So It Begins...

Ahh, the lovely fallout of NCLB begins.

So, the theory is, fire all the teachers, hire back no more than 50% of them. Bring in new teachers (at least 50% of your teachers will be new) and watch test scores....improve? Really? Maybe they will, lots can be done if you drill for the tests, but I honestly can't see it helping improve the 50% dropout rate.

Let me see if I understand this. EVERY teacher is bad enough to deserve to be fired, but up to 50% MIGHT be good enough to hire back? Why does this make no logical sense to me?

Another story says the principal wants to lengthen the school day AND thinks the teachers should offer extra tutoring to the students. Note, this is a "tiny impoverished city" so I could bet the school is underfunded already. I'm doubting the teachers were in for much of a raise for all the time invested.

Now, one COULD say "Oh, to save their jobs they should put in the time for free." Well, that is one way of looking at it.

Obviously it is by someone who knows nothing about the average teacher's workday. Teachers at underfunded schools are frequently required to put in MORE hours for less pay, just because they have less to work on.

I'm betting, and I could be wrong, but I'm betting if the school was funded at say, 90% of the richest public school in Rhode Island the results would be different.

Sure, the drop out rate might be higher than more affluent communities, but I bet they could get it up with more manpower.

In the military, they talk about "boots on the ground." How many people are actually there to do the mission.

Well, that needs to start happening in education. We need more boots on the ground. More aides, more librarians, more teachers, to help these kids.

I'm not saying all these teachers were great. There were probably some who were bad, some who were great, many who were in the middle.

Firing them all is not going to solve the schools problems. Nor is more stringent testing requirements.

I won't even start on how the Education Secretary put his two cents of praise in.

These people are clueless. And they are running the show.

Scary.