Category Archives: education news

education news

Teacher of the year now going to teach more teachers

shanna

I have this friend — with whom I used to work in a previous life — who this past year received the highest honor someone in her profession can get.

She was named National Teacher of the Year. Shanna Peeples went to the White House, where she was honored by President Barack Obama, who said many wonderful things about her and the dedication she has demonstrated in educating young people.

Peeples, quite naturally, turned the emphasis on her colleagues who also were gathered on the White House lawn. Shanna accepted the teacher of the year award in their honor, she said.

What makes her such a stellar teacher? Her undying love of the children who learn from her. She teaches English … and until just recently she was teaching students at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo.

Now, though, she’s being promoted.

The Amarillo Independent School District has decided to put her teaching skills to work at a higher level. As Peeples writes about her new assignment: ” … I’ve been trusted with the task that my friend, Jennifer Wilkerson has done so well for our district: Core Curriculum Specialist, ELAR 6-12. For my non-Ed-jargon friends: that’s the responsibility for growing teachers and shaping literacy learning in middle and high school.”

Are we clear? She’s going to teach the teachers how to do their jobs better. At least that’s what I read in what she wrote.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/shanna-peeples/you-cant-burn-the-suit/10209664555035203?utm_content=buffer7daf4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The next thing I want to say might be taken the wrong way. I do not intend at all to sound like a Negative Norm. There’s a certain irony, it seems to me, in taking a teacher who’s just been told she’s the best in the nation at what she does and then assigning her to do something different.

Shanna Peeples certainly doesn’t dismiss the new task she’s been given at Amarillo ISD. Nor do I. Her many friends throughout the Texas Panhandle are proud of her and proud of what she has accomplished in the classroom.

Her emphasis now will be on helping other classroom teachers become the best they can be, which then will enable them to pass on the joy of learning to the young people assembled before them.

As Shanna writes: “God help me, I’m a teacher. As I told a radio interviewer: ‘It’s like Peter Parker being bitten by the radioactive spider. You can’t just quit being a teacher like I say, quit being a deejay or a short order cook at the bowling alley. You’re a teacher for life.’

“Trust me, I’ll have plenty of assignments for other people. This work is big, important work. And it won’t ever be even partway done before I die. But that’s what makes it worth giving my heart to. And my heart is with teachers as much as it is with students. Always and always and always.”
Well said. As always.
education news, religious news, Sports news, State news

Baylor announces much-needed reforms

BayloruniversityCampus_jpg_800x1000_q100

It would seem logical to presume that an institution with Baylor University’s stellar reputation would be among the last places on Earth where one could expect to witness an unfolding sex scandal.

It’s a faith-based university known for its high moral standards. Isn’t that right?

It’s also known as a place where they play some pretty good college football.

So, some football players get entangled in a sexual assault case and the university allegedly turns its back on the complaints filed by students against the athletes.

The uproar has been ferocious. With absolutely justifiable reason.

Baylor now has announced plans to implement recommendations from a panel formed to fix what’s wrong at the school.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/10/baylor-announces-sexual-assault-task-force/

The Pepper Hamilton commission has found a “fundamental failure” at Baylor to uphold federal Title IX provisions that are supposed to protect students from abuses such as what occurred at the school.

One player has been convicted of sexual assault, but the stuff hit the fan after it was revealed that university administrators tried to hide the complaints against athletes.

Head football coach Art Briles was fired. University president Ken Starr was kicked out of his office and he quit his ceremonial job as chancellor; he remains on the faculty as a law professor.  Athletic director Ian McCaw resigned.

All three of those individuals had to go.

Now it’s up to Baylor to pick up the pieces of its shattered reputation.

The Texas Tribune reports: “Let me assure you all that we are deeply sorry for the harm done to students in our care,” interim president David Garland wrote in a letter posted online. “Even during the course of Pepper Hamilton’s investigation, we began adopting improvements to our processes, and now we are pursuing the other improvements remaining in the recommendations.”

Pressure is mounting for the school to release the contents of the Pepper Hamilton report.

That seems like a good start to clearing the air and shining the light of accountability on what has occurred at the school.

I’m sure that somewhere in that report is a stern warning that Baylor needs to heed to the letter in the future: Do not, under any circumstances, even think of covering up a report of sexual assault.

education news, national news, political news, State news

Two young scholars become immediate symbols

Larissa_Martinez_jpg_800x1000_q100

Welcome to the world of political discourse, Larissa Martinez and Mayte Lara.

These two young women are accomplished scholars. Larissa finished first in her Boyd High School class in McKinney, Texas; Mayte was valedictorian of her Crocket High School class down yonder, in Austin.

What sets these two scholars apart? They are the daughters of parents who sneaked into the United States illegally.

