This is perhaps the best thing that could happen to this school in Rhode Island, and I generously applaud their efforts! This is how you get down to business and get things done! The top priority in this entire situation is the quality, efficiency and totality of a world-class elementary education for the children of Central Falls District. It's serious business and requires immediate, deliberate action(s). Our children will be engaging, challenging and competing with well-educated individuals and businesses from around the globe. Making excuses for gutter-quality education, inexplainable budgets without priorities and low-grade teachers who show no commitment to help raise standards are cheating these young people of their future! I would recommend and support these types of actions as applicable to all public school districts across the entire country. It's time for all the B.S. and games to end, and get down to the serious business of providing our children with the essential tools they will need for a functioning life!!
Well, parents need to step up as well. Teachers can only do so much when a child has behavioral problems, lacks respect, and has no self confidence. What did the parent do and why is the child like this? Also, if you notice, the kids don't want the teachers to go and are upset, as they are probably the only people that listen and take an interest in their lives. You don't have to have the best test scores in the world ( rest of world only educates the children who want to be, rest end up in fields and factories where as we educate all) to show an improvement. When parents start doing their job and stop screwing kids up and giving them a crappy start and take their job seriously, then things will probably get better. As for Arne Duncan. I met the man and he is about as educated as one of these high schoolers. Double talk and lies get you everywhere in this world and I do belive he as well as alot of people with this education reform are going to ride this to stay in office and keep their salaries for effectively talking a good game and blaming others for the problems they have created.
"quality, efficiency and totality of a world-class elementary education" I find it interesting that AmilkarC chose the world elementary, as the school in question is a high school. Perhaps the word was basic?
As we all know the responsibility of high school is to prepare for college entrance and the professions. This supposes a specific amount of skill and knowledge before high school. There goes the concept of blaming high school teachers for literacy levels and mathematics levels. Should students graduate with "basic" education and be unable to survive in those environments? No. This reality is why in NYC there are tests in elementary and middle school and social promotion was "ended". High School cannot undo the damage of years of interrupted formal education (SIFE kids), illiteracy and lack of special education services, and social promotion. Followers of this story should look up the details of this school and the other side of the story in as many blogs and articles as they can.
"Essential tools for a functioning life" I agree with this as well. So much so that if a student cannot read and cannot compute and doesnt know the English language I believe they need more time to graduate, not four years. There goes that graduation rate statistic.
To compete around the globe students must speak three or more languages. Lets get this straight "basic" or "elementary" education is not what is needed. High quality is what is needed. Lets also get another thing straight, all kids dont learn the same with the same time and in the same way. Judging a school based on outside measures of success, especially a school with multiple subpopulations and challenges is unrealistic.
Misusing statistics to get around contracts and the law, practicing ageism and other forms of heavy handed tactics are part and parcel of White Chalk Crime. Perhaps I am playing the role of Cassandra and no one will heed my words. When the truth comes out about true corruption it will be bigger than Priests abusing boys, then ENRON, then the Wall Street mess, then the corruption before, during and after Katrina.
Breaking the Silence, When teachers talk and White Chalk crime are recommended books for anyone serious about being informed about the problems in education.
