Comments

That's what's going on in my district. They're moving out the veteran teachers with early retirement and hiring the cheaper newbies to replace them. Even if the newly graduated teacher was an "A" student, there is no way to learn all that the veteran knows without the experience and mentoring.

Granted, some teachers need to retire and as soon as possible. But others are badly needed for their experience and expertise.

This is yet another thing that parents know nothing about.

-- SusanS - 28 Oct 2006

Even if the newly graduated teacher was an "A" student, there is no way to learn all that the veteran knows without the experience and mentoring.

Absolutely. This is an appalling practice.

Ed school doesn't teach people how to teach; it certainly doesn't teach people how to manage classroom discipline.

That's what THE RELUCTANT DISCIPLINARIAN is about. The author was a very brainy guy who'd worked for TFA & I think had gone to ed school, too. (Must check.)

Nothing in his training prepared him to manage a real classroom filled with real students.

Teaching is a hands-on, very challenging job.

New teachers must have older, experienced colleagues to provide on-the-job advice, mentoring, and training.

Everyone knows this.

Our district is not doing it.

And they're not doing it on purpose.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

We aren't skimping, however, on administrators.

We hire retired baby boom administrators who are drawing pensions from their previous jobs.

The head of special ed is receiving his pension and is being paid $600/per day by us.

Meanwhile Jimmy's class still doesn't have its bus.

We've got 5 young adults sitting in the basement of the high school not attending their vocational ed programs, because we don't have a bus.

But the head of special ed gets $600/day.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

This is yet another thing that parents know nothing about.

They're going to know about it now.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

We have turned away master teachers who wanted to work here.

Master teachers.

Meanwhile the "insider" narrative is that the school is "desperate."

That's the word on Ms. K's positive tenure decision last year: the school "had to" give her tenure, because "they were desperate."

This word has gone out to parents.

No source on where this word came from....it's just "known."

If I didn't have to live in this situation, I'd enjoy trying to figure the whole thing out, as an analytical exercise.

We seem to use a "knowledge is power" paradigm: everything is Top Secret, and individuals have only fragments of knowledge they can't piece together.

Meanwhile confidentiality must always be predicted.

Parents respect this code, too.

So when word goes out that "the district was desperate" I have no way of cessing out how this notion entered the information stream. No one reveals his/her sources, including me. (Especially me; that's for sure.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

We have turned away master teachers of math.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

We're not desperate.

We have other priorities.

Like fields.

Fields and then more fields.

No: $50 million dollar schools and THEN fields and THEN more fields.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

The current $5.5 mil Fields Project calls for $5.5 mil improvement only to the high school fields. Nothing for the Dows Lane field.

The middle school project, a few years back, included no money for improvement of fields, and ate up space that could have been used for recreation. The middle school has an enormous, useless courtyard that is pure wasted space - wasted space that must, of course, be mowed, seeded, maintained.

The kids can't hang out in the courtyard, and they certainly can't play in the courtyard, because that would disturb the classes that ring the courtyard.

At the time, there were parents who complained about the design & said that it did nothing for the fields.

I now think that was the point.

Robert Moses did everything this way.

Push through a bond issue or tax increase for part of a project; then, when that part is finished, tell the public, "We're only half done."

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

Meanwhile Ms. K is up to tricks.

This week, while Christopher was absent (thank God), she had the kids write comments on the Nazca lines assignment.

The kids in Christopher's class all said it was a lousy assignment.

So then she yelled at them and told them she should have written positive comments; they should have written constructive criticism.

Her other two classes, she said, wrote positive comments. (Not true.)

You'd think she'd want to back away from Nazca lines and basically just not remind students and parents that Nazca lines ever happened.

But no.

She wants comments and she wants positive comments.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

Fields and more fields is all the rage. Also, we need a football team. No, wait, actually we need 3 football teams.

And at least two fulltime coaches and a trainer.

And then we also need AT LEAST a $5 million field renovation. But we cut world languages in the middle school and we cut the gifted program because of a lack of money.

