I was in the neighborhood barbershop the other day waiting to get my hair cut.  While I was browsing through a magazine waiting for my turn in the chair, I heard a familiar voice on MSNBC talking about the posturing that was continuing between President Obama and the congress.

I was sitting in the young section of the shop.  I call it that because that is the section where it seems that all of the young people – and me – get our hair cut.  This young barber has been cutting my hair for a long time now and I must think highly of him because he always leaves this bald spot in the top of my head near the back but I keep going back to him anyway.  He says that it’s a function of my age but I’m not so sure about that; I think maybe it’s a slip of the clippers.  Anyway…

The TV in the young section was not on the same channel as the one in the other section so I moved to that section so that I could better hear and see what the commentator was saying about the president and the congress.  It just so happened that there was a young man sitting in this section and he was talking to another waiting customer about his job in one of the local schools.

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He talked about some of the challenges that he faced while growing up and the challenges of interacting with some of these young people.  He talked with such passion that I stopped listening to MSNBC and began listening to him.  He said that those who were educating and guiding these young people needed to work more diligently to better understand them so they could be more effective at mentoring them.

When the person that he was talking to was called for his turn in the chair of the young barber that always leaves the bald spot in my head, I struck up a conversation with this young man.  By the time that I was called for my haircut, I had thoroughly vetted him and was convinced that he really cared about the young people at his school and wanted to see them become responsible citizens in their communities.

During the course of our conversation – and my uninvited listening excursion into the conversation between him and the other waiting customer, he talked about the importance of these young students being held to account for their actions, being eligible and responsible voters and being able to effectively communicate and resolve issues without resorting to violence.  And on the occasions when violence did occur, being able to effectively communicate with one another after the fact in order to avoid any further violence.

By the time that I left the barbershop I couldn’t stop thinking about how refreshing it was to hear this young man talking about caring for and mentoring these young people rather than about how unpolished and prone to violence they were.  I hope that all of the school districts will strive to hire more young men and women like him.

No matter our political affiliation, it is important that each of us do our part to assure that our school district has programs in place that will help assure the hiring, training and retention of competent, proactive, fair-minded educators.  To do this we must place people with those qualities on our school boards.  In order to do that, we must vote them in.  So remember to value the franchise and always vote; not just in presidential elections.

Eulus Dennis

While it is true that for many years Denver Public Schools (DPS) forced schools to accept tenured teachers who would have otherwise been let go, to simply flip the script and call that change is unacceptable. In other words, to fire teachers for reasons other than their inability to meet legitimate teaching standards is unfair to those teachers.  It is not only unfair, but it is illegal.  Putting a law into place, like Senate Bill 191, that allows DPS to shirk its responsibility to address the real problem and make real change is ludicrous.

There is no doubt that Senate Bill 191 allows the district to avoid paying the salaries of unwanted teachers; however, the questions that need to be answered are who is it that does not want them and

why is it that they don’t want them. All stakeholders want DPS children to receive a top quality education because it would be in the best interest of all of them.

It seems that it would be easy for DPS to do the right thing and base its decisions to either retain or release teachers primarily on their ability to teach and motivate their students to learn. Though the answer to what for many years has been referred to by DPS as “The dance of the lemons” would appear to be simple, it is not.  Politics and money, not necessarily in that order, have long played a major role in DPS’s decisions.

The Race to the Top (RTTT) provides a good example of how both politics and money can impact on school districts’ decision making. One of the requirements of RTTT is that the applicant schools must be able to show “measureable results,” which too many DPS leaders interpret solely as high standardized test scores.  When students do not perform well on tests this is not empirical data that confirms that they have not received quality instruction.

The preponderance of DPS teachers love what they are doing, love their students, and are doing a great job of educating our children. There are some, like in all professions, who do not meet standards that must be let go; but they should be let go for all the right reasons.  Those who are let go, for whatever reason, reserve the right to be represented by their union and given due process.

To blame the teachers’ union for carrying out its lawful fiduciary responsibilities to its members and attack it and an arbitrator for their dissent on Senate Bill 191 does not make sense. Instead, it smacks of the attacks on public and private sector unions that legislatures in states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, are pushing.  With the situation that DPS is in now and knowing that the futures of Denver’s children are at stake, this is not the time to play politics, posture and pursue a partisan ideology agenda.

The fact that I believe that RTTT provides a good example of how both politics and money can impact on school districts’ decision making does not mean that I also believe that it is a bad idea or that it is the wrong approach to use to solve the problem of “The dance of the lemons.”   Likewise, the fact that the teachers’ union and an arbitrator disagreed with some portion of Senate Bill 191 does not necessarily mean they believe it is a bad Bill or that the spirit of this Bill is off base.

If we are serious about providing Denver’s school-age children with the best education possible, let’s put politics aside and work together to solve this problem. There is no doubt that we can do this but in order to be successful we cannot give DPS a “shirk your responsibility” free card just so that they can win RTTT money.

Eulus Dennis