Students First

For those of you who are not Oprah fans (yes, I admit it, I love her...) and didn't see her show on Monday then let me fill you in. 

At the very beginning she had Michelle Ree come out and announce her new job. She is the former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools system in Washington D.C. Rhee worked tirelessly to reform the DC school system. She purged the public schools of teachers and principals whom she thought to be incompetent. She closed 24 schools that were failing, she offered teachers a 20% pay raise in order to give up their tenure. She was doing amazing things. However, in October of this year she resigned. The teachers union had won again. So, she came on the Oprah show to announce what she was going to do next. Her decision? In her own words "I am going to start a revolution." She mentioned how we can't do this one state at time because the unions would win every time. We need to do this nation wide. To do so she started the organization Students First. 

Go to studentsfirst.org and sign the pledge. Find out what you can do to help her. Donate money if you can. SPREAD THE WORD. If you are smart and want your kids to be even smarter then you will do this. Remember STUDENTS FIRST NOT TEACHERS!

educate yourself

David and I went and saw the movie "Waiting for Superman". I can honestly say that it has changed my life and is the best documentary I have seen in a long time.

Now I rarely ever take a political stand on something because it almost always turns to pointless arguing that goes nowhere. I am not a democrat or a republican. Neither party fully encompasses what I believe. However, this is one thing that I can't not take a stand on.

And my stand is this: Public education is at it's worst. The only thing that can fix it is competition. Whether that competition be through school vouchers or more high standard charter schools being built.

The public school system has little to no competition and thus they have no reason to improve.

I'm not going to go on and on here on my blog about education and what we should do to improve it but I will say the following:

1. Go see the movie "Waiting for Superman". NOW.
   
2. Go to www.waitingforsuperman.com. Browse, read, study.
3. Text "possible" to 77177
4. Watch this 20/20 episode called "Stupid in America". This will open your eyes.

5. Go to www.americanprep.org. This is my mother in law Carolyn Sharette's charter school website. The schools are located in Draper UT and West Valley UT. They are incredible. They are how public schools need to be.

Thanks for listening.