A Teacher at Central Falls HS Will Not Vote for Obama

[HiPointDem]

111. To get RTTT money you have to meet certain conditions, such as:

1. No barriers (e.g. in state law, union contract positions, etc.) to linking student testing results to teacher & principal evaluations
2. Implementing a longitudinal tracking system that fits the grantors' designs
3. Increasing charter schools & the system of closing/turnaround/firing supposed 'low-performing schools" and teachers
etc.

http://www.learningpt.org/recovery/RaceToTheTopSummary.pdf

The conditions states need to meet just to *apply* for RTTT money *speed up* what bush did. and not all applicants get the money -- and if they do, large chunks of it go to implementing the new requirements (like developing the data system), not to classrooms, not to improving student education, just to developing this huge centralized testing/monitoring system which has the goal of firing lots of teachers, closing public schools, and converting them to charters, selective enrollment, etc.

There are no absolute 'solutions' to helping failing students, as the reasons for 'failure' are so varied and manifold.

But here are my priorities:

1) More jobs, more decent-paying jobs. If you want poor people to behave as middle class folks do, let them join the middle class. People who think some 'training program' can transform people who live in insecurity, violence, denigrated by society into little middle class clones absent any of the economic/structural supports to that mindset are delusional. Parents need decent paying jobs and respect, not the constant drumbeat telling them they are defective (which imo has huge psychological and social costs)

2) Smaller classes, decent facilities, staffing & supplies. Doesn't have to be 'state of the art' but has to be functional and adequate for the population of student. A computer lab with 5 computers in which half are out of commission at any one time doesn't cut it.

3) Real violence reduction programs in schools disrupted by violence (which means sending the small portion of students mainly responsible to alternative programs). Safety is a huge issue for low-income parents and it can ruin even the best schools.

4) Actual decent jobs for graduates to enter. Why sit through school if it doesn't lead to anything better for most kids?

5) an end to the teacher-bashing, an end to high-stakes testing but for entrance/exit, and an end to privatization.

6) nothing wrong with common national standards, but they should not be decided by a small group of national elites, and they should not fill the entirety of the school day. local schools need flexibility to teach to *their* students -- because -- as the education deformers keep yelling publicly -- one size doesn't fit all.

7) nothing wrong with experimentation in methods, etc. -- but that experimentation and innovation can be done in local schools and districts and shared with colleagues elsewhere within the democratic, *collegial* culture of public schools, not *forced* on schools by elite think tanks.

8) end the cycle of 'reform' in which every 5 years or so teachers are expected to adopt the latest thing from the whiz-bang kids only to go on to the next 'big thing' 5 years later, neither of which have any serious results. IT'S DISRUPTIVE AND INEFFECTIVE.

I'm sure teachers could contribute even more thoughts. Which is my main point: LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO SPEND ALL DAY IN THE TRENCHES INSTEAD OF TREATING THEM LIKE CRIMINALS & IDIOTS.