Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute and the Rick Hess: Straight Up blog drops some knowledge.
My point is not that my friends on the left are necessarily wrong. It’s that we live in a big, diverse nation and people can honestly disagree on big questions. Unfortunately, many in education spend so little time talking to or engaging with conservatives that they sometimes seem to conclude no “reasonable person” can disagree with their view of things.
This brought to mind June Atkinson’s recent remarks about Superintendent of Public Instruction-elect Mark Johnson.
It’s really hard for me to figure out what I want to say to him, because I don’t know where to start. I mean, he has taught two years. He’s never run an organization that has almost 900 people. He has never traveled to the 100 counties. He doesn’t have a background. So, it’s like, how do I teach or how do I help a person who is an infant in public education to become an adult overnight to be able to help public education in this state?
If Atkinson had seriously contemplated Johnson’s ideas about education reform, I don’t think she would dismiss him in such a contemptuous way.
