Mark Dayton’s latest ad claims that, while Minnesota schools have “failed”, that “Mark Dayton was a teacher”, and that he “knows what needs to be done” to fix education.
Does he, then?
By that, do they mean teachers should only show up 1/3 of time when they’re teaching, and quit in the middle of the year?
Or do they mean the state should push the same kind of alternative licensure that put Dayton in the classroom in the first place.
Or do they just mean that we taxpayers should just shut up and give them all the money the union demands via the DFL?
Since I just went to school in North Dakota – a state that spends much less per student, and gets better results – I need this explained to me.
Me too, Mitch!
After that ad, I was laughing so hard that I almost fell out of my chair.
It’s number 3, peasant. Now get back to work. Ed MN has four extra “teacher development” days scheduled for next year. Mohitos and steel bands don’t come cheap.
The perception is he is a grizzled veteran of the education wars. Why must you destroy the illusion by stating your tiresome facts?
He’s a grizzled veteran, and his memory is seared — seared! — with the recollection of crossing the river into Queens, or maybe it was Cambodia, to get to P.S. whatever-it-was. Or maybe it was to catch a flight to Minneapolis for a class field trip to observe a Honeywell Project rally. The details get a little fuzzy, but that’s not important as long as he remembers the answer – if not the question. And besides, he really doesn’t need the answer until after the election.
Remember, this was the 70’s, where recollections went to die. He was overwhelmed trying to maintain the proper draft status and then being forced to fly – commercial – to the overnight protests in far-flung cities. Heck, his teacher salary was barely enough to cover the White Cross and cannabis expenditures. It’s no wonder details were fuzzy – the whole decade was fuzzy.