Student conferences fiasco, whose fault?

Students in the APS are subjects in an ongoing experiment; student lead student-parent conferences, link. The conferences occur at school, and schools are shut down for two days to accommodate them. The two days count as part of the 180 days "education" we provide for children on a yearly basis.

Apparently the scheme isn't working. Among other flaws in the model, teacher "advisers" for the conferences are apparently selected for students randomly, and may not even know the student.

The Journal editors added their two cents this morning, link.
They added Marty Esquivel's two cents worth as well.

Elections are all about name recognition. Every time the
Journal publishes Esquivel's name, he gets more votes.
The Journal is establishing a pattern of keeping Esquivel's
name in the paper, and no one else's.

During the election, a challenger's opinion is as important
as an incumbent's. For the Journal to keep printing
Esquivel's opinions, while ignoring challengers, is
intellectually dishonest. The Journal, almost 25% of the
way through early voting, still has not printed one word
from any of Esquivel's challengers.

More important than Esquivel's opinion on student lead
conferences; more important than challengers' opinions
on student lead conferences, are the opinions of the teachers
who have to teach 180 days of material in 178 days because
of student conferences, who have to teach 36 weeks worth
of material in 34, because of NCLB testing.

This particular plan is an example of top down thinking;
someone who hasn't been in a public school classroom
for ten years, telling experts who have been in the classroom
for the last ten years, how to do their jobs.

In the APS, there are 100,000 years of teaching experience,
and no seat at the table where decisions are made.

If the Journal cared about our kids, they would investigate
and report upon that issue and its consequences.

They care more apparently, about getting Marty Esquivel
re-elected. And shame on them for that.