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Anne Foster
Jackson, MS
I am an advocate for high quality public education in America and for strong community support for our nation's public schools. I am the mother of two public school graduates and was an elected school board member for nine years in Texas, in a highly diverse and very successful public school district. I believe that in order to have quality public schools, it takes all parts of the community's support. Parents are a vital and key part of that support. Parents should be informed and active partners with their children's schools and school districts.
I am Executive Director of Parents for Public Schools, a national organization of community based chapters working with public school parents and other supporters to improve and strengthen local schools.
To learn more about PPS, visit www.parents4publicschools.org.
Recent Activity
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Anne commented on the article |Shelly, thank you very much. I completely respect and understand your desire to have a process that helps young college graduates into a teaching career, with the focus on training and long term. Perhaps TFA will come to the place that they realize that and begin offering interested people a chance to do that -- perhaps a TFA division for those who really do think they want to be a teacher long term?
I think there are some creative things being done that could shared. In the Texas school district where I served as a school board trustee, the school district had a luncheon each year honoring the top ten graduates of each of the four high schools. Each student honoree brought his or her favorite teacher, introduced the teacher and told how that teacher had affected their lives. Those remarks provoked bucket of happy tears! The district then presented each of these 40 graduates with a teaching contract, good for them to come back and sign after college. Many actually do come back, after getting education training to be a teacher.
So perhaps good thinking would include getting at this issue in high school rather than waiting until kids are already in college and perhaps on some other track.
You are absolutely right that kids deserve competent, trained, committed teachers who see teaching as their passion.
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Anne commented on the article |
Shelly, Thanks for your ideas, as well as for what you do on a daily basis. I spent nine years on a school board, tryng to hire and retain the best teachers possible as well as draw every citizen I could into the support of public education. That's why it's hard for me to understand why TFA is so demonized by so many. It's hardly a replacement for trained, career teachers, but in so many challenged schools, these young people are there instead of no one at all being there. It's hard to see how that's worse for kids. While they may not stay a long time (neither do alot of other teachers who enter the system planning on a career but who decide to opt out), who's to say that some of them don't spark something in their students that will pay off? Who can really say that they don't offer something that will benefit students? And can we be sure that they have no respect for students' cultures and that they just want to teach them their own ways?
Public schools are everyone's concern and need so much support, and while I recognize the validity of some of your points, I just don't want to turn sincere people away when they can do some good, and there is no one else doing it in that place!
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Anne commented on the article |Tim, keep me posted on your efforts .. the sooner the better! Even though Costa Rica's schools lack the resources and infastructure of the US, I have always been impressed that Costa Ricans deeply value education ... and it shows in what the country has been able to achieve over the last few decades. Your involvement will make a huge difference.
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Anne commented on the article |
Tim, Your offer to a small Costa Rican school to do the things you mentioned would be phenominal .... stuff they could never pay for. It could be very inspiring to the young kids and help them think on a big scale about what they might do someday, and how they can use their education. I hope you start soon!
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Anne commented on the article |
Clay, I understand your thoughts but want to present another perspective on school boards, whether at the state or local level. Sometimes folks who are professional educators and who are trained in that area run for boards. But I think the idea in our democracy is that our school boards are made up of our citizenry, everyday folks who usually are not trained educators.
Management of state and local schools is done by educators --whether the state departments of education or the local school districts. The boards are made up usually of people from the community who can serve as a bridge between community/citizens and schools. In the case of the school board I served on, we actually did have a professional educator on the board, and she made immeasurable contributions. However, the rest of us were attorneys, Realtors, PR people, accountants ... just parents and citizens who were willing to serve on our school board. We certainly made ourselves knowledgeable about public education issues and had opinions, but we left the running of the schools to the education professionals. It was our job to oversee certain aspects and then leave the management to the professionals. It's not that different on a state board. They have certain tasks that they are charged with (and in the case of Texas, precious few now that they have been stripped of so much for the reasons discussed), but they do not need to be trained educators in order to effectively do their jobs.
