Ah, the wisdom of an experienced teacher. Here is the face of reform that would work from Accountable Talk. I love Step 5. As I commented on AT's post, on the few occasions where all our admins were out, the teachers and secretaries (NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE ABILITY OF GOOD SCHOOL SECRETARIES TO RUN A SCHOOL) sort of just took over and the place ran better than ever. Ed Notes has always stood for the principle of election of principals.
And make sure to check out AT's great suggestion to throw shoes at pictures of Bloomberg. Maybe start all faculty conferences that way. I bet the supevisors join in - if we haven't fired them yet.
S t e p O n e - - S t o p t h e G i m m i c k s
S t e p T w o - - E n f o r c e D i s c i p l i n e
S t e p T h r e e - - R e d u c e C l a s s S i z e
S t e p F o u r - - A t t r a c t i n g a n d K e e p i n g t h e B e s t T e a c h e r s
S t e p F i v e - - F i r e A l l A d m i n i s t r a t o r s
Accountable talk did an excellent job on this topic and I agree with the steps he came up with.
ReplyDeleteNorm, your comment gave me a great idea. Instead of starting faculty conferences with the shoe-throw, why not start union meetings with it? Something similar to the Orwellian Two-Minutes Hate, except directed at Bloomberg? Maybe we could finally--FINALLY--break some of the apathy out there.
ReplyDeleteFiring all administrators would be a good start. Next make sure that the new ones hired are not done so out of cronyism or nepatism. Did you ever notice that some of the administrators have the same last name. Even teachers are hired because they are somehow related to someone in power. The only other way to get hired is to serve as a loyal rat and lacky within a school for 5-7 years.
ReplyDeleteI like that "fire all the administrators". Has a nice Lord of the Flies ring to it. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the idea AT - Can we include some of our favorite UFT officials as targets?
ReplyDeleteAnd to A Teacher - Imagine of all the teachers at your school brought in spears for a Lord of the Flies hunting party for your admins?
Jumped into the Bronx High School of Science controversy with this comment and completely confused the whole EdNotes community. We came awfully close to a core meltdown. The first mistake I can ever remember making. Me and George W. Bush roll that way don't you know? The comment was meant for this issue.
ReplyDeleteOn the question of gimmicks...
I am teaching in the scorched educational landscape left by Jeb Bush in Florida. In our inner-city high school the security monitors promoted to administration "very strongly suggest" that Differentiated Instruction be employed in the classroom, mostly to please their bosses and the state. I have a nice collection of DI conference brochures going back several years. Registration is only $200 but you can pick up the whole package for only $369 and become a master of DI I guess.
DI, like every educational gimmick that has come out of corporate America's attack on the public schools, puts money in the pockets of some charlatan at the end of the day.
LAUGH ! IT'S FREE ! Great Job !
ReplyDelete