Superintendent Vitti was a teacher for exactly two years in two different schools in two different states before he started his march to education domination. His feet barely wet he decided he had given the classroom all he could and he had bigger fish to fry and this lack of true education experience hurts the district.
I have written about his love of Teach for America which takes non education majors puts them through a fie week access course and then puts them in our neediest schools where they are supposed to serve two years assuring these vulnerable students have an ever revolving door of novice teachers or what I like to call the stupidest plan ever. He doesn't understand or appreciate that experience counts, most likely because he doesn't have any, but like I said I have beat that drum many times.
Two other recent developments have also highlighted how his lack of teaching experience has negatively affected the district.
First he thought, you know what elementary schools especially in a district with a reading problem have to much of? Books, that's what and he wholeheartedly endorsed a curriculum that replaced books with black and white hand outs much to the chagrin of parents, teachers, students, principals, and generally everybody with common sense.
BOOKS! We got rid of books! Perhaps if Vitti had spent more time in the classroom he would have realized that they have an important role to play.
The next thing is the unraveling of the QEA bonuses meant to lure or get teachers to stay at our traditionally under performing schools, at our schools that don't do well on standardized tests. Where I think every teacher that went for or received the bonus deserved it, Vitti doesn't understand that teachers know from the get go that we'll never be rich and that often we receive enumeration from other avenues like a child learning and progressing and becoming something positive that we helped to mold.
He thought, throw money at the problem and the problem will go away but all the QEA has done as well as not working is create more problems. The teachers who uprooted their lives at the promise of a few more dollars and who are now left in the cold are rightfully and understandably upset and angry.
The district and our children would have been better served had we invested the money on behavioral supports, wrap around services and smaller classes, but now all we have are hundreds of frustrated teachers and little else to show for the 35 million dollar investment.
If Vitti had been a teacher he might have known the QEA bonus plan was doomed to fail.
When the district hired Vitti at 35 to become the superintendent they wanted an up and comer, but we would have been better served to pick somebody who better knew how classrooms worked.
I have written about his love of Teach for America which takes non education majors puts them through a fie week access course and then puts them in our neediest schools where they are supposed to serve two years assuring these vulnerable students have an ever revolving door of novice teachers or what I like to call the stupidest plan ever. He doesn't understand or appreciate that experience counts, most likely because he doesn't have any, but like I said I have beat that drum many times.
Two other recent developments have also highlighted how his lack of teaching experience has negatively affected the district.
First he thought, you know what elementary schools especially in a district with a reading problem have to much of? Books, that's what and he wholeheartedly endorsed a curriculum that replaced books with black and white hand outs much to the chagrin of parents, teachers, students, principals, and generally everybody with common sense.
BOOKS! We got rid of books! Perhaps if Vitti had spent more time in the classroom he would have realized that they have an important role to play.
The next thing is the unraveling of the QEA bonuses meant to lure or get teachers to stay a
He thought, throw money at the problem and the problem will go away but all the QEA has done as well as not working is create more problems. The teachers who uprooted their lives at the promise of a few more dollars and who are now left in the cold are rightfully and understandably upset and angry.
The district and our children would have been better served had we invested the money on behavioral supports, wrap around services and smaller classes, but now all we have are hundreds of frustrated teachers and little else to show for the 35 million dollar investment.
If Vitti had been a teacher he might have known the QEA bonus plan was doomed to fail.
When the district hired Vitti at 35 to become the superintendent they wanted an up and comer, but we would have been better served to pick somebody who better knew how classrooms worked.
True! Another problem is who he listens to in order to make decisions. He does not listen to and trust real content experts, but instead rewards blind loyalty by hiring people for positions that they have no business being in charge of. CAO, assistant superintendent of academic services for example.
ReplyDeleteOne day Vitti laments the lack of books in the home the next he doesn't see the need for books in the classroom? The man is a walking contradiction.
ReplyDelete