Monday, January 06, 2014

Tim Jones: Student transfer issue is not a big problem

A dangerous year for education will begin this week in the Missouri Legislature and the most dangerous person of all to those who care about public education is Speaker of the House Tim Jones, R-Eureka.

Jones is targeting Common Core, but at the same time he has made it clear he is still singing retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield's tune on eliminating teacher tenure, adding to the standardized testing culture, privatizing schools, and providing educational vouchers.

Another signal that Jones is out of step comes in this story from Missourinet, in which the speaker says he does not believe there is a problem with the school transfer issue and that the law, which, as it is now stands to destroy so-called "failing school" and cause serious financial hardship for the districts that receive the people who leave the "failing schools," is working just as it is supposed to work:

“The Supreme Court has simply upheld a law that a previous, Democratic General Assembly put into place,” Jones says. “Now of course, the education establishment is howling and saying that’s somehow unfair. I don’t know what’s unfair about allowing a child to have an opportunity at a good education versus being forever stuck and mired in a failing school district.”
He says he is willing to negotiate with the “education establishment,” but says he sees the transfer law as giving children in failing districts a chance at success.
“I am very sensitive to the needs of districts to be able to manage the populations in their classrooms, to be able to manage their funding, but I am more sensitive to the needs of the children and the needs of these parents, who want their kids to succeed.”
That is a bunch of nonsense. If Jones really had concern about the children, he and his colleagues would do something abour the poverty that causes most of the problems for the failing school districts and stop scapegoating the districts and their teachers.

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