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Toilet paper + Executive Coaches in schools

11/7/2013

 
"My students have NO grammar books, NO workbooks, seven year old, worn OUT, reading books, and I am out over $300 bucks already this year on paper, ink, and classroom supplies. There are days I have sent my girls into the bathroom with Kleenex because there's been no toilet paper!  I buy soap and the had the students bring in paper towels for the days when there there's none." - a Shelby County teacher

VERSUS:

from a Commercial Appeal article from Oct. 27, 2013:
"Each of the 236 principals in Shelby County Schools now has a coach, a former principal or central office administrator whose full-time work is making sure the corps improves.  SCS budgeted about $1.5 million to train and dispatch 10 executive-level coaches. They make $105,000-$108,000 a year — about what a middle school principal makes — and spend 70 to 80 percent of their time in schools. If the experiment works, administrators say test scores and principal skills will improve. Nationally, there is not enough data to show a correlation between principal coaching and student achievement, according to research released last week by the Wallace Foundation.  SCS is paying the Center for Educational Leadership at the University of Washington $478,000 for technical support, including training for the coaches." 

The executive-coach and principal "also fine-tuned (“recalibrated”) what Shaw (the Principal) should be seeing when he observes teachers. He saw them performing at Level 4 (high). Whitelaw (the coach) suggested it was closer to Level 1 or 2.  “As part of my growth plan, I need to be evidence-based. If those teachers were a Level 4, we should have been seeing growth,” Shaw said.  That’s the part that bothers him the most.  “I talk about the scores on the way to work and on the way home. It stays on your mind,” he said.

(This was posted anonymously, with permission, to protect the employment of this frustrated teacher in Shelby County)
 
The wasteful spending to improve ridiculous scores on ever-changing tests must stop.  Give teachers & students what they really need in their classrooms.  Let teachers teach.  Stop micromanaging our teachers & principals.  

Our teachers are not numbers, 

              and our students are not test scores.

 
Holly Walker
11/17/2013 12:08:52 pm

I have pulled my daughter out of school this year. The first 6weeks of school was horrible. Do not give me the speech that things are harder and they will get used to it. My daughter is 5th grade. She had great teachers. I know because my boys had the same teachers. My boys are in high school. My middle son has excelled because he had such creative teachers.My oldest son is dyslexic and it was the same school and teachers who helped recognize it and deal with it. They helped him to improve but more importantly to regain confidence! They were pushed and worked hard. Their test scores soared and they enjoyed learning. If my oldest had been subjected to common core he would have failed. How do I know? I know because these teachers are not allowed to be creative and step out of so called guidelines. He would never have gotten the help he needed. These kids fall by common core standards. Its almost like
that is the plan. I will not allow my daughter to subjected. I am angered that you have hurt our schools. You have bound the hands of our best hope and assets. I will not stop until government is not in control of our schools and people like Bill Gates are not allowed to call our CHILDREN a "marketing management group"!

jcgrim
11/18/2013 03:34:09 am

The Commercial Appeal and all TN news media are being fed garbage by "stinktanks." Check out how all of private industry (including the private edu-industry) has corrupted our information sources. Their product is doubt and confusion.

http://www.nationofchange.org/state-stink-tanks-exposed-1384697147

susu
11/18/2013 04:33:56 pm

Your school is not the only school without toilet paper. Middle TN schools do not have it either. I wonder how many executives bring their own toilet paper to work?


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