There is likely someone similar to him driving education policy in your state or school district. Watch as Rob Saxton, Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction in the State of Oregon, as he delivers a message to school administrators encouraging them to threaten teachers who dissent from Common Core.
Saxton:
Do you know what the description of a great education leader is?
It's an S.O.B. with a kindly manner . . . I'm an S.O.B. with a kindly manner . . . You gotta be an S.O.B with a kindly manner.
Credit to
Patriot Jason/Don't Tread on Farms for the video.
What does Betsy Hammond, education writer at the Oregonian report about Saxton's speech?
Some of his speech wasn't that pretty. Either directly or using initials, he used some off-color words that a teacher would not use with students as he recounted things that have happened to him.
Hammond neglects Saxton's statement that Oregon will be required to apply for another waiver in January 2014 identifying another round of focus and priority schools. (Starts at 6:15 mark in video below.)
There is no effort that is more important right now or is getting more attention than this one: our focus on priority schools. The Governor often asks, "When are we going to start to see that we're making a difference in some of these investments? Where is that likely to happen?"
We need to be able to say to the legislature, "This is where we're moving up -- this investment. And the way we're going about doing this work is changing outcomes for students."
We have a new waiver that we need to be applying for this winter. . .(hem-hawing) When I look at the waiver that came from No Child Left Behind, I have to chuckle to myself because of what it required of us in the state. What it required of us was to sort of move away from the requirements of No Child Left Behind were to develop the new report card, work on educator evaluation systems that were already required by 290, and support Title I schools through Focus and Priority process.
What's not to like? Is that just not like some of the greatest requirements you could ever have?
. . .
Now we need to apply for a new waiver. We're going to try to go in the second part of the program which will be in January. One of the things they're asking us in the new waiver is, "How would you identify additional focus and priority schools after the this four year cohort is complete?"
The structure of the ranking system insures that no matter how hard students and teachers work, there will always be focus and priority schools.
Sorry kids.
In the process of delivering this hour long harangue which included two self-indulgent tales having nothing to do with educating our kids, Saxton quotes Theodore Roosevelt saying people often misquote him. Then he proceeds to misquote him, "It is not the critic who counts," he says apparently to bolster the resolve of the administrators he has just bullied into bullying their staffs. The quote is much more fitting to describe the work that teachers and parents do than invoking it to deflect criticism of himself, the OEIB, or the administrators he is encouraging to threaten teachers. Here is the actual quote from a speech remembered as The Man in the Arena delivered in 1910:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
You can view the entire video here to judge whether the
Oregonian staff is keeping the public well informed on education issues. Watching the entire video will bear this out: This ego-maniacal guy in charge of educating our kids poses a danger to teachers and students who value real education. Any free thinker can see that. He's not the type of guy you would want in charge of your own child's education, let alone the education of every single student in the state.
Full length video of Rob Saxton - I'm an S.O.B. -- Oregon Deputy Super Rob Saxton Threatens Teachers Who Dissent on Common Core & P20W a.k.a. Rob Saxton Keynote Oregon's Continuous Improvement Network Meeting 10 1 13.