But we have been very successful at hiring lots of 25 year old fresh out of ed school teachers with SPED experience only. The last 3 teachers my daughter had all came from SPED. Don't get me wrong, they are really great people. Patient, kind, everything you'd expect from a SPED teacher. But here's the thing, they are absolutely ecstatic about mediocre performance. It just bowls them over.

Here's my theory on the fresh out of ed school thing. Yes, partly it is economic. But 2nd, and almost as important, young inexperienced teachers don't come in with "bad" habits. They don't have favorite publishers and series; they are happy to adopt whatever curriculum the district asks them to teach. Even better, they are grateful that they don't have to put together lesson plans on top of everything else that overwhelms a first year teacher. An off the shelf, turn key curriculum with the district's stamp of approval is welcomed, not questioned by newbies. Experienced master teachers might not put up with a substandard curriculum without a fuss. They might do their own thing in the classroom (horrors!).

So that is another reason for the fresh out of ed school hiring.

-- LynnGuelzow - 28 Oct 2006

Fields and more fields is all the rage. Also, we need a football team. No, wait, actually we need 3 football teams.

And at least two fulltime coaches and a trainer.

And then we also need AT LEAST a $5 million field renovation. But we cut world languages in the middle school and we cut the gifted program because of a lack of money.

You've got to be kidding me.

Unbelievable.

But 2nd, and almost as important, young inexperienced teachers don't come in with "bad" habits.

yeah, that's my feeling, too

especially when you add in "new, young female"

we're hiring almost exclusively very young women at the beginning of their careers

at that stage they're going to be the most compliant employees you could possibly come up with

it's the older teachers, I presume (the few we have left) who are squawking about differentiated instruction

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Oct 2006

-- RoryH - 29 Oct 2006

Ha! Would they ever get a shock if they employed me!

-- SamanthaRawson - 31 Oct 2006

I think they have made a decision to only interview people who are specifically NOT YOU, Samantha.

The last thing any administrator wants is a free thinking experienced teacher that speaks her mind and actually knows stuff.

After our big blow up on EM, teachers have been forbidden to speak out against EM or any other curricular program, or risk their jobs. Teachers with kids in the district don't come to board meetings and don't oppose anything. It is sad.

-- LynnGuelzow - 31 Oct 2006

No experience. I fit all of their criteria (22 years, old, straight from uni, straight from school, and I'm female). Experience I ain't got. (Which is why I can't control a class.)

But boy do I ever know my own mind!

-- SamanthaRawson - 02 Nov 2006

Whoops! I meant it only as a compliment.

What grade level are you teaching now?

-- LynnGuelzow - 02 Nov 2006

Just about to finish student teaching (next week is my last week, but I'll go back once a week until school finishes) and I have grade 1s and 2s. They are lovely kids, except for when they're not, and then I want to kill them! They are sweet, but grades 1+2 are not exactly known for their sedate children (James! GET OFF THAT TABLE! Do NOT jump onto Tom's Head! Sit DOWN!)

I really have no classroom management skills.

Next year when I actually start 'teaching' I'll sub. I will earn more, have more time off, and will learn (hopefully) how to control a class. So then I'll be teaching Prep to year 6, with possibly a bit of Kindy thrown in.

-- SamanthaRawson - 02 Nov 2006

I really have no classroom management skills.

boy, that's the biggie

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Nov 2006

hey! Samantha!

you can come teach here!

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Nov 2006

Would they ever get a shock if they employed me!

I'd say Ms. Duque was pretty much in that category.....

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Nov 2006

After our big blow up on EM, teachers have been forbidden to speak out against EM or any other curricular program, or risk their jobs. Teachers with kids in the district don't come to board meetings and don't oppose anything. It is sad.

Did you tell us about this?

Did I manage to miss it?

Teacher fear was the thing that first got us thinking all was not well here in IUFSD.

Ed started saying, during Christopher's 5th grade year, that the teachers seemed afraid.

I was getting that vibe, too.

I don't like that vibe.

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Nov 2006