WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Courageous Saucedo student speaks out against ISAT.  

Sun-Times editorial

...CPS damaged its credibility with parents, and undermined the trust that is so essential to good schooling, by choosing, foolishly, to interview small children on such a sensitive matter without even informing their parents — the ones who made the final decision on skipping the test. CPS had the law on its side, but wisdom was nowhere to be found. -- Terrible idea to interrogate kids 

Drummond Teacher Juan Gonzalez

 Drummond teachers have said they are afraid of losing their jobs, but felt obligated to take a stand. “I stand strong  in my decision. I feel I’m on the side of right,” Gonzalez says. “This boycott of the ISAT is not about the ISAT alone,” he says. “It's about the incredible amount of testing that we give our kids.” -- WBEZ

Liberal Teacher

Then I blew my stack and asked who is really paying you to say this. How can your daughter’s charter school be closed when it never opened in the first place? Mayor DiBlasio did not close any schools. How can one close a school that was never even opened? By the way, with all the money being paid for your fake grass roots campaign, jingoistic ads and commercials, your pal Eva could build ten more charters. Of course, she hung up in the middle of my rant. -- The Public Educator

CTU Vice-President Jesse Sharkey 

 “What we see are schools that are in the poorest neighborhoods in the city of Chicago. We see schools that are as a group 97 percent African-American. These policies will hurt the students they are meant to help and it will punish the dedicated educators that have made a point in their life to dedicate their lives to working with the student population.” -- Sun-Times, CPS CEO recommends turnarounds for three schools

Veteran teacher, Gerald J. Conti

With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that  “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching “heavy,” working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised. -- WaPo, Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’