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| RI high school fires all its teachers who refuse to work harder and longer | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 24 2010, 04:37 PM (602 Views) | |
| teddy bear | Feb 24 2010, 04:37 PM Post #1 |
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School Supt. Frances Gallo fires entire staff at Central Falls High School, one of the worst performing schools in the state, after they refuse to accept plan to overhall the school's performance. All the teachers were asked to do was : add 25 minutes to the school day, provide tutoring on a rotating basis before and after school, eat lunch with the students once a week, submit more rigorous evaluations, attend weekly after school sessions and 2 week summer training. Even though school was worst in state, teachers didn't care so Gallo broomed them. Claims authority to do so under fed regs and state law re failing schools. She is my hero. Why should teachers continue to reap the benefits but produce such poor results.? See Providence Journal..projo.com |
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| Joan Foster | Feb 24 2010, 04:39 PM Post #2 |
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Bravo! My hero too! Thanks for posting this! |
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| genny6348 | Feb 24 2010, 05:25 PM Post #3 |
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Genny6348
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This woman is an absolute hero!! I hope this spreads to the rest of the country like a brush fire. I read about the plan she submitted to the state for remediation, it is very good. Hope she gets to implement it. |
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| cks | Feb 24 2010, 07:50 PM Post #4 |
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As a teacher, let me present an alternative view. I will start out by saying that I am not familiar with how poorly the students in that particular school were performing. But. let me begin by asking some questions. 1. What was the attendance record of students in this school? Teachers cannot teach students who are not present. It is not the teachers' responsibility to go to the home each day and pluck the student from his/her bed and transport him/her to school. 2. Supposing that students did attend regularly, did they come rested and ready to engage in the learning process? When students have not had the proper amount of sleep, have not eaten, it is difficult for learning to take place. 3. Do the students have the capability to sit still and learn? This used to be a skill that parents taught in the home - to delay gratification of whatever sort. In other words, have they come with the internal discipline that would enable them to learn. 4. To what extent did the administration help the teachers enforce discipline so that the classroom could be one in which learning takes place? If teachers did not have an administration that placed an importance on learning, then it would be very difficulrt for learning to take place in the school. 5. Along with the above question there is another - to what extent did the suits downtown demand and enforce an environment which would be conducive to learning? Now, let me add the following - teachers are supposed to be professionals. Yet, what has been proposed by the person who fired all these teachers is a plan that treats professionals like school children (this is often the case, I find, with administrators). Teachers are to give up their personal time (for which they will not be compensated) to tutor after school - this will be demanded of them. (I know many teachers who willingly give of their time before and after school as needed to help students who request assistance - that is one thing - to be forced is quite another. As a teacher, I am not ever supposed to leave my classroom - it does not matter if I have a sudden call of nature - if something were to happen as I answer that call, I am liable. What other professional is treated is that manner? What other professional is tied to his/her workplace for lunch - and has less than twenty minutes to boot to use the facilities (most faculty lounges consist of one or two toilets - unisex ) and to wolf quickly down a lunch? While I have a planning period, that is often used subbing for a colleague who is sick or who has been called to attend a meeting. I use what is left to run things off on the copier, record grades on edline, meet with students or their counselors. I have additional duties after school (for which a minimal - and I mean minimal stipend is given). Of course, there are lessons to plan and papers to grade which is done after school in the evenings (remember that I make phone calls to parents in the evening so as not to disturb them at work and because there is no where I can have a private conversation). Time with my family.........well, that is another issue. Let me say that I love what I do - and I will toot my own horn for a moment to say that I am a very good teacher. Teaching is exhausting - one is in essence "performing" (in my case for a 90 minute class three times each day). It can be exhilarating when one's students are engaged - when they are enthused and they understand a complex process or are able to make comparisons and contrasts and point out things that onenever thought of. It is exciting when the conversation about a topic raises other topics with the students eager to comment. I love it when a quiet student takes a stand and challenges me about a point that I have raised. My students will often say - "I know this is a little off topic but".....and then ask a question. I like to try to figure out what is it that was said that raised that question in their mind...and then there is the challenge to bring things back around to the original topic under discussion. Anyway, I digress - the point about the exhaustion of teaching is something that people who do not teach never seem to understand. A good teacher thinks non stop about what he/she is about to teach, has just finished teaching, and looks ahead to how the next time he/she teaches that topic it can be done better. One reads and thinks about one's subject matter to learn more and at the same time one must keep abreast with what one's students are interested in, what is affecting them, etc. I will give you an example - yesterday I was talking about the Ottoman Empire - how it collapsed as WWI ended and the rise of the modern secular Turkish state under Kemel. One of my students commented that she did a report in grade school about Kemel - that she chose him because she thought his name was cool. Anyway, another student then asked if Armenia was a part of Turkey - and did I know anything about a genocide in Armenia. I asked he