The collective “whop” you heard coming from Orange Park, was thousands of teachers hitting themselves in the forehead after reading the letter from school board chair Frank Farrell. His overall intentions may have been good but talk about putting ones foot in ones mouth.
He urged the residents of Orange Park to contact their state and national legislatures to let them know that education is important to them and he should have stopped right there. However he didn’t preferring to go into a rant about a blame game, where he went on to list several factors that are holding our education system back.
The first three he mentioned were, too many poorly-performing teachers in the classroom, educational unions with their institutional biases and teacher tenure per se. Let me go ahead and thank you sir for showing your true colors to the teachers of Orange Park not that they didn’t have enough evidence, when a few weeks ago you pulled the rug out from under them denying them their hard earned and much deserved step increase.
There is not the epidemic of bad teachers skulking through the halls of our schools and there are procedures to get rid of the bad ones there are. Orange Park by the way is consistently ranked one of the best districts in the state and they didn’t get that way by having lots of bad teachers.
The union’s job is not to protect bad teachers and I dare anyone in Clay and Duval counties to show me one instance where it happened. My sister says she heard something once does not qualify by the way. The Clay County teachers union bargained in good faith recently coming to an agreement which was agreed upon only to be pulled back at the 11th hour.
Teacher Tenure is not a problem per se either. It is a defense for teachers against administrators that don’t know what they are doing or are vindictive. Hmm sound familiar to anyone.
Even if you think I am wrong and that there are lots of bad teachers and their unions are standing in the way of progress you must recognize this is not a problem that Orange Park has. Yet here is their school board chair propagating such mischaracterizations. He should know better but obvioulsy doesn't.
One of the biggest problems he didn’t mention was meddling politicians who don’t know what they are doing, protected by fat cat corporations who aren’t interested in our children and who had tenure per se as we vote for the same old characters over and over while things are getting worse and worse. Now that’s a subject I am pretty sure he knows about.
You know what friends, he is right though. Contact your local officials and tell them you are mad and aren’t going to take them dumping on teachers and neglecting kids anymore and why don’t you start with this guy because he’s obviously doesn’t have much of a clue.
Sounds like he's whistling Tally tunes.
ReplyDeleteThe word “propaganda” isn’t used much anymore. In fact, most of us would say it died at the end of the cold war. However, the reality is that propaganda is alive and well. It is decidedly living in the hearts of politicians. It lives in such phases as “weapons of mass destruction, we are improving healthcare by making it available to most Americans without increasing premiums or reducing coverage and most teachers are bad”.
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure when America, Florida and Governor Rick Scott along with Steve Wise decided most teachers are “bad”. I guess it was when it became convenient, in order to justify taking money and benefits away from overworked unpaid teachers. The real truth is that there are poor teachers, incompetent doctors, inadequate attorneys, unscrupulous contractors and engineers, and pompous unethical politicians. Yes, politicians who are willing to gamble Florida student's future in order to obtain a $700 million federal Race to the Top education grant. I’m certain that multiple levels of capability exist among all the professions. So, let the first profession among you without fault cast the first stone.
Lately, I have been asking people to tell me how they empirically know that a large number of teachers are incompetent. Thus far, the response I get is, “I don’t know” followed by an uncertain shoulder shrug. Do you know how many schools there are in the Duval County Public School system? I’m sure that very few of you do. Do you know how many of the nearly 300 schools in Duval County are failing schools? Here is the truth: less than one percent is failing. Of course, everyone wants all the school systems across the United States to successfully educate our children. The truth is that doctors, attorneys, C.E.O.’s and yes, even politicians were educated by teachers. The majority of students graduate ready to meet the challenges of our increasingly global economy. It’s not teachers that are inadequate and overpaid. It’s our skewed system that believes all students can become brain surgeons and rocket scientists and that anything less is a failure. The world needs people in all walks of life.
In the last decade, teachers have been asked to follow the increasing demands of federal and state laws and guidelines without the income, job security and benefits that federal and states employees receive. Today, it is difficult for teachers to find time to do effective lesson planning with all the added paperwork. This added paperwork comes from “No Child Left Behind”, the state of Florida and county school boards. These added demands can be placed on teachers, because school systems rely heavily on state and federal funds. Next, we will be asking physicians who accept Medicare and Medicaid to be evaluated and paid according to their failures.
As politicians and county school boards are talking about evaluating and paying teachers according to their student’s assessment scores I start wondering who will teach our students with learning disabilities. What underpaid teacher could afford to jeopardize their job to take on the challenges of learning disabled students? Teachers are always told that special considerations are made for these teachers, but it is difficult to find evidence of this consideration.
If we take benefits away from teachers, who already earn less statistically than other college educated professionals won’t we encourage the best teachers to leave education? In Jacksonville, Duval County Public Schools is the second largest employer after the navy. If Rick Scott or anyone else thinks this won’t damage an already dismal economy think again. How many businesses will be damaged and how many tax dollars will be lost? How many students will not have the benefit of good teachers in Florida? Teachers will go elsewhere to teach or go into other fields of employment. I can tell you that I am going to try to spend as little money in Florida as possible. Why should I spend any more money than I have to in a state that thinks so little of me!