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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Michelle Rhee’s group invades Duval’s classrooms

Michelle Rhee by the way was on Governor Scott’s education transition team and undoubtedly sold him her anti-teacher philosophy. Well now friends our very own super is bringing in the group she founded the New Teacher Project. The TNTP’s underlying philosophy is there are lots of bad teachers and if better evaluation tools are developed they can be used to get rid of them.

Below is a letter sent to numerous teachers:

As you may have heard from Principal XXXX, your school is participating in an innovative project to learn more about instructional culture and how the transition to the Common Core standards is going in classrooms. On Tuesday, March 11th, along with some colleagues, I will spend a full day on your campus to collect data on classroom implementation and hear from you and other staff members about the transition.  Our goals are to better understand the strengths and best practices your school has in place as it makes the transition to the new standards so that these can be replicated and to identify areas for continued growth so that your school and district leadership can offer targeted, helpful support to you and your colleagues.

I will observe your classroom from 9:30 until 10:00, and then we will meet together one on one from 11:10 to 11:30 in the Media Center so that you can share some instructional materials with me. Finally, I'll see you at the end of the day, from 4:30 to 5:00 in the Media Center, for a focus group with other staff members.

For your reference, I've included a list of the materials I'll ask you to bring with you when we meet.

·       A copy of your lesson plan that I can either photograph or take with me when I leave.

·       A copy of a unit plan, long term plan, or a scope and sequence that you use in your classroom. Again, I can either photograph this document or take a copy with me when I leave if you have an extra.

·       A stack of student work from the lesson I observe, or an assignment completed within the last week if you did not collect assignments during the lesson I visit.  The stack can be graded or ungraded, but it would be helpful if you could provide a description of the assignment or ensure that the assignment is clear from the student work itself (e.g. the directions are included on the students’ handouts).  When we meet, I will take some digital photos of the student work, so there is no need to make copies for us.  The work that you share will be strictly confidential and used only for this project, so we will obscure names when we take photographs to maintain your students’ privacy.

·       A stack of completed copies of the last major assessment students took in your class. Again, the stack can be graded or ungraded, but I will want to see the assessment items that students completed, so if student work is on a separate piece of paper, then it would be helpful to see a copy of the assessment that they referred to in order to produce their answers. I will take some digital photos of the assessment, so there is no need to make copies for us.  Just like the student work, the assessments that you share will be strictly confidential and used only for this project, so we will obscure names when we take photographs to maintain your students’ privacy.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.  Otherwise, we look forward to visiting your classroom soon!

Best,

I am told teachers are being volun-told to participate and to be honest other than the end of the day focus group all of this seems like it could serve as gotcha moments. With the history of the TNTP well known I would be very wary before participating. Finally if the district really wanted to know how teachers feel and think then why would it bring in an anti-teacher group to find out? 

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