Commissioner King

Dear Commissioner King,

I write to you today with sadness in my heart because school is no longer a place that fosters a child’s love for learning.  It sickens me that corporate leaders such as Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Rupert Murdoch, and others are so blatantly influencing education policy for their own financial gain.  These multi-million dollar donations and investments made by these corporate leaders through their foundations are anything but innocent. The corporate world has totally monopolized our public education system.  

In your 2011 interview with the NY Times you credited teachers for helping you to overcome an isolated childhood, but now you are aiding in destroying the teaching profession. Your teachers were able to help you overcome your isolated childhood because those teachers weren’t consumed by data and you didn’t receive a one size fits all education. Students today, who are growing up in similar situations as you did, will not be so fortunate because they will be seen as just data points on a screen and not as a whole student.

If there is any human decency left in you,  speak up for our children, our teachers, and our public schools, and influence your fellow policymakers to make decisions that benefit our public education system instead of writing policies to aid in its demise. Education can be reformed if the intentions are pure and not led by greed.

Just as through your own experience, you know there is no common child. I implore you to stop supporting standards geared towards the common child. Join us in the fight to return public education back to the public!

Sincerely,

Sara Wottawa