@badassteachersa This can NOT be real. lasvegassun/news/2014/mar/21/school-reform-caliber-teacher-matters-dc-chancello/ Please tell me this is a bad joke and no one really believed the crazytown lady in this article. God help us all! Someone needs to explain to me why anyone believes these lies: Super Big Lie # 1: “The single most important in-school factor to move student achievement is the quality of the student standing in front of the classroom,” Henderson said. “It’s not the degree a teacher has, or how long he or she’s taught, or where they went to school.” This is pure and simple union busting. I recently sat down for dinner with two TFA. Both majored in fields not related to education. One wanted to change her career to teach. One has always been on her way to somewhere else after her mission at TFA. They were placed one TFA in Middle School Science and one TFA in Elementary 4th grade. Neither were prepared. Both are shocked. Both are disillusioned. Both feel trapped because TFA actually loaned them money to move here - loans to be paid back. And neither is getting much out of the Education Masters degree program they are taking with cohorts at UNLV. Both admit there are much better ways to become a teacher. Both say Las Vegas TFA is melting down internally. It seems that TFA-in-charge-Victor Wakefield is always on the verge of losing his job because his main job is . . . . public relations and raising $7 million dollars a year . . . when he is not bragging about water polo at Princeton in an obnoxious manner that turns everyone off. Both said that TFA is not really about supporting them in their classrooms. . . its about money, power, and people climbing ladders to other places. I attended BYU in 1987 and majored in elementary education. I began taking coursework over 3 years to prepare. I learned RESEARCH based practice, studied various educational theory, and applied my knowledge in a setting that allowed master teachers to discuss best practice with me. I registered thousands of hours of practice before I finished with a student teaching that allowed me to teach full-time under the eye of a master teacher. I continued to take courses until I received a Masters degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. I was in university and graduate school education coursework for 13 years. What was the cost? Im still paying loans. It is a lie to say that TFA is prepared . . . in anyway. They are better than a sub is a lie too. Because of the bureaucracy of the school district many of us with full licenses taught for a year or more to enter the district. A fully licensed sub is obviously worth keeping in the classroom. I and many like me did that. To imply that I should accept someone as a teacher with 5 weeks of something in the summer . . . because they are a teacher like me is like spitting in my face. Super Big Lie Number 2: During her work with TNTP and in D.C. with Rhee, Henderson said she found a persistent lack of attention to the caliber of teachers in the country’s largest urban school systems. The average college GPA of American teachers is somewhere between a 2.0 and a 2.2 out of a possible 4.0, Henderson said. I would seriously question this data. Are you trying to tell me she went back into the system and looked? Really? Is this something even recorded in a database? This is an untruth. Did not happen. Surely did not happen in CCSD. I can honestly say that I have never had a principal ask my GPA - For good reason - its more important to ask other things in actual practice. My GPA is excellent and always has been but that is not what makes me love my classroom. I agree! So why do we let TFA in? “Who do we let into our teaching profession? Anybody,” Henderson said. “It’s no wonder why we don’t have the top education system in the world. The caliber of the teacher matters.” I just cant understand why the very arguments this crazytown uses . . . cant be turned around and aimed at the very sketchy program that is touting it. Please God let this TFA fad die soon so that kids wont be harmed. Super Big Lie #3 The first thing Rhee and Henderson did when they took over D.C. public schools was to focus on “human capital,” Henderson said. As the director of DCPS’s Office of Human Capital, Henderson changed the way D.C. public schools recruited, trained and evaluated teachers. And how did this turn out? Rhee was fired. She is continuously under investigation for her practices while there. She has created a huge monster called Students First/New Teacher Project that goes around bashing veteran skilled and trained teachers for fun. And this is good? Come on? Nothing to offer that is real. No data to show progress. Just a huge Public Relations system that goes around spinning false doctrine and lying rhetoric about success. What success? Super Big Lie #4. The rigorous selection process winnowed down candidates who had the “right skills and the right cultural fit,” Henderson said. Once hired, the teachers received customized training, which encouraged them to expect more out of students, she added. “You can’t just drop a curriculum on somebody,” Henderson said. “You need professional development, otherwise you’re squandering human capital.” One thing that shocked both TFA that I had dinner with: They did not find out what they were teaching until a few weeks before they arrived. One was told math and she ended up in 4th grade. Both would prefer to teach something related to their degree content. Not an option. They are assigned and most stick it out even if an opening occurs in something they prefer. They did say that not all TFA are the same. And some receive preferential treatment and more cushy assignments. There seems to be a strange pecking order and probably even bullying within TFA. There are definitely people at TFA, even in the hierarchy, who are disillusioned. I studied what I taught. I teach what I studied. This is how master teachers are created. Im still a work in progress but Im much closer than I was . . . because I prepared, studied, and experienced the classroom and school environments for 27 years. I feel like every time a TFA is hired instead of someone who put forth the effort to become a teacher . . . it degrades my degree, my license, and my school loans. Super Big Lie #5 About 12 percent of D.C. Public Schools’ 47,000 students are considered English-language learners, many of whom don’t have English-speaking parents, Henderson said. Instead of offering expensive programs that teach parents to read and properly file taxes, D.C. worked with teachers to provide materials that could help parents teach their children. “Even if you can’t read, you can do flashcards with kids,” Henderson said. “We trained teachers to engage parents by sending something like flashcards home with kids.” I was furious before. Now I am off the charts. Does she seriously think flashcards are going to do it? Like teachers in Clark County havent sent hundreds of sets of cards over decades to families and done thousands of other things to try to help. 12% is not even close to the situation we have in Clark County. I have a degree in teaching English as a Second Language. It takes 5 to 10 years for an individual to learn the academic language required to be successful in school. Im not talking about conversational English - Im talking about the more formal language of school. To imply that our district can just send home a few flashcards and it will be a fix for the poverty soaked, struggling limited language community in Clark County . . . puts this lady in a category I will label: out in left field crazytown. Super Clueless to the Situation Crazytown lady continues: The Silver State is in the middle of rolling out a new teacher and principal evaluation system, which will grade teachers as being highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective based on student test scores and how well teachers model good teaching practices. Previously, teachers were evaluated by their principals through two classroom observations and were rated either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. This system is so unfair and we are so unprepared - I will say this: lawsuits. Lots of them. How can we rate teachers on scores - only 20% have a class? How can we give a test that wont run on the technology we have? How can we require teachers to teach one set of standards and test on another? I need to put this article aside because Im going to have a heart attack. All I can do is weep.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:51:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015