Dr. Anthony Dallman-Jones is a Professor of Education at Marion University and the author of two books dealing with education and preventing school dropouts. Shadow Children – Understanding Education’s #1 Problem (2nd Edition) and The Handbook of Effective Teaching and Assessment Strategies (1st Edition).
Dr. Dallman-Jones sent this in response to my first blog posting regarding my new website.
Franklin, as always great insight…I especially value your depth analysis of issues AND practices. Brilliant ending piece of prepping perpetrators with what appears to be a safety measure. How often has education initiated what appears to be well-intentioned practices and procedures only to have them backfire and children get more harmed than helped?
Careless lack of research is almost always the reason – expediency and politics are more important than children in most school district’s central offices. I worked in a large system for 2 years and rarely, if ever, heard the words “children” “students” “kids” “learners” mentioned. The major concern was keeping the media from knowing anything they could use in the news to blast the superintendent or “his” school system.
Too much time and money is spent, not on the kids, but on appeasement of outside influencers. We need an active Office of Research in every school district…and their focus should be on improving both the learning environment and best educational practices for the kids.