how she knew about that - that in fact, the genocide that had occurred was a real problem within Turkey still today. Several of my students siad they know about it because of the Kardashians - and did I know who they were? I said yes, that I knew about the Kardashians and that their real father was OJ SImpson's lawyer and that their step father was Bruce Jenner, the Olympic decathalon gold medal winner - to which one of the quietest girls in the class said - "there is nothing that I did not know" - to which I told them there is indeed much about which I was ignorant. But the point is this - by knowing about Kim and Khloe and their comings and goings I could use that as a teachable moment as we discussed why it is that for those of Armenian descent this is still a very hot button issue. And then, of course, it was important to segue back to the 15th century Ottomans without the students thinking that they were being cut off in their discussion. Sorry about the long rant - but the idea that teachers are nuns who have nothing better to do with their lives than just teach is just plain wrong. Perhaps those teachers all needed to be fired - if they were not doing their jobs, then fine. However, where was the administration in past years - why weren't they being evaluated, talked to about other things they could try? I find it very difficult to believe that ALL of them were terrible. Like I said, I do not know the whole story but I think that one should, before cheering wildly about the decision to fire and the proposed plan is implemented, reflect a little that there is more to this than meets the eye. |
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| cks | Feb 24 2010, 08:31 PM Post #5 |
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So, how long has the Superintendent been in place that she has tolerated the low performance rate at this particular high school? What about the elementary schools that fed into this high school - what has been going on in those institutions? After all, I doubt that the students suddenly "got dumb" when they entered high school - particularly since the tests administered really only measure what one is supposed to have learned in grade school if they are anything like the OGT (Ohio Graduation Test) which while administered at the end of the sophomore year meausres grade school information and one has numerous times to try to pass it.
Edited by cks, Feb 24 2010, 08:32 PM.
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| retiredLEO | Feb 24 2010, 09:57 PM Post #6 |
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CKS, you sound like a great teacher, but when I was in HS the great teachers were few and far between. I remember going on a call as a police officer, I happened to run into a former teacher, that I knew. We got into a conversation about HS and what we had done since. He asked me who my guidance counselor was, when I told him, I was not too surprised, when he stated: "If you had her, you had no guidance". What do you think went through my mind? |
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| jvj | Feb 24 2010, 10:40 PM Post #7 |
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I'm your huckleberry...
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While I agree with the questions you have asked and that the administration surely shares some of the blame, I have to take exception to this paragraph. You asked “What other professional is treated is that manner?” I would ask what other professionals are not treated in a similar manner. I am a salaried plant manager in a manufacturing environment and my “8-5” job usually runs more like 7 to 7 and most days my lunch consist of a pack of crackers from a vending machine eaten at my desk. I’m also essentially on call 24/7 to handle problems from all over the country from customers if a problem escalates past the expertise of our tech support department which means many nights I’m on the phone several hours dealing with irritable customers. Planning periods? Most of my planning is done at night because the day just doesn’t have enough hours with all the other problems to deal with. This past year the entire salaried staff had to take a 10% pay cut because of the economic environment to make sure we kept our doors open. My wife is a medical professional. Her work day starts at 6:30 and runs anywhere between 5 and 7 depending on how many patients they see or surgeries are scheduled. Her lunches are eaten on the run between surgeries or seeing patients or not at all. She has to take call overnight, weekends, holidays, etc depending on need. She manages the other midlevel providers so most nights are spent on personnel issues, scheduling, doing dictations, etc. Plus she has to deal with and cater to prima donna doctors that think the world revolves around them. I highly respect the job teachers do and know the problems they face in the classroom are many. But let’s not pretend that they have a monopoly on being treated poorly in the work place. |
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| Concerned | Feb 24 2010, 11:25 PM Post #8 |
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There's incentive to fire them to get federal funding. If the teachers are truly that bad then firing them is one thing, but why must all teachers be judged by the performance of their students? Did the 55% who were proficient in reading have the same teachers as the ones who were not proficient, for instance. 7% proficiency in math is horrible. A lot of these kids are probably what they call "at risk." Is that the teachers' fault?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,587334,00.html?test=latestnews |
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| kbp | Feb 24 2010, 11:43 PM Post #9 |
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Well, somebody screwed up and a few did not step up in an effort to correct it as was asked of them and I doubt we'll ever know what any change produces in correcting the original problem. |
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| LTC8K6 | Feb 24 2010, 11:45 PM Post #10 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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Well, when that 7% number comes up, regardless of anything else, I have to ask what have the teachers done to try to get that number higher? I would think teachers would be tutoring out of sheer embarrassment at such numbers. I would be working very hard at my job to correct such a poor result, regardless of what anyone else did, or what funding there was. Such a number reflects on me, regardless of fault or blame. When performance drops at my factory, and the numbers begin to look poor, I work longer and harder to improve them. I do this automatically. No one has to tell me to, let alone order me to. |
