Trying to make sense of "tenure vs. performance" is like trying to nail jello to a wall. The assumption that tenure in itself means better performance defies reality.
I can just hear James Carville's rant on the 'Teacher of the Year' award: "It don't mean nothin', it don't mean nothin'!"
A travesty unfolds at her school | Jacksonville.com:
"This year she was named her school's 'Teacher of the Year.' She also was selected as one of five finalists for Clay County's 'Teacher of the Year' award.
She also is about to lose her job."
Although I am quite aware that this is an isolated incident, imagine the amount of respect that is lost for the public school system by those that are effected by this action. It would have been one thing if the teacher had moved to Arkansas. But I am left with the image of a School Board sitting on a tree limb, sawing the limb at a point that is closer to the trunk of the tree than where they are sitting.
Frequent readers of mine may grow weary of my hackneyed use of the phrase "isolated incident". I mock that phrase because I heard it so many times. Logically, one would think that I would have only heard it in an isolated setting. For me, it provides insight into how the system leaders define issues. Policy and decision makers, who base their decisions by looking at numbers, understand that one bit of data is insignificant. What they fail to realize is that bit of data is usually something that has very significant influence on the entity that is the source of that data. A fatal car wreck may be an isolated incident in one's life, but it certainly is significant.
I have a difficult time making sense of the purpose of our public education system. I am reminded of John Saxe's Blind Men And The Elephant:
Blind Men & An Elephant:
".......And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!"
Yesterday there was a post on the The Gradebook that got my attention. It had to do with corporal punishment within our education system. I am always intrigued with the issue of behavioral management. My intrigue is based on my belief that policy and decision makers on behavioral issues are like the men and the elephant.
Our public education system can teach car driving, which is a "new" behavior. Parents don't teach that at home.
Our public education system can teach football, which is a "new" behavior. Parents don't teach that at home.
Our public education system can teach FCAT taking, which is a "new" behavior. Parents don't teach that at home.
Our public education system can teach nursing skills, which is a "new" behavior. Parents don't teach that at home.
Yet, for some reason, when kids display inappropriate behavior, there is no class for teaching "new" behavior. When it comes to behavior that interrupts a kid's, or their peer's, access to their curriculum, the mindset of "education" takes a different slant. Apparently, the system does not have the money to teach "new" social behavior.
What I find interesting is that the same parents that don't have the professional knowledge that professional educators have are expected to have the professional knowledge necessary to teach appropriate social behavior. How well trained in behavioral teaching are the teachers and administrators and "the system"?
Another isolated incident of how parents can be dealt with:
Witch Hunt:
"On the night John Stoll was roused from his bed and carted off to jail, his attitude bordered on the cavalier.
'Aren't you worried?' His lawyer wondered.
'Hell no, I ain't worried,' John answered. 'I didn't do this. You can't convict me of something I didn't do.'
It was more than two decades before John Stoll was free again.
Executive Producer Sean Penn proudly presents 'Witch Hunt,' a gripping indictment of the United States justice system told through the lens of one small town. It's John Stoll's story, but it's also the story of dozens of other men and women who found themselves ensnared in a spiral of fear, ignorance and hysteria. These people are Americans, working class moms and dads, who were rounded up with little or no evidence, charged and convicted of almost unimaginable crimes. All sexual. All crimes against children. Years, sometimes decades later, they would find freedom again, but their lives and the lives of their children would be changed forever. This film shows viewers what the real crime in this case is, not molestation, but the crime of coercion. Viewers hear from the child witnesses who were forced to lie on the witness stand as they describe scary sessions with sheriff's deputies in which they were told -- not asked -- about sexual experiences that happened to them. Their coerced testimony led to dozens of convictions. Many times their own parents were the ones they put behind bars.
Soon after the trials, the children started to crack. They told adults of the lies they'd been forced to tell on the stand and hoped it would make a difference. It didn't and the convicted continued to sit in prison. As the allegations grew more outlandish, California's Attorney General wrote a scathing report on the court misconduct, but instead of being buried by criticism, Kern County District Attorney Ed Jagels thrived, doing what he did best-- putting people away. He boasted one of the highest conviction rates in the country. This strategy served him well. Jagels is still in office today. Through new interviews, archival footage, and unflinching narration by Mr. Penn, the filmmakers construct an intimate film that illustrates a universal point; when power is allowed to exist without oversight from the press, the community or law enforcement, the rights of everyday citizens can be lost for decades."
And then there is one more isolated incident, this one closer to home. 31 graves next to the school. Ex-students tell of how they were asked to dig holes four feet deep and the length of a boy.
Corporal punishment at it's best at a "school".
For their own good: Florida School for Boys
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