P & C's Favorite Letter Writer Slaps Down Charleston Teacher Alliance

Jody Stallings, head of the Charleston Teacher Alliance and award-winning teacher in the Charleston County School District, got slapped down last week for having the temerity to suggest that more classroom teaching experience should be required for a new CCSD superintendent. The designated slapper was Robert Harris, apparently a favorite of the P & C, since he's had at least three letters published on the editorial page since January. Name me someone else who isn't a present or former public official.

Basically, Harris set up a straw man to tear apart Stallings's opinion. Harris suggested that Stallings believes that only teaching experience of 15 years qualifies a candidate. Stallings meant nothing of the kind, and I'm confident that he will not be allowed three published letters to refute the charge.

The three finalists do not fit Stallings criteria, nor mine either, for that matter. No doubt more recent and longer teaching experience would benefit anyone's oversight of what today's teachers face. However, I don't need to hear personally from these three to know that they think alike on public education and its policies. And a "new" superintendent search won't fix that.

The system rewards group think. A candidate who "thinks outside of the box" will never be considered. Could it be that 15 years in a classroom might produce original thinking?

Heaven forbid! After all, what do teachers know?