----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Winona] Too Damned Quiet
My feelings are that She had someone else in
Minnesota in mind who tried to tell School Districts that she had never visited
what was wrong with their schools, The best thing that happened to her was that
she was fired when Gov Ventura took Office. The sadness is that it didn't happen
soon enough to prevent us from spending all that money on Two new
Schools. Bob Kaldunski
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 12:36
PM
Subject: [Winona] Too Damned Quiet
[Winona Online Democracy]
Bob Sebo
wanted our opinion about the legislative session, and I will offer my 2 cents
regarding whether or not Commissioner Yecke was "burned at the stake." No, she
was not. This commissioner was way too politically partisan to be effective in
leading the education community in our state. Her rigidity, her inability--or
refusal-- to forge partnerships or to compromise showed me that she was acting
on behalf of her own self-righteousness, not for high quality education for
our youth. Her blind allegiance to No Child Left Behind also lost points with
me. Take a look at what Nick Coleman, a columnist with the Star Tribune, has
to say.
(For the record, even though I disagree with Yecke, I do not
hate America.)
Vicki
Englich
Nick Coleman: Sour grapes from
Yecke
Nick
Coleman, Star Tribune
May 19, 2004N
ICK0519
Cheri
Pierson Yecke, having been fired as education commissar, is now bad-mouthing
Minnesota, claiming she was whacked by partisan thugs (beaten like a "pi�ata,"
she says) and victimized by a political culture that has "fallen into the
gutter."
What happened to Minnesota Nice, she is asking, which is like
Lizzie Borden asking what happened to Mommy and Daddy while holding a dripping
ax.
Yecke, the most political education commissioner the state has ever
had, came from Virginia on a mission to remake the state's educational system
in her image, and if she didn't entirely succeed at that, she did manage to
ratchet up the rhetorical wars. But Minnesotans hardly need be ashamed that
she has been given the heave-ho.
Her firing by the DFL-controlled state
Senate, which gave her the sack as the clock ran out on the Legislature early
Sunday, wasn't as shocking as she makes it sound.
Yecke had been on
probation for a very long time and she got expelled for very familiar reasons:
She didn't listen, she called people names, she didn't play nicely with others
and she couldn't count -- not to 34, anyway.
That's how many votes she
needed -- 34 -- to win confirmation of her appointment by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
But her historic rejection, on a 35 to 31 vote along party lines, was not
preordained. If she had taken advice from people like Mary Beth Blegen and
Wendy Swanson-Choi, she might have survived.
Blegen is the 1996 National
Teacher of the Year, a Democrat who now works as a consultant for the St. Paul
public schools. Swanson-Choi is a parent from Eagan, a Republican who
volunteered on Pawlenty's election campaign. Both say that if Yecke is looking
for someone to blame, she ought to get in front of a mirror.
Swanson-Choi
is a leader of Parents United for Public Schools, a group that has criticized
the No Child Left Behind approach to education reform.
"She did herself
in," Swanson-Choi says of Yecke's ouster. "From the time I met her and saw her
interacting with people, I thought, 'You know what? We're set up for a problem
here.' She didn't listen to anyone. It was just, 'We're doing it my way. I'm
right.' "
Swanson-Choi, who served on Yecke's language-arts committee, was
turned off by Yecke's "name-calling." (Yecke said critics had a "hate-America
agenda" and "education establishment" were always dirty words).
Swanson-Choi also was appalled by the lack of curriculum experts on her
committee and the influence of religious conservatives and private-school
backers. She said this was so pervasive that her committee wasted time on
discussions such as whether students should learn the concept of "inferring"
something (I see Tommy is wearing a parka; therefore, I infer that it is cold
outside), or whether inferring things might lead to denying literal
interpretations of Scripture.
"Now Yecke is saying that Minnesota politics
are in the gutter," Swanson-Choi says. "But I say, 'You are part of the reason
things have gotten to this level.' I feel bad for anyone who loses her job.
But this is best for the kids."
Blegen, who taught history in Worthington,
Minn., for 30 years before winning National Teacher of the Year honors, tried
several times to meet with Yecke but eventually gave up. Like Swanson-Choi,
she watched in horror as what could have been a nonpartisan reform effort
became a train wreck.
"I'm just an old teacher, but I would have talked to
her about how to work with teachers and build bridges to people who disagreed
with her," Blegen says. "Teachers aren't against standards. But we don't need
people who don't know what MY school's problems are telling us what to
do."
Blegen, who spent three years as a teacher in residence in the U.S.
Department of Education, says that Yecke's strident and ideological views
inflamed the reform issue and that matters worsened when she gave too much
influence to partisan think tanks, downplayed the growing racial diversity of
Minnesota, gave short shrift to the state's largest school districts in
Minneapolis and St. Paul, and shut out many veteran educators with impeccable
credentials who found they were not wanted.
One teacher who didn't get a
place in the discussion? National Teacher of the Year Mary Beth Blegen.
"A
first-grader in 2004 won't get out of college until 2020," Blegen says. "The
world won't be the same as it is now. We can't just give them facts to
memorize. We have to give them the skills and the ability to adapt and adjust
and work together and step into a culture of change. If we don't, we will
fail."
In the end, Cheri Pierson Yecke didn't learn how to adapt, adjust or
work together. Her rejection in the Senate shows that the fight over education
can only be resolved by consensus and bridge-building, not by polemics,
partisan rhetoric and arrogance.
The surprising thing is she came within
three votes of confirmation. She deserves an "A" for effort. But when her
final report card comes in, it will show that Yecke was not a good fit for
Minnesota.
The only thing worse than her firing might have been if she had
stayed.
Nick Coleman is at
[EMAIL PROTECTED].
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