Dear leaders,
I address you as "leaders" because, for some reason (perhaps manager comes too close to rhyming with janitor for your liking), you've increasingly taken to styling yourselves in this way. How grand. How imposing. How spurious.
Leaders are followed. The capacity and willingness to drive people along with the use of the pitchfork of threatened redundancy or the flaming torch of disciplinary action does not make a leader and the mere fact that you so brazenly call yourselves leaders is evidence of the malaise that prompts me to write.
For the record, if you're not Alexander, Napoleon, Monty or the modern equivalent you're not really a leader. Be neither managers nor leaders. Be provosts, masters, principals, vice-chancellors, rectors, deans, registrars, bursars. How...
Education
Dear Dr. Register,
In regard to your proposal to improve East Nashville schools, let me first say I cannot imagine the job placed before you. It is a huge job, made more complex by the diversity of our metro area. There is obviously no right answer. But there is a right course of action. And that is to involve the schools, administration, teachers, families, parents and leaders of the East Nashville community in the development of a plan to improve our schools.
Nine years ago, my husband and I moved to East Nashville despite friends’ and families’ objections. They thought it was too rough around the edges. But the thing is we liked that about it. We wanted a neighborhood for our children filled with families who don’t all look, live and pray alike. Back then, we all knew families...
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Dear Teachers, October 15, 2013
When I came to the high school at age 17, I had absolutely no idea how to be a student. Many of you know by now that I had didn’t know what a teacher-student dynamic was. I hope you understand that up to that point I had been around adults who mostly made stuff up as they went along, and expected respect from authority that was derived simply from being bigger and older, not from legitimate accomplishment. To a scared 17 year old, it looked the same at first, because of the authority aspect. In the three years I went to high school, I learned to respect you for the knowledge and expertise you represent. I think I was supposed to respect you simply for being teachers...
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Dear Ms. Sarah Angel, Managing Regional Director, Greater Los Angeles
When you sent your email about filling out your questionnaire, I thought you were sincere when you told me there was a distinction between the two groups, California Charter School Association (CCSA) and CCSA Advocates.
I thought about it all day Friday, letting my mind think about what I would present to the voters, but then I thought maybe I should make sure what you told me was accurate.
What I discovered in my research was that every person on the Advocates group is a paid employee on the California Charter School Association. It is impossible to serve two masters; you can’t be paid by one and be neutral on the other knowing it would support the mission of your employer. The fact is that all...
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Hello,
I’m a parent of two children at Chamberlin School who is very concerned about the decision of the board to walk away from the bargaining table and to impose working conditions on our teachers. I understand your position that you need to keep the fiscal realities of our city in mind when negotiating with the teachers, but imposing conditions like this is a dangerous precedent. I fully support our teachers’ right to strike in the face of such a decision.
I do understand that our teachers are some of the best paid in the state. Instead of the board and other people in the city suggesting that our teachers have it better than anyone else and should be grateful for what they get, the board could play a leadership role in asking why other districts do not make the choice that...
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Dear Team Chavez-CCS_LeadershipPics_JoanMassey2
As we come to the close of Teacher Appreciation week, I want to thank you for doing the most important work of all – educating the next generation. The world is in desperate need of a generation of true civic leaders. The real hope for our world, for creating peace, for solving our entrenched problems, for developing sustainable, humane world lies with you. And you deserve extra gratitude for doing what you can to make this at the center of what you do everyday with and for out students.
So if you haven’t received the thanks you deserve, I want to thank you publicly now. Thank you for putting your heart and soul into this every day to provide our students with what is important and necessary. Thank you for inspiring and empowering our...
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Dear Premier Clark and Minister Fassbender:
Last night the Vancouver School Board voted to send you an open letter requesting the following:
Government direct BCPSEA and its appointed negotiator to immediately begin genuine, good-faith bargaining with the BCTF.
Government assure all school boards that government will take full financial responsibility for any costs arising from grievances, arbitrations and legal actions against boards that are now not in compliance with their collective agreements with teachers due to the recent ruling of the BC Supreme Court.
Government provide adequate funding to districts to enable them to be in compliance with the collective agreements that are now back in effect.
Government restore education funding to a level that enables school districts...
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Dear Ms. Kathy DeMatteo:
I write to you regarding the recent graduation ceremonies at Twin Peaks Charter Academy. It was reported in the Daily Camera and national news sources that a student at Twin Peaks, where you serve as Board Chair, was not allowed to give his valedictorian speech at graduation and denied public recognition of his academic honors solely on the basis of his sexual orientation, which was contextually indicated in his proposed speech.
As I'm sure your board is aware, St. Vrain Valley School District has an equal education opportunities policy that reads as follows:"Every student of this school district shall have equal educational opportunities through programs offered in the school district regardless of race, color, ancestry, creed, sex, sexual orientation,...
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"There is no value in anything until it is finished." Genghis Kahn ***
Rt Hon David Cameron MP
I am writing to request a full refund for tuition fees totalling £9,000 (plus interest) paid over a period of 3 years (2007-2010) to Loughborough University.
Rest assured that once I have received the full amount I will of course be happy to return/destroy my degree and relinquish all associated qualifications, namely a Bachelor of Science, Second Class Honours, Upper Division in Sport and Exercise Science.
The reasons that I am writing to you and not the minister of state for universities and science are as follows;
a) I'm scared he'll make me do another degree.
b) See above.
My reasons for the requested refund, like all good children's stories, make little to no sense,...
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Dear Mayor de Blasio:
You have called New York a tale of two cities, and we could not agree more.
In some neighborhoods, families have a choice of sending their children to high-performing district schools or affording a private or parochial education; meanwhile, many families in low-performing districts who cannot afford to pay tuition have no high-quality choices – or can’t gain access to the handful that do exist.
Charter schools level the educational playing field for their students. But as long as there is a cap on the number of charter schools in the city, New York will continue to have a school system where zip code dictates destiny. As leaders of public charter schools in New York City, we see firsthand how life changing an excellent school can be.
Already, we receive...
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