Letter from a Teacher in a School Designated for Closing by the DOE in order to receive "RTTT $$"

[proud2BlibKansan]

Letter from a Teacher in a School Designated for Closing by the DOE in order to receive "Race To The Top Money"

I am a teacher at ...... one of the PLA schools. .... has been a "Transformation School" since September 2010. I have been a Social Studies teacher at this school since September 1990.

Yesterday, we were summoned to the auditorium for a special faculty meeting. Our very well-liked principal, . . . conveyed the information he'd received from his superiors: the City intended to change our school to a Turnaround Model. The implications were not completely clear, but it almost certainly meant that we teachers and our supervisors would have to re-apply for our positions to come back in September 2012, and around half of us would not be re-employed.

This news was shocking and deeply distressing to us. We have done everything we were asked to do by State and City. We have learned and implemented new technology for the classroom, spent hours in Professional Development, devoted an hour a week to working in Inquiry Teams, decorated our classrooms with student work, differentiated instruction, and redesigned all our lesson plans to introduce the Common Core Curriculum. We have done this conscientiously despite the doubts many of us had as to the efficacy of these innovations.

The State has been extremely impressed by our progress, writing strongly positive reports, available on the PLA pages of the NYSED website. Our Quality Review last spring was favorable, and we raised our 4-year graduation rate last year by about 7 percentage points.

more . . .
http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2012/01/letter-from-teacher-in-school.html

[JDPriestly]

1. It's the leveraged buy-out scam all over again.

Rather than pay higher taxes to support education, "philanthropists" "donate" money to fly-by-night school reform projects. The "philanthropists" serve their own self-interests in two ways. 1. They get a tax deduction for their donations, and 2. they get to have a bigger measure of control and say-so over the erstwhile public schools than do the parents, taxpayers and general public.

Wonderful way to undermine democratic, community control of the schools. The oligarchs love any gimmick that makes our society less democratic, any trick that gives them more power.

[Starry Messenger]

3. +++

[WingDinger]

2. It could be slightly worse. They could offer you half pay, and you could turn it down, making you un

uneligible for unemployment benefits.

[Doremus]

4. Dumbing down America, one school and one cache at a time. nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. It's not just Bloomberg. It's *Obama*.

>>>Regardless of his intentions, Bloomberg is seriously demoralizing hundreds of hard-working and gifted teachers, making it harder for us to enthusiastically adopt any future changes.>>>>>

RTTP is an initiative of this *Democratic* administration.


If I weren't seeing this close up, with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it was happening.

Which maybe explains why no one here cares.

[sulphurdunn]

8. The entire political class

is on board for education reform because it's easy to be for if . It doesn't cost much and there's lots of money behind it for politicians, and so, they don't much care about the details or the consequences. They haven't for a longtime.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. A sad reality

The worst piece of education legislation proposed in MO this year is from a Democrat.

This has never been a partisan battle.

[Pholus]

6. As the educorp folks say: Accountability for thee equals profits for me....

You can bet the necessity for constant testing will end the moment the district is run by one of these education for profits groups.

[sulphurdunn]

7. Amen.