I have just discovered that a letter to the editor of the Wilson Quarterly was published. You can read the letter here.
First publication for pay: Short story in Volume 7 #1 of Tales of the Talisman
http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Talisman-7-1-James-Dorr/dp/1885093594/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313710357&sr=8-1
my take on
BUSD
Budget time for Barstow Unified: We're broke; oh, we're not broke? Sure finances are so poor we're going to have to lay off more teachers and not fill empty classroom positions. And there are lots of other places to cut. I saw the Powerpoint.
I still find it typical, not equitable, but expected that with all the proposed positions to be cut not a single administrator is offered for sacifice, just those in the classroom. Administrators are needed for … for … for administrative stuff, stuff that never directly effects the students.
The BUSD's bloated administrative salaries have yet to take a hit. The certificated reductions all come from veteran teachers, the ones who teach the best, having been convinced to retire or take their chances elsewhere. That way, if they are replaced, the students load up in new, novice, INEXPENSIVE teachers' rooms (if they are not replaced, student load explodes) and education suffers more, but the budget is reduced.
It was a bumper sticker long ago; it's still true. "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." The BUSD administration still appears to be in favor of ignorance; their current educational scripting does not teach.
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Re: NEA's Daily Update
Teachers Can't Be Assessed Through Student Achievement.
In an op-ed in the Charlotte (NC) Observer (4/22), Seth Holtzman, chair of the Religion & Philosophy Department at Catawba College, refutes the notion that teachers performance can be accurately assessed by student test achievement. "A great teacher can fail - conversely, a poor teacher can succeed - for reasons unrelated to teaching. Many factors affecting student learning are beyond a teacher's or school's control," such as "lack of motivation, distorted educational expectations, impoverished educational background, psychological problems, destructive educational attitudes, varying speeds at which students learn, varying aptitude and interest in a subject, and rebelliousness against authority." He argues that a "humanistic process such as teaching" cannot be judged with "mechanistic" metrics.
All the reasons listed above are those things that educators, teachers in the classroom, have no control over. This opinion flies in the face of all those experts from business who have never been in the class room as well as those administrators who were never there either or were so poor when they were there, they didn't do the job but could tell others how.
When teaching returns to educational practice that evolves within the class not from theoretical beliefs of those who were unhappy in school, the success of American students will rise. As long as we are enslaved by the business paradigm, student success will continue to plummet.
Mrs. Braden's submission to NCTE on current improperly posted teacher grading based on student scores.
Read my comments to Diane Ravitch on her latest book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
http://www.dianeravitch.com/comments_page12.html
August 19, 2010, is the dateline preceeding the comments.
An exceedingly important commentary on Oprah's show on education and Waiting for Superman comes from Britton Gildersleeve who strongly shows why those who have never taught have no idea how to fix education and are defiantly destroying what we have now.
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