spedup

Posted on 12/19/11

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Fellow teachers, Before anyone slams me for stating my
opinion I want to say that I realize that economy is very
tough right now and there are plenty of good people out of
work in all fields but I need to state my opinion because
in NJ we have a Governor who is trying to hold teachers
accountable for the failings of the economy in general,
specifically the banking industry, housing market, shoddy
spending by previous NJ administrations and whatever else
he can blame us for. Governor Christie is trying to get
rid of tenure and on the face value people say, "That's a
good thing because I don't have job security in my banking
job." True, but trust me when I tell you that there are
politics involved in every school and using student test
scores to decide who is effective and who is not is truly
one of the worst things that can happen. Administrations
can twist and manuever scores any way they want to get the
desired results. True, to get rid of a crappy teacher via
the Tenure process is long and costly and does need to be
streamlined a little, but to make a blanket policy that all
teachers have to be judged highly effective or effective in
order to retain their job is ridiculous. Before you slam
that statement please wait. I don't mean that a teacher
who is beyond a dought not doing their job shouldn't be
removed. What I mean is the evaluation system cannot be
trusted to adequately measure a teachers ability to teach
or not. I can speak for my school only(and a few others)
when I say that the system for evaluation changes yearly as
do the makeup of the students from year to year. Some
years, some classes I have had are absolutely a joy to work
with while other years the kids are chronically absent,
behind their peers gradewise, disruptive etc. I am not
complaining because I know that is what I signed up for. I
am just stating that I have little control of certain
things. Some schools have wealthy families who will supply
their children with the needed materials, while others such
as mine have hard working families, good people but lots of
single parent homes where parent needs to work 2-3 jobs to
make ends meet and kids are left to fend for themselves a
little more. It is not equal. The schools are not equal.
Hence, the educators should not be judged by same criteria.
I have not even begun to desribe the low morale in my
school or the reasons why I think our Gov would bash the
teaching profession, but it is a problem. It is real, the
stress is real, and we need to stand up and not let
Christie bully us anymore.

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