It Is Time For DSEA To Regurgitate Themselves From The Bowels Of Rodel

I warned them.  Many times.  Sit at the table and you will be on the table.  The Delaware State Education Association was swallowed whole.  By who?  By the Rodel Foundation, the Delaware Charter Schools Network, DelawareCAN, the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, the Latin-American Community Center, the Parent Advocacy Council for Education, Teach For America, and the Christiana Cultural Arts Center.

DSEA needs to get out of the bowels of these organizations and spit themselves back up.  They need to sit on the table and make a stench so bad these people leave the table.

It is time for DSEA to organize.  Really organize.  Because they are in the fight for their life.  They need to stop pussyfooting and stand.  Every single teacher in this state needs to get involved.  They need to tell the DSEA Executive Board they will no longer stand for the hostile takeover of education in Delaware.  They need to tell Rodel and DelawareCAN to take their education policy and get out of Delaware.

We have seen their Achilles heel.  They hate the fact that two big Delaware charter schools joined DSEA this year.  We need more of that.  Talk to your charter school teacher friends.  Tell them to do the exact same thing.  Because it isn’t just your jobs on the line, it is their own as well.  The entire teaching profession is under siege.

Over the years, our public education system was taken over by these vultures that dare to call themselves the Education Equity Delaware.  They are corporate education reformers and charter school advocates.  And they will stop at NOTHING until education as we know it is changed forever.  They have the ears of the Governor and the Chairs of the General Assembly Education Committees.  They have lots of money and aren’t afraid to spend it.  They are behind the hit on Mike Matthews.  They are behind the destruction of House Bill #399 which would have given the option of using Smarter Balanced as part of teacher evaluations.  They are behind the education funding lawsuit against the state which will wind up costing taxpayers millions and millions of dollars.

This is war.  You don’t go behind enemy lines and listen.  You say no.  You don’t go to their stupid annual conventions trying to find the next Vision in education.  When you participate you say it is okay.  If you thought it was just Atnre Alleyne behind the attack on DSEA, think again!  It was all of them: Paul Herdman from Rodel, Atnre Alleyne from DelawareCAN, Christine Cannon from the Delaware Community Foundation, Rodman Ward from the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, Kendall Massett from the Delaware Charter Schools Network, Maria Matos from the Latin-American Community Center, Senator David Sokola, State Rep. Earl Jaques, Delaware Secretary of Education Dr. Susan Bunting and Governor Carney.  They are aided and abetted by many but this is the center.  This is the core group coming to destroy DSEA.

Did you really think Atnre Alleyne was able to amass a massive list of state and personal emails by himself?  Do you really think it was a “mistake” on his part?  Please.  He wanted to poison the water and pit people against DSEA.

While everyone was going absolutely insane about Regulation 225 this group was meeting behind the scenes and planning the annihilation of DSEA.  I always felt Regulation 225 was meant to distract the masses and it worked.  Pay attention to the neon sign at the door while the scavengers were meeting in the backyard to destroy the house.

DSEA needs to wake up and they need to do it yesterday.  This group played their hand and they aren’t done.  There is NO compromise here.  There is no collaboration.  There is no Delaware Way.  Eat at this table and you will die.  Plain and simple.  They want the whole body now that they have drawn blood.

I’m going to say this and I’m sure it won’t be popular.  Tizzy Lockman needs to get off the fence and pick a side.  You can’t serve both.  You are now a Senator.  You can’t run around with these crazy groups up there in Wilmington and be an impartial Senator.  Either you are with public education or you are against it.  It is time to show the true Tizzy.

We are now in the stage of trust no one.  DSEA stands alone.  The forces against you are even in your own organization whether you want to admit it or not.  They are in the Delaware School Boards Association.  They are in the Delaware Association of School Administrators.  It is time to root out the rot and take back public education before it is gone forever.  Before it is privatized and corporatized to the point teachers are glorified moderators in the Blockchain Personalized Learning Competency-Based Education that Rodel has been pushing forever.  These are their goals:

