Cowards Of The County

First, there seems to be a problem with the posting of a previous post of mine:

PRO on HCPS: Why Not Implement A "No Home Work Plan" For Teachers?


For some reason, I don't see the public comments on the above post when I am on the blog.
In case no one else can read them, here they are:

4 comments:
Anonymous said...
HMMMM

I read on another blog that Jack Davis was going to take of the Executive Director job at the CTA when Yvonne Lyons retires this year.

I think its the same Jack Davis mentioned in the Erwin care.

Think I'll pass on looking for help with the CTA.

April 11, 2009 11:00 PM
PRO On HCPS said...
My take of the CTA is that it provides liability insurance to individual employees.

Otherwise, the CTA deals with "group management", therefore decisions are based on group numbers is how I see it. "Good teachers" are lumped in with "bad teachers" and raises are based on what the budget line item will be for the masses.

Safety in numbers means giving up individual performance is how I read the tea leaves.

What do you think?

As far as Mr. Davis goes, I dealt with him for a few years. Some good, some not so good.

The system is what it is, despite what I have to say.

April 12, 2009 7:43 PM
Anonymous said...
I agree that the CTA has to represent all AND has to protect itself. Personally I feel that they have gone overboard protecting themselves almost to the point of getting in bed with the district.

The Eskay guy is proof that the district has the power to silence opposition. He has turned out to be a coward. I have no respect for him.

Care to comment?

April 12, 2009 9:23 PM
PRO On HCPS said...
It takes a heck of a lot of financial, emotional and intellectual resources to fight back. And time.

There are too many variables that I would need to know.

April 13, 2009 6:13 AM

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I have had all day to think about Anon 7:43pm's comment about Eskay being a coward.

Why isolate Eskay as a coward?

I submit that the hundreds or thousands of people that have been involved with the "cancer of the system" yet protect and enable it by their actions and inaction are all cowards.

The commenter makes the statement "The Eskay guy is proof that the district has the power to silence opposition." So why lay this on a person who is already in a compromised position?

What about all of the professional educators from the highest ranks of administration down to the bottom of the chain? What about the vendors and contract workers that can collaborate hundreds of incidents, yet know that to speak up would be to cut off their income? Especially when then school system is the main source of their business.

I have a post on my Motel Special Ed site that is titled "How Do (Can?)They Sleep At Night". For almost 20 years I have tried to figure out how so many people can be involved in a system yet no one connects the dots when proof is offered. Even without the rumor mill, you have the Erwin case, the McClelland Case and the Whitehead trial. Both the Erwin and Whitehead cases proved retaliation by the District. They are landmark cases. The McClelland case substantiated one part of Erwin's claims.

Over the years, I have spoken to many different people that have many different ties to the system as I have described above. I am left with the belief that no one wants to face the truth. They instinctively know that they will be isolated and then punished by the system is my best guess.

I learned about the ethics of the system through the special education realm. That makes me the red headed step child when it comes to appealing for systemic reform. Study my blogs if you don't get it. I spent years learning for myself as best as I could from an outside position. I have to believe that those who work in it everyday compartmentalize their thoughts and emotions in order to "get their job done and not bring attention to myself".


Maintaining power means maintaining money. Read the By-laws and the Mission statements of all of the related groups involved in education. How many of them put the classroom first? All of the ones that come to my mind are about limiting the liability of their respective memberships and furthering their economic status. All on the backs of the students. The same may go for Supervisors at all levels.

Understanding the system requires using the thousands of "isolated incidents" and then looking at the big picture over a period of years.

Homework for the masses: How many administrators have been hired from outside of the system within the last 20 years? I only know of one. Prove me wrong.