Since when does the salary of a person compared to those in the surrounding area count? Would we do this to doctors? Seriously now. You can't compare. If you want teaching to be a profession you want to pay them 22K a year? and require masters degrees and professional training and development? if a person in the area, which is a low income area which is one of the main points hello, makes 22k a year then perhaps their profession should be listed. apples to apples not apples to broccoli.. Stop scapegoating teachers. IF the kids dont have skills how did they arrive at that school? Did the teachers make them dumber? Did they lose skills? Or is the real fact that there are many reasons for student failure. Poverty, disruption, transience, homelesseness, parenthood, health issues, learning disabilities, illiteracy, SIFE (students with interrupted formal education) learning english, family reponsibilities, jobs etc. all play a part. Lets add good old fashioned lazyness and dysfunction. How many people would work an extra 7 hours a week and lose two weeks of their vacation without some compensation? Seriously now. Teachers have families and children and pets and their own lives. They cannot choose when to take vacation it is what is given to them based on the school calendar. How many people in "regular" jobs take work home to grade, and plan at home and work during the school day? How long does that take to have a toll on one's morale and health. If a child who started school not speaking English and now can have a basic conversation but doesnt pass some outside arbitrary statistic set by the state is the teacher to blame? If their gains are not large enough? It takes 7 years to develop CALP, cognitive academic language proficiency in a language. we alot 4 years for high school. add the interruptions, low attendance, misehavior violence and other challenges in low income schools. Add all the issues mentioned before. You have the recipe for damned if you do and damned if you don't. No one celebrates the gains these teachers made with these students. I believe its a pretext for other incredibly ill advised moves such as the move to charter schools and the small schools movement. Where is the promise of American PUBLIC education?
This is disgusting. If this is how Obama feels, if this continues, I a teacher and a democrat will not vote for him for a second term. Kids are not widgets. Statistics never show the whole picture. New teachers and new staff is not a fix all. If the student can't read, doesnt know the language, has a baby, needs to work etc. their reality trumps the traditional 4 year high school experience. If the kids are miseducated in middle school and arrive in high school barely literate whose problem is it? What will be this child's future? Are we to push our middle class values on this illiterate kid because everyone is going to college through magic? Rhode Island looks worse and worse the more I hear about it. Privitization in NYC. Charter schools squeezing public schools out. Misapporpriation of funds intended for smaller class size and on and on. With all the real WHITE CHALK CRIME happening the media ignores it and works in tandem with EducRATS to scapegoat teachers. I am further demoralized as a teacher in this ridiculous nation of upside down logic.
Japaspanglish - BS. None of the excuses you created out of thin air were mentioned in the story. A school district that has less than 50% of the students graduating is screwed up.The BS you throw out there is ducking responsibility - "miseducated in middle school"?...so the middle school teachers are responsible, but not the high school teachers?
You as a teacher, have an education, but these students are not getting the education they need, and you don't teach at their schools. The problem is that all teachers are seeing this as their problem, and it is not, it is the problem of the school that these teacher taught at. And the problem is that these children are failing because of substandard teaching. Period!
This is an issue that is being agreed upon by both Liberal and Conservative politicians as being the correct course followed by firing the teachers. The reason for the agreement on this one from both sides of the aisle is that they have examined all the facts regarding this story. The teachers are making almost three times what the average person makes in the surrounding community and not doing a good job teaching the students. CBS left out the salary factor in this story, and amazingly slanted it in favor of the teachers and teacher?s union.
It?s quite a work of journalism to spin it like this!
Normally, I would side with teachers on this one (my father taught school for 42 years). But after I saw on the news how only 7% of the students had suffucient reading skills and that this school has had less than 50% of its students graduate over the past many years, I say this is a wake up call. America's school system is in need of great reform. I bet after this we'll see some improvement in performance. There is no excuse for consistant poor performance.
Arne Duncan: There's an old adage that goes it is better to keep one's mouth shut and let the world think you're a fool than to open your mouth and prove it. The students at this school ...... I wonder how much time their parents spent with them on their education? Teachers can only do so much. They work with chalkboards and erasers, not with magic wands.
What CBS failed to mention is that the teachers are getting an average of over $75,000 per year in a town where the average person is getting around $25,000 per year.
I have this funny idea in my head that a person that is paid a good salary should be doing a good job. If a person is paid three times more than an average person in the area and is not performing up to minimum standards they should get fired.
There are many people in business that are paid too much and should be fired. If they don't perform and are being paid a high wage kick their butt out!
hateisafourletterword - So it's the parents fault, and not the teachers? Could it be that the teachers don't involve the parents by notifying them when the student fails to turn in homework or turns in incomplete work? I had to request meetings with one of my children's high school teachers and ask them to communicate with me during the report card period if my child's grades were slipping, and not wait until the report card came out (something that my teachers had done with my parents). I'm sorry but I don't feel that teachers are automatically exempt from having their productivity measured just because of their chosen profession.