• Destroy Christina School District forever
• Change education funding so charter schools get more money
• Keep standardized testing (Smarter Balanced) as the measurement of student success
• Evaluate teachers based on that standardized testing
• Infiltrate and stack school boards to push their agendas
• Abolish DSEA
• Come up with an alternative to DSEA
• Increase charter school enrollment at the cost of traditional school districts
• Run the Delaware Department of Education AND the State Board of Education
• Continue to use Governor Carney as their puppet
• Remove prevailing wage clauses in school district contracts
• Push Right To Work in Delaware schools
• Continue to fool educators into thinking the Rodel Teacher’s Council is the true “Vision” of Delaware education
• Evade accountability and bad press by Delaware media by continuing to infect true journalism
• Make sure every single Delaware student has a one-on-one device in the classroom
• Push legislation allowing the State Board of Education to vote on taking over school districts based on academic “failure”, i.e. rigged tests like the Smarter Balanced Assessment that are socio-economic indicators.  The platform for this takeover mechanism will be performance frameworks similar to what charter schools in Delaware have now
• Continue to use minority advocacy groups to push their agendas (Hello PACE Network!)
• Lobby legislators to do their bidding
• Install Pay For Success programs in education which will destroy any type of bidding process for vendors in our schools
• Continue to pit right-wing parents against Liberal educators (i.e. Regulation 225)
• Show charter schools as a more viable option for education in Delaware (i.e. the $10.4 million grant from Betsy DeVos’s U.S. Department of Education)
• Find candidates to run for office who will serve them and not the people of Delaware (looking at you Guillermina Gonzales and Michael Smith)
• Continue to let people think they are the ONLY voice for Delaware
• Spread false propaganda about DSEA to the masses (Atnre Alleyne is their usual go-to hitman)
• Fool the masses into thinking the Education Funding legislation (Senate Bill #172) is about transparency when it is really about the education funding lawsuit
• Absolutely ignoring and evading true accountability when their minions do wrong (i.e. Secretary of Education Dr. Susan Bunting knowing about Patrick Miller stealing funds a decade ago when she was Superintendent of Indian River School District) and making sure no Delaware media source touches it
• Turn report cards into digital badges that will follow children from the cradle to the grave
• Use the recently passed legislation to have the Secretary suspend educator licenses to their own advantage and remove teachers who make any type of noise that would go against what THEY want
• Neuter DSEA and make them “seem” ineffective at what they do

It is time to call out our legislators when they stand with these organizations.  While they may not publicly support them with their voices they do with their votes, time and time again.  They will tell you they are against them but once they vote based on the agendas of these organizations their actions speak louder than their words.

It is time for the people of Delaware to unsubscribe not only from their emails but also from listening to their anti-public education mantras.  This isn’t a time of playing nicey-nice.  It is not a time for listening to all sides.  We’ve been doing that for years and they have been sucking the marrow out of our bones and the funding out of the classroom.  Now they will tell you they want equitable funding after they have inserted themselves into every aspect of education.  They suckered all of us.  It is time to weed them out of public education.

If you belong to these organizations and you are just going along for the ride because, hey, why not, it is time to jump off that train.  While it may look great on LinkedIn, you are only contributing to this absolute tomfoolery.  For those who are doing this, you know I know you and you know I am right.  It is time to stop.  This message is intended for many but I will call out the Delaware PTA right here and right now.

This IS us versus them.  This IS district versus charter.  This is public education vs. corporate education reform.  There is no middle ground.  There is no bargaining and thinking the Delaware Way isn’t anything else but a festering sinkhole designed to throw transparency and accountability out the window.  This IS about making everyone think it is political when it isn’t anything but greed and allowing profiteers to continue to make money off of students.  This IS about turning teachers against DSEA.

I stand for teachers.  I firmly believe they are the LAST defense against what these groups want.  They have the ability to organize and TRULY show they are a force to be reckoned with.  I’ve been hard on DSEA at times.  Those have been times when DSEA aligned with these organizations (the Assessment Inventory Task Force) or sat on the fence during crucial votes (the opt-out veto).  I did this because those actions stood against what they should stand for.  They could have made a crucial difference but they were told not to.

Mike Matthews was your leader.  Regardless of ancient blog posts, he fought for teachers every single day.  He also fought for students.  The forces aligned against him knew this.  They saw him as an immediate threat and targeted him.  They didn’t do it to start a conversation about misogyny.  They did it to gut him like a fish.  Some of you may not have always agreed with Mike.  Some of you are diametrically opposed to his politics and that is okay.  But do not think for one second Mike didn’t throw himself in front of the bus for all of you.  Because he didn’t want to weaken DSEA over this.  He sacrificed himself for every single teacher in this state.  He is a good person.  But now you need to avenge Mike by rallying together.  You need to stand together or die alone.  You need to do it now, not later.

I can’t always be your voice writing about things on here.  My priorities are changing.  But I urge all of you to take heed of what I am saying and fight for your profession.  You also need to fight for students before their rights and privacy are gone forever.  Do not be distracted by the political differences.  That is what THEY are doing.  They are setting up scenarios meant to distract you from the big picture.  They want to pit you against each other and splinter Delaware teachers into small factions.  Stand up and oppose education policies that you KNOW are bad for your profession and students.  Go to the meetings you wouldn’t dare go to before.  There is strength in numbers.  The forces against you have been using that strength for 15 years.  It is high time you did the same.  USE YOUR VOICE!!!!!

Delaware Teachers: talk to  your union reps.  Tell them you want to speak your voice.  Tell them you want to attend Executive Board meetings at DSEA headquarters.  Tell them if they won’t allow you to speak you will do it anyway.  Inform yourselves.  Question everything.  Look at every single piece of legislation and regulation that can impact Delaware education.  The resources are there.  You must seek them out.  Vote with the full knowledge that every single vote counts.  Look at legislator positions and votes.  Filter out the propaganda and find out what candidates really stand for.  See who is backing them.  Watch out for voting straight party lines because today’s candidate could be tomorrow’s Sokola or Jaques.  Do not let yourself get distracted by the smoke and mirrors.  Tell Rodel to go to Hell.