Celebrating Life
And so many blessings…
First, There’s This Guy…
My newest grandson! ❤️ Looking at him level-sets (or stirs up?) my feelings about the coldest among us (yea, you unions.) Every baby should have the chance to be parented in every aspect, from their birth, through their education, by a loving family. All of them… no matter what their backgrounds or fortunes… deserve the best. Not just a lifeline, but a right, a guarantee to a bright future. Remember that when you look at your baby, your child, or see another’s. We should fight for them, from the very beginning, to be led and guided by those who know and love them best, not faceless systems.
Another Life To Celebrate
What a blessing to have known Don Shalvey, a true gentleman, advocate extraordinaire, education entrepreneur, music aficionado, family man, friend. Thousands are mourning his loss because he was truly such an amazing and generous soul. He had been a superintendent of the rural San Carlos district when California enacted its charter law. He approved the first of them, (founded by another pioneer we lost all too young, Sue Bragato). It was a school breaking molds and innovating, in 1994, before it was cool. And Don was all for it. Then it was on to found one of the truly very first charter networks, Aspire Public Schools, that helped fuel hundreds more charters that he always stopped to help no matter if he was part of them or not. He was as comfortable with kids as with the Titans of industry, and always put you, or whoever you were talking to, first.
People like Don should bolster you when you’re facing a tough situation; give you confidence, patience and strength to have a good nature about you even when people are fighting to keep you from doing what you know needs to be done. Don was also the epitome of what school superintendents should be - open to educating all students, in whatever method or through whatever type of education organization suits them best.
Don’s comments come from a vintage CER event, our annual Leaders Forum, in the year 2000. (Right before speaking he had broken his leg but insisted on coming anyway!) It’s worth a glance, to remind yourself if nothing else that people like Don led, and created but none of it lasts forever, without our hard work and guardianship. Rest in peace, friend.
The Old World: Detroit, Michigan
Don was not only a big fan of New World thinking, but he was one of those guys who always would build up, rather than tear down. The West Bloomfield School District Board of Education would have learned a lot from Don Shalvey. Despite pleas by community leaders to allow the historic building to be purchased and renovated by Detroit Prep charter school, the Bloomfield officials voted to demolish it, but only after a very pro-union, non-parent, 28 year-old state legislator named Noah Arbitt tried and failed to rezone it out of the range of any school group. Can you say unions?
As one local advocate put it about the board’s actions:
“Can you fathom that fiscal management -- to refuse a $1.7 million offer/ sales price to then pay tax payer dollars to demolish a taxpayer asset? So that charters (free public schools also funded by tax dollars) could never occupy it? Truly unhinged!”
Sometimes It Takes A Little Prayer
I was thinking as I was writing this, what would St. Joseph do? His feast day, which Italians especially celebrate, was yesterday, March 19th. What does he have to do with education, you ask?
Well, Joseph the Worker is probably the most famous tradesman in the world, reportedly working with his hands to make all manner of things (and teach his foster Son the same!) Trades are all in vogue today.
“Long disparaged education for the skilled trades is slowly coming into fashion,” was the Hechinger Report headline just a few years ago. In Not Your Father’s Shop Class, we argued the same at the Yass Prize Semifinalist Showcase last year, moderated by the astute author & investor Ryan Craig. In his book, Apprenticeship Nation, Craig argues for “earn-and-learn experiences that pay a living wage while delivering formal skills training and experience” and that stable and successful careers are built from doing something valuable and necessary.
And we know that it works. The Yass Prize awardee rolls are full of groups innovatively delivering different and better versions of trades and training that aren’t dead ends, but the beginning to both career and higher education, if that’s a choice a student wants to make later. Just look at UnCommon Construction, Father Judge High and Oakmont Education as just three examples.
“‘These [skilled trades] are deemed critical infrastructure…employers are sweetening the packages” for new recruits with higher pay, better benefits, tool allowances and signing bonuses,’ said Mike Pressendo, chief marketing and strategy officer at the TechForce Foundation” to Hechinger.
But let’s be clear. Doing the trades doesn’t mean students don’t still have to have “higher” education in formational subjects. Math, science, coding and other forms of tech are all necessary pieces of the modern trades.
There are hundreds of pathways to education which all need to be available to all students, and not confined to traditional school buildings. But no group, district or board should dictate how that happens. St. Joseph the Worker, hear our prayer?
A Guy Walks Into A Bar…
Actually it was a gas station…⛽️ in Wallingford, CT, and the fuel pump was talking to me. The message blaring was imploring me to call my state representatives and tell them to vote for the Tax Credit Scholarships being considered by the Connecticut House of Representative so that all children may have precisely the pathways that meet their needs and it won’t take a penny from the public schools. The voice further told me that the Yankee Institute was my go-to for all information.
It was a brilliant move, talking to normal people in normal places! I strongly recommend everyone in advocacy consider doing the same, not to mention calling your legislator and telling them of your support for education freedom!
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I was supposed to tell you about Alabama but you can read my Forbes piece instead! Needless to say it’s been a busy month. Can’t wait to get back to that baby! - Jeanne