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| Tom E | Feb 24 2010, 11:50 PM Post #11 |
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As a teacher, let me present an alternative view. I will start out by saying that I am not familiar with how poorly the students in that particular school were performing. But. let me begin by asking some questions. 1. What was the attendance record of students in this school? Teachers cannot teach students who are not present. It is not the teachers' responsibility to go to the home each day and pluck the student from his/her bed and transport him/her to school. No it is not but the administrator was asking the teachers to be available to help students before and after school, and during lunch to assist children, this is to help children that are there! 2. Supposing that students did attend regularly, did they come rested and ready to engage in the learning process? When students have not had the proper amount of sleep, have not eaten, it is difficult for learning to take place. I would assume some children where some children where not but the administrator was asking the teachers to be available to help students before and after school, and during lunch to assist children, this is to help children that are there! 3. Do the students have the capability to sit still and learn? This used to be a skill that parents taught in the home - to delay gratification of whatever sort. In other words, have they come with the internal discipline that would enable them to learn. We have Kindergarten pre kindergarten and head start as well as the teachers teaching these children these lessons in first and second grade, isn't that the goal of education in the first few years to get them ready to sit listen and learn, or are we teaching them math physics and english? 4. To what extent did the administration help the teachers enforce discipline so that the classroom could be one in which learning takes place? If teachers did not have an administration that placed an importance on learning, then it would be very difficulrt for learning to take place in the school. I will agree somewhat with you on this point except for the fact that good teachers tend to get even marginal students excited and learning even when they have discipline problems, bad teachers tend to make average students discipline problems 5. Along with the above question there is another - to what extent did the suits downtown demand and enforce an environment which would be conducive to learning? I think that you can also then ask to what extent the workers ( teachers) in the classroom demand and enforce an environment which would be conductive to learning? Now, let me add the following - teachers are supposed to be professionals. Yet, what has been proposed by the person who fired all these teachers is a plan that treats professionals like school children (this is often the case, I find, with administrators). Teachers are to give up their personal time (for which they will not be compensated) to tutor after school - this will be demanded of them. (I know many teachers who willingly give of their time before and after school as needed to help students who request assistance - that is one thing - to be forced is quite another. As a teacher, I am not ever supposed to leave my classroom - it does not matter if I have a sudden call of nature - if something were to happen as I answer that call, I am liable. What other professional is treated is that manner? What other professional is tied to his/her workplace for lunch Almost all educated professionals outside of teaching are tied to their workplace for lunch, dinners, overnight travel etc.. - and has less than twenty minutes to boot to use the facilities (most faculty lounges consist of one or two toilets - unisex ) and to wolf quickly down a lunch? While I have a planning period, that is often used subbing for a colleague who is sick or who has been called to attend a meeting. I use what is left to run things off on the copier, record grades on edline, meet with students or their counselors. I have additional duties after school (for which a minimal - and I mean minimal stipend is given). Of course, there are lessons to plan and papers to grade which is done after school in the evenings (remember that I make phone calls to parents in the evening so as not to disturb them at work and because there is no where I can have a private conversation). Time with my family.........well, that is another issue. Let me say that I love what I do - and I will toot my own horn for a moment to say that I am a very good teacher. Teaching is exhausting - one is in essence "performing" (in my case for a 90 minute class three times each day). You said it yourself you have class only 4 1/2 hours a day why don't you use the toilet eat lunch papers etc.. during the other 5/ 1/2 hours a day many of us work? It can be exhilarating when one's students are engaged - when they are enthused and they understand a complex process or are able to make comparisons and contrasts and point out things that onenever thought of. It is exciting when the conversation about a topic raises other topics with the students eager to comment. I love it when a quiet student takes a stand and challenges me about a point that I have raised. My students will often say - "I know this is a little off topic but".....and then ask a question. I like to try to figure out what is it that was said that raised that question in their mind...and then there is the challenge to bring things back around to the original topic under discussion. Anyway, I digress - the point about the exhaustion of teaching is something that people who do not teach never seem to understand. A good teacher thinks non stop about what he/she is about to teach, has just finished teaching, and looks ahead to how the next time he/she teaches that topic it can be done better. One reads and thinks about one's subject matter to learn more and at the same time one must keep abreast with what one's students are interested in, what is affecting them, etc. I will give you an example - yesterday I was talking about the Ottoman Empire - how it collapsed as WWI ended and the rise of the modern secular Turkish state under Kemel. One of my students commented that she did a report in grade school about Kemel - that she chose him because she thought his name was cool. Anyway, another student then asked if Armenia was a part of Turkey - and did I know anything about a genocide in Armenia. I asked he how she knew about that - that in fact, the genocide that had occurred was a real problem within Turkey still today. Several of my students siad they know about it because of the Kardashians - and did I know who they were? I said yes, that I knew about the Kardashians