A Denver School Teacher Responds to the Bennet Appointment

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s choice of Michael Bennet to replace departing Senator Ken Salazar (Salazar is leaving Congress’ esteemed higher body to become Obama’s Secretary of the Interior) is already drawing criticism. Bennet, the reform-oriented head of the Denver school system, has never run for office in his life and has never held a statewide position. There is little evidence that suggests he can hold onto the seat when challenged by a Republican in 2010.

A few weeks ago, when Bennet was generating buzz as a possible Secretary of Education, I spoke to a friend who is a charter school teacher in Denver. She was skeptical. Naturally, I asked her for her thoughts on Bennet’s latest move. They are below.

Throughout the last four years, I’ve been able to follow Michael Bennet’s work because of my position as a teacher in the Denver Public School system. I have supported his radical ideas about how to fix the school system, which primarily involved closing down schools and restaffing them with talented teachers. Our education system is run by unions and red tape, but it felt like no one told Bennet that. He approached his superintendent position the only way he knew how, as a businessman, and he got results. He worked in the communities with the people most in need and came up with out-of-the-box ways to fix them. Maybe the best thing about Bennet was the fact that he could get people on board with his radical ideas and unite a population of people who are typically against change. Michael Bennet has been, in many ways, the answer that Denver needed.

I guess that we won’t find out if he truly is the man that we need, because as of yesterday we should be calling him Senator Bennet. While I can go on and on touting Bennet’s potential for greatness, true greatness would come from finishing the job that he has started, and that is something we have not seen. His work on our school system has been aggressive, but it is not done. His Denver Plan calls for long term change, over decades, work that will now have go on without him.

It makes me wonder: What does it take to become a senator? Yes, Michael Bennet is a popular man in Denver. And yes, Bennet is doing great things for our city. However, with less than five years as superintendent and a resume in business before that, it makes me wonder what Bennet has really done to earn this. He was on the road to greatness, but he isn’t there yet. Aren’t we being a little premature here, Governor Ritter?

As someone who will go back into her classroom on Monday and think about the ways in which things will be changing for me on a professional level and my students on a personal level, it makes me wonder if we will ever have someone who sticks around long enough to create the lasting change that we need.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate