Mrs. Dupont mentioned St. John's county school administrators "felt" their success is attributed to the Leader In Me program or as Mr. Moore calls it a "never ending process". There are 18 Elementary schools in the St. Johns County, only three are Leader In Me schools. Those schools have been successful before Leader in Me was implemented. Other St. John's County elementary schools have been A rated since 2001 and some even earlier. To credit the county schools' accomplishments to Leader in Me, is an irresponsible, vacuous statement. In fact, FranklinCovey recently eradicated its claim that the program leads to higher academic achievement after teachers and parents expressed their concerns. Today, they state on their website, the program leads to "promising results" with a disclaimer included.
We all want our children to succeed, to be happy, but how we get them there might be a subjective matter in many households, and many schools. Some schools chose to have an elective STEM program to prepare our kids for the jobs "do not yet exist", others like Old Kings Elementary School imposes a self-help book on our kids.
A program, a language that may seem to fit into the corporate world doesn't mean it's appropriate for our elementary school kids.
Eagerly trying to mold our kids, into the 21st Century jobs that " do not yet exist", a terminology adopted by Covey from the "Glossary of Education Reform" ,yet we are ignoring free programs that will prepare them for a job in the 21st Century, like Computer Science, " The Hour of Code" . According to LinkedIn, Statistical Analysis was 2014's most in-demand skill.
The "21st Century skills", is an indefinite body of skills that no 7 habits can address. But I wonder how the 7 habits develop critical thinking? Which one of those habits improves the critical thinking and how does any of the habits contribute to the scientific literacy and reasoning, also a 21st Century skill. How will memorizing, reciting habits that some students do not understand, unleash children's curiosity, creativity? How does the 7 habits teaches basic statistical concepts and programming skills?
Do we want them to develop and cultivate "habits" deemed righteous by a corporation whose largest profit margin comes from "Leader In Me" ?
These habits may seem innocuous to some parents, but some of us recognize the fluff and strongly disapprove of this program and wish,these were the questions the principle, the educators would've asked themselves before they unanimously embraced the contract.
The contract indeed funded by I am a Leader Foundation, whose CEO, E. Boyd, Craig serves as the head of FranklinCovey Co.,Mrs. Dupont did not disclose the $5100 Annual Commitment Fee plus travel expenses associated with coaching, the school is responsible for.
Many schools hold "leadership days" or community events to showcase all the great things going on in their schools, in hopes of recruiting other schools to adopt the program. Recognize the multilevel marketing strategy?
All Flagler County district schools can become Leader In Me Schools, all of us will use the FranklinCovey "common language" in our households, as Covey prefers, wear the same shirts, fly the same flags and live by Stephen Covey's 7 habits, "a distillation of Mormon teaching", says Clayton Christensen, a director of FranklinCovey.
It is beyond unfortunate how our supposedly intelligent educators cannot see the fundamental intentions inherent in this program .
Old Kings Elementary has lost its authenticity and became a FranklinCovey Co. "Leader In Me" Corporate school.
I wholeheartedly endorse the commentary above as well as that of Ms. Stanford. My 18+ month investigation into this program supports conclusively their positions. Finally, parents and teachers from Washington to Kentucky to Florida are beginning to speak out about the true nature of the corporate and religious grab of public school curriculum imposed by TLIM. Details of my extensive research and investigation will be forthcoming in the near future. Not only is Clayton Christensen a lead professor at the Harvard School of Business, he is indeed one of at least four active Mormon leaders on FranklinCovey's seven member board of directors. If anyone should doubt the veracity of the quote attributed to him above please see the article in The Economist here (http://www.economist.com/node/21559329). This is but the "tip of the iceberg"! Implementation of this program in the public schools constitutes clear violations of both first and fourth amendment protections and those usurpations will be copiously documented in my research. I hope others will not be afraid to stand up to this seemingly innocent "cult like", "Stepford wives", robotic indoctrination of our public school kids. Please support instead free thinking, free inquiry and individualism!
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