The President’s Blog
AFSA President Diann Woodard writes a monthly column that is often featured on The Huffington Post.
Below are President Woodard’s opinions on education, labor issues and the importance of leadership in today’s classroom.
America’s Impoverished Education Policies
AFSA President Diann Woodard’s recent column in The Huffington Post challenges our elected leaders to stop ignoring the poverty that haunts our schools. She writes, “Neither the ESEA nor any other federal policies address the rapid descent of a growing number of families into poverty. They offer no funding to improve learning conditions, and no equitable forms of evaluation for school leaders being forced to cope with the pathologies of impoverished communities, let alone supportive child health care.”
Under One Umbrella
Our union’s third regional leadership conference of the year, held in San Francisco, proved highly successful for a number of reasons, not least of all that we were joined by administrator organizations from Los Angeles and Milwaukee that are not currently AFSA Locals.
Preparing For Back To School
In the coming weeks, we will open school buildings sorely in need of repair, some lacking supplies and equipment and many in unsafe areas. Yet, we will cast a spell to ignore most of this as we watch teachers transform classrooms into oases of tactile learning centers. We will preserve the sanity of a good, well-rounded education for every child in spite of the world’s outcry for increased test scores.
It’s The Poverty, Stupid
The urgent call for radical changes to public education being trumpeted by business leaders is predicated on the assertion that America’s public schools are literally failing. The evidence insistently offered in support of their missionary zeal is the “fact” that U.S. students lag far behind students internationally.
The Missing Link in School Reform
Originally published on The Huffington Post May 2011.
Test-Driven Education Reform Could Set Up Kids To Fail
Originally published on The Huffington Post February 2011.
School Reform or Permanent Underclass?
Originally published on The Huffington Post December 2010.
Supermarkets, Not Superman
Originally published on The Huffington Post October 2010.
The Summer Soldiers of School Reform
Originally published on The Huffington Post October 2010.
The Audacity of Hopelessness
Originally published on The Huffington Post September 2010.