It's the school superintendent and the school board who put this school through 6 principals in 2 years. No school can survive this kind of administrative mess; why isn't the superintendent or the school board getting fired?
The thing is the parents at the schools that the child attends were students of the same school, so if the child is ill equipped then so is the parents.
6591, just, out of curiosity, when did it become part of a teacher's job description to call every parent every time their child's grades stop slipping. According to you, your teachers had to call your parents, and apparently you expect your children's teachers to call you. But why? When will you and your family learn a work ethic? The report card is simply to report to you. If you always know in advance-how will your child ever learn the harsh lessons of failure. Let him/her fall and then deal with it. That's what my parents did and I always knew I had to keep up with my work. And you have probably less than 5 kids-right? Teachers of high schoolers often have over 100 students. Assuming that they will contact every parent when kids slip below failing is absurd. Teach responsibility and maybe the kids in our country will succeed.
I am an Obama supporter but I part ways with him on this issue if he agrees with Duncan on this.This action to fire all of the teachers is absurd.I hope they sue anf get Gallo and the board removed.
Obama's plan for education is just as flawed as Bush's ridiculous NCLB.Both are theoretical and ignorant of the reality of educational needs and priorities in America today.
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As we all know the responsibility of high school is to prepare for college entrance and the professions. This supposes a specific amount of skill and knowledge before high school. There goes the concept of blaming high school teachers for literacy levels and mathematics levels. Should students graduate with "basic" education and be unable to survive in those environments? No. This reality is why in NYC there are tests in elementary and middle school and social promotion was "ended". High School cannot undo the damage of years of interrupted formal education (SIFE kids), illiteracy and lack of special education services, and social promotion. Followers of this story should look up the details of this school and the other side of the story in as many blogs and articles as they can.
"Essential tools for a functioning life" I agree with this as well. So much so that if a student cannot read and cannot compute and doesnt know the English language I believe they need more time to graduate, not four years. There goes that graduation rate statistic.
To compete around the globe students must speak three or more languages. Lets get this straight "basic" or "elementary" education is not what is needed. High quality is what is needed. Lets also get another thing straight, all kids dont learn the same with the same time and in the same way. Judging a school based on outside measures of success, especially a school with multiple subpopulations and challenges is unrealistic.
Misusing statistics to get around contracts and the law, practicing ageism and other forms of heavy handed tactics are part and parcel of White Chalk Crime. Perhaps I am playing the role of Cassandra and no one will heed my words. When the truth comes out about true corruption it will be bigger than Priests abusing boys, then ENRON, then the Wall Street mess, then the corruption before, during and after Katrina.
Breaking the Silence, When teachers talk and White Chalk crime are recommended books for anyone serious about being informed about the problems in education.
Kids are not widgets. Statistics never show the whole picture. New teachers and new staff is not a fix all. If the student can't read, doesnt know the language, has a baby, needs to work etc. their reality trumps the traditional 4 year high school experience. If the kids are miseducated in middle school and arrive in high school barely literate whose problem is it? What will be this child's future? Are we to push our middle class values on this illiterate kid because everyone is going to college through magic? Rhode Island looks worse and worse the more I hear about it. Privitization in NYC. Charter schools squeezing public schools out. Misapporpriation of funds intended for smaller class size and on and on. With all the real WHITE CHALK CRIME happening the media ignores it and works in tandem with EducRATS to scapegoat teachers. I am further demoralized as a teacher in this ridiculous nation of upside down logic.
It?s quite a work of journalism to spin it like this!
There are many people in business that are paid too much and should be fired. If they don't perform and are being paid a high wage kick their butt out!
Obama's plan for education is just as flawed as Bush's ridiculous NCLB.Both are theoretical and ignorant of the reality of educational needs and priorities in America today.