The Education Wars: Teacher "Quality" Propaganda

More nonsense from a "yearbook" of how shitty teachers are and trashing pensions and tenure while the propagandists are at it.

They don't even know what "tenure" is, which protects districts more than it protects teachers, but why let any truth in?

The nonsense about defined contribution plans being so great and flexible gives the survey away as a bunch of bullshit.

The Educaton Wars

When corporate entities start yammering about "teacher quality," then you know the public schools have been taken over big time by privatization interests.
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Don't expect know-nothings like Stephen Brill to dare talk about the REAL problem in public education and that is with its administrators, which include principals:

Under the Bloomberg/Klein tenure things have changed drastically. As the old Principals retired, or were forced out. New "Leadership Academy principals" took their place. Many of these "Leadership Academy principals" had limited classroom experience, some never even set foot into a classroom as a teacher! Further, these principals didn't know how to collaborate with heir staffs on what was best for the schools. Some of these "Leadership Academy principals" are in their 20's & early 30's and are not mature or experienced enough to handle the Principal's position but were given the position anyway. However, worst of all is that these "Leadership Academy principals" are taught that "it is your school and do whatever it takes to run it the way you see fit". The result has been a disaster to the parents, students, and teachers alike. No collaboration only domination when it comes to the school staff.

Joel Klein and his non-educators have given the principals complete control over the schools and that means that principals are allowed to remove teachers they do not want. These principals know that the DOE, despite the July 2, 2008 Rubber Room Agreement signed with the UFT, will not interfere with the Principal's decision to remove a teacher from the school. Furthermore, Tweed made it even easier by allowing the Principal to remove the teacher's salary from the school budget sixty days after the Principal removed the teacher. Finally, Tweed's use of the "fair student funding" formula encouraged principals to remove senior and highly paid teachers from the school's budget on trumped-up charges of misconduct or incompetence so that they can hire a "newbie teacher" to replace the reassigned teacher and still have enough money to use for other school functions. The result was an explosion of "rubber room" teachers (750) and the rise of the ATR population of 1,600 teachers.

Principal quality isn't just an issue in NYC; the problem is all over the country.

The Education Wars

Beware of all such "reforms" in trying to sack "unfit" teachers; these crooks in public school districts are already sacking teachers for all kinds of reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with "competence" but having to do with being too old, too expensive, or too much of being troublemakers.

Obama won't do a damned thing about this trend because he supports it.

A rightwinger makes the case against national standards in education.

More Horseshit

from Arne Duncan, who fails to note what is really wrong with our schools.

At least he mentions "principal" quality. The problem is the hiring systems in public school districts are not based on the civil service system, although the pay scales mimic it. Hiring is based more often on political and familial connections rather than on experience and qualifications.

Duncan, of course, is just another Business Roundtable type with no clue at all about schools.

There is NO "honest assessment" on teacher "quality" because hiring decisions are more often than not NOT based on qualifications.

When you have schools like the one where I was before I was unjustly sacked had a mother and her two daughters teaching in the same school building and the principal saw nothing wrong with this, then you know something is horribly wrong with our public school system. Think of the more experienced, more talented teachers who were passed over in favor of the two daughters, both in their twenties.