
Views: 14,735
Description: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
thought he’d run for the Republican nomination for President. He thought
threatening to metaphorically punch teachers unions in the face would
get him votes. It didn’t.
Fun Fact: This new low in Presidential politics came
just after Donald Trump had announced he was running. Christie’s new
low now seems almost quaint after
Trump’s calls to tag all Muslims and monitor their Mosques. How innocent we were back in… August.
Published: April 18, 2015
Views: 15,818
Description: Teachers and students may be legally
restrained from telling you what’s on federally mandated standardized
tests, but we’re not restrained from telling you
THAT we’re restrained. Is this just protecting intellectual property or direct legal intimidation of educators and children?
Fun Fact: I have not yet been arrested for writing this piece.
7) Stories about Teachers Union Endorsements of Hillary Clinton
(July 12 – 4,448 hits)
(Sept. 21 – 3,873 hits)
(Oct. 2 – 739 hits)
(Oct. 4 – 7,074 hits)
Published: July 12 – Oct. 4, 2015
Views: 16,134
TOTAL
Description: You expect your union to have your
back. Unfortunately it seems our teachers unions were more interested in
telling us who we’d be endorsing than asking us who the organizations
representing us should endorse.
Fun Fact: I broke this story pretty much nationwide. News organizations like Politico were calling me to find out the scoop.
Published: Jan. 30, 2015
Views: 16,443
Description: Someone had to say it. We don’t need
any standardized tests. We need teacher-created tests. And that’s not
nearly as crazy as some people think.
Fun Fact: This was written back when the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was being rewritten and naïve fools
like me thought we might actually get a reduction in high stakes
testing. Spoiler alert: we didn’t.
Published: April 3, 2015
Views: 18,187
Description: There is something terribly wrong when
we’re using laws created to stop organized crime as a means to convict
teachers cheating on standardized tests. I’m not saying cheating is
right, but the mafia kills people. These were just teachers trying to
keep their jobs in a system that rewards results and refuses to balance
the scales, listen to research or the opinions of anyone not in the
pockets of the testing and privatization industries.
Fun Fact: Watching all those seasons of “The Wire” finally came in handy.
Published: March 20, 2015
Views: 26,420
Description: How I went to my daughter’s school and demanded she not be subjected to high stakes testing in Kindergarten.
Fun Fact: They were very nice and did everything I asked. If you haven’t already, you should try it!
Published: June 2, 2015
Views: 28,906
Description: White folks often can’t see white
privilege. This is my attempt to slap some sense into all of us. If you
benefit from the system, you’re responsible to change it.
Fun Fact: Oh! The hate mail! I still get it almost
every day! But I regret nothing! A black friend told me I was brave to
write this. I disagreed. Anytime I want I can hide behind my complexion.
She can’t.
Published: Nov. 19, 2015
Views: 45,196
Description: Our public schools are already places
of refuge for our nation’s school children. Send me more. I’ll take them
all. I’d rather they end up in my classroom than drowned by the side of
a river.
Fun Fact: I got equal love and hate for this one.
Some folks were afraid of terrorists. Others didn’t think we could
afford it. But many told me my heart was in the right place. Lily and
the folks at the NEA were especially supportive.
Published: Sept. 6, 2015
Views: 96,351
Description: Maybe we should stop laughing at black people’s names. Maybe we should try to understand why they are sometimes different.
Fun Fact: You’d have thought I threatened some
people’s lives with this one! How dare I suggest people should stop
mocking other people’s names! If you want to know how strong white
fragility is in our country, read some of the comments! But many people
thanked me for bringing up something that had bothered them for years
but that they had been too polite to talk about, themselves. This is
easily my most popular piece yet.
