Last year about half of our schools lost their librarians.
Then they came for the security guards and office personal
and we didn’t say anything.
This year in the new budget they are proposing cutting about
three hundred positions from those two groups.
Then they came for the teachers and there was no one left to
speak out.
Except in Duval County they have already come for the teachers.
Next year 400 slots that professional teachers should be in will be filled by
Teach for America hobbyists and this despite the fact this is the exact
opposite of what we know to be best practices.
If you didn’t know it and if you have come to my blog before
I don’t see how you couldn’t. TFA takes non education majors puts them through
a five week teacher boot camp and then places them in our neediest classrooms,
where they are supposed to serve a two
year commitment. I say supposed to because about a fifth don’t make it two
years. Most of them that do make it then leave, off to their next Masters of
the Universe conquest, to be replaced by a new set.
They aren’t cheaper either as the district pays an ever
increasing finder’s fee, about three thousand dollars and always spends more on
training for new teachers, something it has to continuously do with TFA because
their stays are so short.
No one is saying budget priorities aren’t tough, but with
the district having received 35 million in QEA money, much of which I think
they are wasting and sitting on double the statutory amount they are supposed
to keep in reserves, cutting so many positions, and replacing professional teachers
with scabs doesn’t seem the way to go.
To read more about Duval County’s manufactured budget woes
click the link:
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