Larissa revealed her undocumented status during her valedictory speech to fellow graduating seniors in McKinney. Mayte disclosed her status in a tweet message and has received a lot of angry — often hateful — responses over the social media network.

They also typify what is so profoundly wrong with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s impractical — and inhumane — proposal to round up all illegal immigrants for immediate deportation back to their home countries.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/10/brief-june-10-2016/?mc_cid=b15f8d77df&mc_eid=c01508274f

These two young women are precisely the opposite of the generalization that Trump laid on those who enter this country illegally. You’ll recall when he said the “Mexican government is sending” hardened criminals across the border into the United States, while offering the tepid “I’m sure there are some good people, too” who are coming here illegally.

His solution is to “build a wall” and send out an undetermined number of federal agents to round up every undocumented immigrant they can find.

What about the achievers among them? What about the children who came here as, say, infants or toddlers and who grew up as Americans?

What about the scholars such as Larissa and Mayte?

I won’t fall into the trap of over-generalization and suggest that every single child of an illegal immigrant is as accomplished as these two young women. Yes, illegal immigrants have committed some horrible crimes — as have immigrants who’ve entered here legally and Americans who were born and reared within our sovereign borders.

What does the future hold for these two individuals?

Larissa is going to attend Yale University, while Mayte will stay closer to home and attend the University of Texas.

I suspect great things await them — as long as they’re allowed to continue to pursue their American dream.

As the Texas Tribune has noted, Trump will be in North Texas next week for a series of fundraising events. Larissa would like to meet with the candidate. “Yes, I would love to talk to him,” she told WFAA-TV. “I think he even needs to know we are people too.”

 

 

education news, legal news, Sports news, State news

Ken Starr packs it in at Baylor

starr

Ken Starr’s resignation as chancellor at Baylor University because of a sex scandal might be the biggest non-surprise since, oh, when he helped engineer the impeachment of President Clinton in a case that also involved a sex scandal.

Yes, the irony is rich.

Starr quit as chancellor after the Baylor regents kicked him out of his job as president of the university. The chancellor’s job is a ceremonial one, with no actual administrative duties. The regents’ decision was based on Starr’s role in the university covering up reports of sexual abuse on its campus involving members of the school’s top-tier football team.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/01/ken-starr-says-he-will-resign-baylor-chancellor/

Frankly, Starr ought to resign his other job at Baylor, as a law professor. His presence on the campus taints the school.

Former head football coach Art Briles was fired because of this scandal. Athletic Director Ian McCaw resigned after regents put him on probation because of the same scandal.

Regents kicked Starr out of his presidency because, as the “captain of the good ship Baylor,” he was ultimately responsible for all that occurs on the campus.

Starr professed “ignorance” regarding the many rape charges that have been filed against students at Baylor. Is that a sufficient defense? Of course not.

So, now he’s gone as chancellor, saying in an interview with ESPN, “We need to put this horrible experience behind us. We need to be honest.”

OK, professor, if honesty is what you want, how about just walking away from the campus altogether?

Doing so would enable himself a chance at a new start. Better still, it would give Baylor University a chance at renewal as well.

 

education news, political news, State news

SBOE runoff turns out OK after all

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Just about the time I was ready to give up all hope of political sanity within the Texas Republican Party …

Those voters over yonder in the Piney Woods do something sensible. Who’d a thunk it?

Tuesday night, they rejected the candidacy of one Mary Lou Bruner to District 9 on the State Board of Education. Yep, the GOP runoff produced another winner, Keven Ellis of Lufkin, a member of the Lufkin school board.

Bruner had been favored to win. She finished first in the Republican primary in March and was considered a strong candidate in the runoff. Then came the torrent of criticism regarding many of the former kindergarten teacher’s social media posts.

The one that got the most attention has been her contention that President Obama subsidized his drug habit as a young college student by prostituting himself. My favorite, though, was the notion she posted about dinosaurs becoming extinct because the baby T-Rexes couldn’t survive after Noah’s Ark made landfall on Mount Ararat.

District 9 Republicans then began to give serious thought to the choices they had. Did they really want someone with that kind of outlook representing them on the board that determines public education policy in Texas?

I’m still not crazy about the notion of electing these board members. I still prefer that they be appointed, subjected to Texas Senate confirmation, and that they have a deep background in education.

A Republican runoff in one East Texas SBOE district shouldn’t be seen necessarily as a harbinger of a return to sanity in the state’s political process. The state GOP, which dominates the Texas political landscape to the point that it has all but eradicated Democrats’ viability, still is capable of enacting some highly restrictive public policies.

Still, Keven Ellis’s runoff victory in East Texas gives me some hope that reason and sanity still have a voice within the state Republican Party.