Nazi’s – OSPI – Superintendent Reykdal – Trump Administration

It’s our understanding that the CDC responded to the Washington Post article saying it was inaccurate and that no such restrictions of use of words was in place. The CDC noted  the inaccuracy of the story but no retraction from the WA Post appears to have been made.

For our blog readers do you have any response to the following questions?

1) As head of K-12 education for the State of Washington is it an appropriate example of the children to see you statement?
2) Did you contact the CDC prior to making your Twitter comment to verify the accuracy of the story or did you just reach to the story?
3) OSPI (and by extension you) promoted SEL and PBIS as ways to minimize aggressive actions and bullying. Do you consider your comments consistent with those programs?
4) Are you aware of the various historical factors that lead to the formation of Nazi Germany? If so specifically which do you believe are duplicated with the current Presidential administration and how are they the same or comparable?
5) In the radio interview you said that this is the first evidence of an administration trying to “wipe out science”. Given that you were a history teacher have you ever seen evidence of any prior administration said anything that could be construed in a similar manner or did you not look into the history?
6) In the interview you drifted into commenting about student loans. You said that there are “rumors” of changes to Obama administration rules that may occur. Doesn’t this imply that you believe that the prior administration “rules” were good and that any changes would be “bad”?
7) In the interview you were asked if the Federal government could “bully” you and tell you what you could do…and you said that no..but..the 9-10% of the money they give you comes with all sorts of changes. For example when you go do to a CPR you can’t look at certain things. Are there any instances, in the current administrations actions, that you can cite where you have been restricted? Or, are you speaking rhetorically? Are there any examples of the prior administration you can cite where you were told what to do?
8) Isn’t ESSA supposed to return control to the State with fewer restrictions and controls?
9) In the interview you say “it looks like their poised to continue to roll this stuff back…” Do you have hard facts and examples (and if so what – details please) or are you interpreting (as you did the WA Post story) and overlaying your filters? You go on to say that the Fed’s don’t want to protect students but they don’t want to hear about it? Again, do you have facts and data or is this too your interpretation?

Our readers are interested in the views of leadership. We will share this email in an upcoming blog article. We hope you choose to respond and share your thoughts.

SWWEducation.org

On Monday January 8th I followed up to ask if they were going to respond. Mr. Olson replied saying they have no comment. I sent another email to Mr. Reykdal and he responded from his private email:

Your reference to a prior employee being “reprimanded”, was in a prior administration and I believe it was because he used a state-funded email account to express his personal opinion.  I used my private twitter account and I will continue to do so when I believe that my expression of values or interests adds to the dialogue on any given topic – politics, sports, education, news, the weather, even personal movie reviews!  I am subject to criticism, frustration, and even disdain from those who disagree – that’s the beauty of open private platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and others.

Chris

First thank you for responding. I wholeheartedly support freedom if expression and opinion. As for your Twitter account being private it became public when you chose to list your superintendent title. Using that title attempts to lend credibility, impact and importance to your private comments. Thus it is not private. The questions I posed are relevant given the comment.