Very interesting comment special ed. teacher from Tennessee

[geefloyd46]

This is follow up site: http://www.parthenon.com/GetFile.aspx?u=%2fLists%2fThoughtLeadership%2fAttachments%2f4%2fParthenon%2520Perspectives_Investing%2520in%2520Education.pdf

[Squinch]

1. Are you in this guy's district? Can you let us know how this comes out? Whether the

board listens to him at all?

What a great speech.

[geefloyd46]

3. I am not I am in Boston...

I found this on an education website but I can vouch what he is talking about is a national goal. Education money is the modern day gold rush for all those that can get their hands on the public's money. The poorer the district the more these people, who have never given the people in these districts the time of the day, come out of the woodwork "to help." It is a tough job they have. They have to convince parents the people who spend multiple hours a day could care less about their kids while the ones who won't go near them has nothing but love in their hearts.

[Squinch]

5. Oh, I know. A while back a DUer posted a video linking all the entities

that are profiting from it.

Like, for example, did you know that the head of Teach For America is a major stockholder in Pearson? And those teacher evaluations being developed in Stamford? Pearson and Gates are funding that. So Pearson is the company that is making the test that is the major element in the teacher evaluations that Pearson is developing.

And at the bottom of it all is privatization and commodification and profit-mongering. As an overriding goal, education is nowhere in sight.

[geefloyd46]

7. As was said in Casablanca: it's shocking that gambling is going on here...

I still like the time that Pearson took a group of superintendents to Singapore which, last time I checked, was not in The United States.

[Squinch]

8. Yes, but junkets to Singapore are crucial to the education of children.

[geefloyd46]

10. They also had Sandy Kress (who was the democratic half of no child left behind)...

He is no longer working in education but now is a lobbyist for Pearson. Just last year he went to speak to the Texas legislature not as a lobbyist but rather as a concern citizen in Texas. Somehow along the way money for educators disappeared but the money that was destined for Pearson was left intact. No one could figure out how it happened.

[Squinch]

11. And at the base of it, schools are going from joyful, fun places to awful,

sad gulags.

I am not a teacher, but I work in a number of schools, and work with a lot of teachers. In the past 10 years, their lives have become hell. I feel terribly for them.

No one in their right mind should become a teacher nowadays.

[geefloyd46]

12. I am a teacher...

and I'll tell you everyone is talking about getting out. They are turning this into the peace corp do a year or two before you realize what is happening and then its time to find a "real" job. Only the business opportunity will be left behind. That's because labor is cheap and human life has little value.

[Squinch]

13. And the newer teachers have only ever done this "cookbook" teaching that's going on now.

Which means we are losing the ability throughout the system to do anything else. When this current insanity is over, all those who actually know how to teach will be gone, so no one will be there to teach the newer teachers how to effectively teach as opposed to training kids to take a test.

In one of the schools I work in, two teachers have simply walked away and not come back. No notice, just walked away. A third one seems to be eying the door. And this isn't one of those schools where the administration is out to get them. The administration is doing their best for the teachers, but the pressures are too great.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. Well put:

>>>It is a tough job they have. They have to convince parents the people who spend multiple hours a day could care less about their kids while the ones who won't go near them has nothing but love in their hearts.>>>>

One would think so.

[geefloyd46]

4. Then again what he says is Pantheon originates from Boston companies...

and they have nothing but love in their hearts for Tennessee's children. Just send them a check.

[Squinch]

6. Yeah. Like the wolf loves grandma.

[Fridays Child]

2. k/r

[maddiemom]

14. Excellent. I spent years involved with the education system as both a teacher

and parent. In fact, I lived near Knoxville for a short time, but as a stay at home parent of a pre-schooler at the time. I can't pretend any knowledge of the situation presented, but I am also curious as to what happened.

[geefloyd46]

15. I believe it is an ongoing fluid situation...

as this was February 5th.

[maddiemom]

16. Thanks. I'm interested enough to try to follow up, if possible.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

17. The corporate "refformers" of public schools won't be happy until

a "teacher" is a minimum wage worker watching fifty kids at computers all day. I retired early, after 33 years, because I could not endure the attacks on my colleagues from predator administrators or bear to watch the dismantling of our education system for profit.