What they do need is a sincere desire to provide quality public schools for all students, a lack of any personal or political agenda, and the discipline to leave the everyday running of the schools to the professionals.
School board members should be out in the public, taking the pulse of what the community wants in their schools, and then working with the educators to make sure that happens. They should vision the future and make sure that the schools will continue to prosper.
And I agree with you that they should avail themselves of opportunities to learn and be trained to do the best job possible. There are many training opportunities that board members can take advantage of, and in Texas, local boards are required by law to have a certain number of training hours per year.
Just a little perspective based on what I experienced .... -
Anne commented on the article |
Clay, I understand your thoughts but want to give a different perspective. What I have to say here applies not only to a state board of education but to local ones as well. I don't believe that boards should require educational criteria, because that's not what they are supposed to be -- that part is already supplied in the professional educational establishments --the local school district or the state department of education. School boards should be made up of citizens from all walks of life who are willing to invest their time in overseeing education institutions. Of course they should be savvy about educational issues, but not from the viewpoint of professional educators. Having said that, sometimes professional educators are elected or appointed to boards, and there is nothing wrong with that. I served on my school board with a professional educator, and she supplied great insight -- but the rest of us were attorneys, Realtors, public relations experts, sales people, etc. We all learned extensively about education issues and in doing so, were able to effectively oversee the professional management of the district.
The example of can always cite is that I have seen many financial professionals say they are going to run for a school board so that they can dictate the financial management. But that is not their job as a member of a school board. Their job is to oversee the Superintendent who hires and manages the financial staff. That said, they can certainly ask pertinent questions and give that viewpoint and insight.
In the case of a state board of education, I think we need educated citizens who are willing to work on behalf of better educational opportunities for all students, who do not have a personal or political agenda, who are willing to stay abreast of current eduction issues, and who are willing for the professional educators to actually run the schools. -
Anne commented on the article |
Damon, I agree that a state board of education should have viable functions that contribute to a public education system. This is an elected board in Texas. The problems are several: It is a low key group that the public doesn't engage with very much and that is not high on the public's radar screen. In addition, the members' districts are huge. I don't think the system is particularly broken -- it's just that these are the folks that Texas has elected. I think the answer is for people with a different motivation to step up, garner support and bring issues to the public, and run for the seats. It takes alot of time and money to do it, but it's possible. The issues with the Texas SBOE should be brought up in an election, with an emphasis on making sure people know what's at stake in their public schools. There are some folks in Texas deciding right now to run in some of these spots, so perhaps there will be more debate and interest in the future.
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Anne commented on the article |
Tim, based on what I have seen in Costa Rica's elementary schools in your area of the country, if you managed to come up with some used computers and get them installed in a school, this would be a huge upgrade to that school. I am sure that you could get some software donated from the States, amd what an asset this would be. Schools everywhere need the interest, support, resources, and expertise that parents can bring from all walks of life. I hope that you look into this, and I will be waiting to hear the results!
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Anne commented on the article |Clay, regarding its being standard practice to pay teachers for extra-curriculur activities, my experience is that it is --but is often too little for the time they work and is often not updated regularly to reflect reality.
I did watch the video on growth models --thanks for that. I have heard pros and cons of growth models and know that they are not perfect. This whole arena is complex and frustrating -- even when one is trying to come up with methods that are fair and equitable. My school board experience showed that rewarding some teachers for the growth, rather than high test scores that their students were not yet capable of, at least honored their work and showed that they had made progress -something that did not happen when focusing solely on whether or not the goal was reached on test scores. I just know that many teachers of students from challenged populations actually accomplished much more than some other teachers whose kids scored off the chart .... -
Anne commented on the article |
Clay, as an elected school board member/trustee in a Texas public school district for nine years, the Texas SBOE was a constant source of antics that at best, did not address quality public schools for all kids, and at worst, actually decreased quality. It was disheartening to see folks in their positions who had such personal agendas. The Legislature, over the years, has stripped the SBOE of most of their power. Perhaps this is why they are so vocal in the areas that are left in their domain.