and that their real father was OJ SImpson's lawyer and that their step father was Bruce Jenner, the Olympic decathalon gold medal winner - to which one of the quietest girls in the class said - "there is nothing that I did not know" - to which I told them there is indeed much about which I was ignorant. But the point is this - by knowing about Kim and Khloe and their comings and goings I could use that as a teachable moment as we discussed why it is that for those of Armenian descent this is still a very hot button issue. And then, of course, it was important to segue back to the 15th century Ottomans without the students thinking that they were being cut off in their discussion. Sorry about the long rant - but the idea that teachers are nuns who have nothing better to do with their lives than just teach is just plain wrong. Perhaps those teachers all needed to be fired - if they were not doing their jobs, then fine. However, where was the administration in past years - why weren't they being evaluated, talked to about other things they could try? I find it very difficult to believe that ALL of them were terrible. Like I said, I do not know the whole story but I think that one should, before cheering wildly about the decision to fire and the proposed plan is implemented, reflect a little that there is more to this than meets the eye. Sorry but you are ranting you are whining and you are the problem!! Not because you are a bad teacher only because you let other bad teachers stay in the system, you complain about things that the rest of us out here in the private sector would love to have, when my Grandmother was a teacher she came to work brought in wood, lit the stove and worked by kerosone light to grade her papers, she was the dicsiplinarian. Let's take a page out of the teacher union funding play book SCHOOL its for the CHILDREN not the teachers. Just like a factory is to make widgets not to employee people. Sorry but you need to get a job in the private sector for 5 years to understand that your complaints are trivial beyond belief!! Tom E. |
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| cks | Feb 25 2010, 06:45 AM Post #12 |
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Dear Tom E: You raise valid points - so let me try to answer them before I am off to school. I have no say whatsoever in the hiring of teachers at my school (I happen to work in a Catholic high school. At present we have a person in our department who is godawful - our department is well aware of that - separately, we have all been to the administration to complain - yet nothing is done. I know for a fact that parents have complained - yet still nothing. The difference between her students and the other teachers whose students feed into my class is overwhelming. Some of them are willing to come for etra help to bring them us to the level that they should be a a great number do not. They would rather whine about the amount of work I assign and how hard the course is. The great lie that most people believe is that a teacher's day begins at 8 and ends at 3. For every hour of actual teaching, I put in three hours or more of preparation plus the actual grading of the work that I assign. Sometimes it is even more. Then, I am constantly working on revising my course, thinking up and executing new electives. There are countless (and many of them worthless) meetings that I have to attend before and after school with "assignments" that have little if anything to do with increasing my competency in my subject matter - which it would seem should be a priority. This I do on my own dime during the summers or in the evenings by attending coures in my area. I might add that none of that is tax deductible as teachers ony get a $250.00 line item deduction for all that they spend. I routinely spend about six hundred dollars at the beginning of each school year on supplies for my classroom - that does not include the books that I purchase to further my knowledge of those areas of my discipline in which I consider myself weak or to be current in new interpretations of historical events so that my students have the most current information possible. The ability to discipline students that you grandmother had is literally non-existent today. I doubt that you grandmother had to document in triplicate any time that she disciplined a child (verbally or otherwise). The paper trail is everything - I cannot tell you how may times I have been called down to the office to explain something that I "supposedly said" to a student that angered a mother because her daughter believes I do not "like her". As I tell the students, I am not there to be their friend. I am there to teach. I will help them, hopefully inspire them, and instill in them those things (not only a thorough grounding in the subject matter but a discipline of thought, a discipline of attention to details, and hopefully a desire to be inquisitive in all things) necessary for success not in the subject that I teach but for life in general. Finally, at least for the moment as I must get ready to leave, the school where the teachers were fired was a high school. The ability to sit still, be disciplined to do the work assigned, and to focus are skills that should have been instilled long before those students came through those high school doors. Again I ask - where was the superintendent, the school board, and the state board of education while those students were coming throught the various grades? Where were the parents who had to have seen that their children were not learning? Do the students themselves, those who were failing, not bear some responsibility? After all, as has been pointed out in another posting above (not mine) there were kids who were successful and they had the same classes, the same teachers. Yes, I will agree with you that my post may sound a bit of a whine - I am not in a union - I get paid half again what someone with my education and experience is paid because I teach in the private system where we are at will employees (which means that if my contract is not renewed I cannot even file for unemployment benefits). I have little if any benefits. I teach because I love what I do and because I feel, in my small way, that I can make a difference. Yes, I have worked at other jobs (mostly in the summer when I was younger so that I could make ends meet) and have had several opportunities to have lucrative employment in the business world because of my secretarial training. However, teaching is a vocation like no other. The financial rewards and security (for those who are non-union especially) are slim. The satisfaction that one receives when a student comes back to tell you that you have made a difference in his/her life - that is priceless. Edited by cks, Feb 25 2010, 06:49 AM.
