When I asked Deval Patrick last week to talk about his experience in school — the role it played in crafting the expensive, expansive education proposals in his current budget — he started by talking about a guy named Leo Webster, a classmate from the ’60s on the South Side of Chicago.
When Patrick went off to Milton Academy and beyond, Webster stayed in Chicago, worked and had a family, eventually got back in touch. Now, they reminisce fondly about their sixth-grade teacher, and try to figure out what happened to the kids they used to know.
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"The secret may be that he’s not thinking about Massachusetts teachers at all. He’s thinking about the kids back in Chicago." Another veiled attack on teachers butters the Globe's bread. If you are not thinking of teachers at all that's a good thing, that's the "secret sauce"? Teachers and students needs are inexorably linked, and that's the truth. Fund our working conditions, because our working conditions are our students' learning conditions. "Turnaround" models do not treat teachers fairly because that's the type of corporate policy "funders" want to see. "Turnaround" schools receive millions of extra dollars from federal "race to the top" funds and foundation philanthropy. Yet, this is left out of the conversation. Turnarounds tout any perceived "success" on getting rid of "status quo" teachers. What I joke!
Well said! Teachers "working conditions are our students' learning conditions". Yes, Ms. Weiss seems to need to have a 'clever' ending, a tangential attack on Mass. teachers. A corporate remedy for public education woes is an oxymoron of course, since the corporate mentality views public institutions as obstacles to corporate profit making. An economic approach which values short term profits above human needs and aspirations cannot benefit public education, public libraries, health care, or any activity where the goal is more complex than short term profit taking. It is interesting that, even though Gov. Patrick spent years in the corporate sector, he maintains a commitment to public schools.
Governor Duval Patrick has brought his Chicago Public School baggage with him to Massachusetts and as a Boston turnaround teacher I've seen first hand the damage that his Pandora's box of education initiatives have created. Teachers were horrified when our, new to the building, 33-year-old headmaster, unilaterally, decided to spend the thousands of dollars of "Race to the Top" money on "leadership training" from an ed vendor "partner!" I would have given our new "leader" a library card and bus pass!
Teachers suggested that the 89 hours of, uncompensated, professional time be spent on "ELL category training"; since 66% of our students, the highest in the state, were English Language Learners and the city was under court order. Teachers were told that we would have to take category training on our own time. Instead, we received a 2" inch binder with downloads from the internet, on "Universal Design." This is basicly "lesson planning," that teachers spend hundreds of hours on in college as part of teacher certification! Teachers at my turnaround school worked 89+ hours, uncompensated, that gave this outside ed vendor
"partner" a job that paid her non-profit hundreds of thousands of dollars!
The Hyde Square Task Force ed vendor "partner" was paid $100,000+, out of school RTT funds, to provide "electives" during the school day that awarded high school credit. The people facilitating these
"elective courses" were not certified teachers; in fact, 2 were still, allegedly, in college! These classes were out of control and unproductive! Veteran teachers, who had demonstrated a commitment to their students and the school, were sent marching and replaced by these uncertified "facilitators!"This was at an underperforming "turnaround school" where the most vulnerable students in the city were left spinning thanks to Governor Patrick! Ths would not have happened at Milton Academy!
There were no funds left to provide DIRECT SERVICES TO STUDENTS like tutoring for MCAS and SAT's, or on-site Credit Recovery, that would have contributed to a higher on-time graduation rate; and the saving to the city when a student doesn't have stay in school another year. No money to update our ten year-old donated computers, that could have made a difference! Where was the “Race to the Top” oversight from the Patrick administration!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/06/24/troubled_english_high_school_showing_little_improvement_after_three_tumultuous_years_under_untested_headmaster_sito_narcisse/
I read Ms Weiss for the "facts" of her pieces, but as usual her conclusion leaves something to be desired. Snark is a word that comes to mind, but is too harsh. I guess incomplete, might be more descriptive.
The man, of course, is thinking of the teachers he had. But by extension, he is saying he would like to be sure that other kid's have similar experiences. I have a friend who teaches in the Boston public schools and she is one of my heros.
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Teachers are always whining for more money and yet, as Thomas Jefferson said of the federal civil service, "Vacancies by death are rare, by resignation, never." The average starting salary for a public school teacher is about $50,000 a year. The average public school teacher makes over $70,000 a year. Massachusetts ranks fifth highest among the fifty states for teacher compensation, and at an average class size of 14(!), you'd have to say that the state isn't exactly cracking the whip. To me, $70,000 seems like a pretty decent salary for a job that requires you to work less than 190 days a year, with better benefits and a better pension than I am going to get. I take four weeks vacation every year plus the legal holidays but that means I still work 230 days a year. I get weekends off but so do teachers. So, I make more money than a teacher does, but then, I'm doing more work, or at least I'm working forty days or about two months longer every year. My kids are thirtyish and they earn about what an average Massachusetts teacher earns. One is a college librarian and the other one is a junior exec with a media company in NYC. It does not look to me like the teachers in Massachusetts have anything much to complain about as far as compensation goes. I had some great teachers and some lousy ones, and a lot of average ones, and so did our kids, but the great teachers got paid the same as the lousy ones. It doesn't actually work that way in the DPS (Dreaded Private Sector).
http://www.teacherportal.com/salary/Massachusetts-teacher-salary
Teachers, police, fire, military, EMT, etc ALL "make the same" depending on pay grade, seniority, etc. The so-called DPS has more dirty laundry and malingerers than the pps (persecuted is the first p) but we'll never hear about them.
It wasn't the PPS but the denizens of the DPS that brought the Great Recession upon us!!!
The public sector is hardly persecuted, federal, state and municipal employees enjoy better salaries, better benefits and better job security than the private sector offers to its employees who pay for it all.
So Harry, are you saying that public sector employees don't pay taxes?
I don't know whether public sector employees have it better than private sector employees, but I do know that I don't see too many private sector employees who dress in case they get shot at, run INTO burning buildings, and have to teach ALL kids, regardless of whether the kid wants to be in school or has parents who care (or have the educational background to care) what happens. Yes, I suppose a teacher in a rat hole of a school in Boston gets paid better than a charter or private school that cherry-picks their students.
If he had such a warm spot in his heart for public education then why didn't he send his daughter to Milton High?
Is that a serious question?
Because he and his wife could afford not to. It's the same thing you would do if you could afford to; send your kid to the best school you could afford to.And my guess is you'd give your left nut if your kid could get into Harvard. This is called the American Dream, where we all hope our kids have it a little better than we did.
Attention! Do not photoshop or otherwise reporduce that picture of Deval with a rattle!
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