Brooks' blinders

APS Supt Winston Brooks is going to invest a considerable amount of time visiting with high school students; they are to become some of his most important advisers, link.
Brooks says, ... we really want to get their input.

The students he will be meeting "... were chosen by their principals, who were asked to choose a diverse group of students who are leaders and can influence their peers."

Likely not among them;
students carrying weapons,
students high on drugs, or
any who drop out this year.
Nor will there be even one
student with a chronically
disruptive disposition.

The impression Brooks will gain
will be skewed because
his sample is skewed.

He is also not gathering input from parents; APS' Citizen's Advisory Council was dissolved by the leadership of the APS in lieu of a "better idea". So far they have not come up with a better idea.

He is also not gathering input from his teachers, who between them share more than 70,000 years of current and on going teaching experience.

He surrounds himself with sycophants who are as long out of the real world classroom as he. As far as I know, their is not one year of teaching experience on the entire school board.

I have often suggested that board members and senior administrators should work occasionally as substitute teachers. And not just in the honors classes; they need to get their fingers dirty dealing with the learning disabled and the unmotivated, the stoned, the dangerous and the chronically disruptive.

Then, they can tell everyone else what to do with some
actual credibility.




photo Mark Bralley