Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Ivan Holmes says administrators, educators, and parents should ignore the latest controversial A-F grading system report card issued to schools by Superintendent Janet Barresi on Wednesday.
“How can you take it seriously when members of the Superintendent’s own party in both houses of the legislature question the results and implementation of the A-F grading system report card? That should be both personally and politically embarrassing to Superintendent Barresi,” Democrat Holmes said.
Administrators and educators should put together their own report card on the failures of the State Department of Education, says Holmes.
“If anyone deserves an ‘F’ it would be Superintendent Barresi and Governor Mary Fallin for failing our kids once again. In my opinion, they would both fail in the areas of funding education, communication with administrators and teachers, openness and transparency in decision making, storm shelters for protecting our kids, and basic common sense,” says Holmes.
The report card issued Wednesday stated the number of ‘F’s’ increased from 10 to 163 and the number of ‘D’s’ increased from 138 to 263 in just one year. “If Superintendent Barresi believes in the accuracy of her own report card, then our schools are going backward under her leadership not forward,” stated Holmes.
Holmes says the A-F grading system is flawed and it’s an attempt by A.L.E.C. (American Legislative Exchange Council) and other outside groups to discredit our educators and eliminate our public schools. “A.L.E.C. is an out of state organization made up of big corporations and wealthy millionaires who want to replace public schools with charter schools. They are using our Governor and Superintendent to carry their water in an attempt to convince parent’s that public schools are bad,” says Holmes.
Educators need to keep their eye on the prize – our children – and not be distracted by all the attempts to discredit their profession and abilities, explained Holmes. “There’s nobody who understands grading better than our educators. We need to let them do their job and keep government and outside interest groups out of our schools,” said Holmes.
“If the Superintendent is truly sincere about helping our educators, why is Oklahoma ranked last in the nation for funding public education? Why was 200 million dollars taken out of the education baseline from general revenue and lottery proceeds during the economic downturn and never returned to our public schools?” Holmes concluded.
Ignore the grades? I prefer to ignore Holmes.
It is a shame that the Baressi refuses to listen to parents, educators, legislators, and Oklahomans about their extensive concerns over Common Core, the A-F grading system, and her involvement with the federal takeover of our public school system. Her refusal to keep her campaign promises of better education, increasing parental choice and involvement, and returning teaching to the teachers (not based on a test) is proof enough that she should not be re-elected. And just as important, Ivan Holmes shouldn’t be her replacement either! Both just need to go home.