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| kbp | Feb 25 2010, 11:44 AM Post #13 |
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"I happen to work in a Catholic high school ...we are at will employees" I believe the majority of teachers are greatly appreciated. There are always exceptions and too often those that fall into the negative minority are the leaders others follow. I'd guess that the majority of the teachers no longer working at this RI high school would have followed the policy changes, made efforts to fix whatever problems the students had. |
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| Joan Foster | Feb 25 2010, 12:15 PM Post #14 |
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cks, I respect your feelings and may I add, you are the kind of teacher that is a credit to the profession. The problem IMO is that for most public school teachers... it is not a profession anymore...it is just another unionized job. I could start a discussion Board with my anger and disgust at the "Teamsters thug mentality" that grips the NEA and teaching today: from the politicization of the classroom with Dem ideology to the activism to shut down a successful Voucher system... (or any system that clearly shows how ineffective they are) ....as Obama has allowed them to do in DC. On a personal level. I have burned into my brain things I witnessed the day my daughter started Kindergarten and arrived at the classroom door (this was like an open air Mall set-up) There were a group of other little ones, some a little frightened, some eager and excited...all locked out while their Union teacher had her smokes for the morning. When I asked her what happened to the day when "teacher" warmly greeted childen on their first day of school...she told me her contract did not require she open the door till 8AM. Over the years, I found her to be typical. I have also been a substitute teacher at times in my life. Once I had a long term sub job because "Teacher" was a union big shot and she was off involved in Union "work." She left me two days of lesson plans. This was a 7th grade and I had them for the majority of their day...only leaving for PE and Art and Music. I called her at home to find out what her broader overview was for the time period. She didn't have one. Wing it, she said. I was there over two months!!!! She could not have cared that two months of these kids education could have been WASTED.... "Teamster Teacher" mentality on display. Her real job was the Union not the kids. I wrote and formed my own units probably, if I do say so, a damn sight better than this tenured Waste of Taxpayer Money ever could do. But my real bitterness, and I do have that, is the Union victory that was the result of muscling politicians and working tirelessly to close a "private" school in the poorest section of the poor city near which I live. The Catholic Church could not keep it open...they partnered with the Lutherans and opened a non denominational school that was for the neighborhood kids. Businesses and Volunteers paid the children's tuition. There was a "contract" with the parent (usually just Mom) to come to school when called and be responsible to see the child attended. Four times a year, the sponsor met with the child, so the child could present his progress...and would learn accountability. The success at this school was a beautiful thing to see and anathema to the local Union. We fought for these kids for years, but politics always wins. Like Obama showed in DC...it's not about the kids...it's about power. Edited by Joan Foster, Feb 25 2010, 01:00 PM.
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| genny6348 | Feb 25 2010, 03:08 PM Post #15 |
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Genny6348
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Joan, as always, you have expressed most of my feelings better than I could. I try to avoid these teacher union/public education discussions because I tend to, what some might say, over do it. But it is hard to resist. My feelings are strong and burned into my brain and onto my heart. That said I will try to keep it short: 1)There are wonderful dedicated teachers whom I have known and worked with, they are a blessing and increasingly the exception. They must work in a culture that is an enemy camp sometimes and work silently for kids and their families - they are the ones who deserve any amount of compensation for their efforts and contributions. 2) Unions and their contracts have destroyed public education. 3) Administrators are frequently petty tyrants and those who care enough to actually insist on action that puts the kids first in the education equation are fighting an uphill battle against a "government sanctioned machine" and mostly despised. 4) Open a charter school and give people options. I guess the rest is better left unsaid. |
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