The new power accorded to principals is not to give first year teachers a raise if they suck. Teachers wills till be assigned according to seniority to new positions, so new good teachers get lopped off when cutbacks occur while the old dead wood stays.
We know that good teachers can get through 18 months of material in a year. Bad teachers get through 6 months of material. This is not related to poverty or social factors because these results can be seen in the same school. Teachers cannot be evaluated according to results so the ones who everybody knows are terrible cannot be removed.
Everybody knows who the terrible teachers are at the BPS. The teachers know, the kids certainly know. Obama is embarrassed by the Chicago teachers strike and a Boston strike would be doubly so. Instead of fighting for the kids, Menino has bailed.
HR's Kevin says
Yes. I totally agree!
Christopher says
How is a local strike connected to Obama?
Why does the headline say in part, SCOTT BROWN DUMB, when the diary has nothing to do with Scott Brown?
Mark L. Bail says
It was signed into law this summer that seniority would not be the first criteria when laying off teachers.
sabutai says
“We know that good teachers can get through 18 months of material in a year. ”
Anybody who can complete time travel deserves salaries in the eight figures. “Good teachers” cut and slice 18 months of material into ten months. Really good ones do it in a way that it’s hard to notice. A expectation that teachers can do the literally impossible, and the presumption that they ought to continue to do the impossible while being attacked for any number of things is oddly never extended to bankers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, or other professions.
kbusch says
Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/09/key-measures-show-slowing-inflation-in.html#rViv0zpzwR1chtQU.99