Remember Sweeney? That character who was lampooned across the nation for his nonfactual support of Kinder-Morgan’s taking over our port? Instead of being objective, his editorial board pieces are that of a pinch hitter for an administration again caught on the wrong side of an issue! Remember the jokes? The aside comments that he has lost his touch? Remember all the snide references that he must be on crack?
It is to those references (sincerely I doubt he does crack) and the acknowledgement that in popular culture today that phrase is often applied to everyone who tries to reform facts into a fairy tales, that I attached his name to it in the title…
In Sweeney’s defense through the manipulation of language, one can say anything. Granted. Romney certainly tried that tact. And the truth came out to hurt him. “Jeeps in China”, my ass. “Benghazi was all Obama’s fault”, my ass.
So as old as Sweeney is, (he seems to mean well ), the facts he uses are simply not true… If you put bad in, you get bad out. Now if I were an aged,old authority figure, and if you were deemed childlikely to accept what I say is true, … I can tell you about a jovial man living at the North Pole, who has nine reindeer that fly and travels the world in one night delivering presents to every boy and girl in the world,… and of course you are going to look up at me with wide big eyes and go “wow, so that is how its done…”.
Alas, poor Sweeney, he doesn’t have the same beguiling audience. Instead we have facts that show the opposite….
One of the facts WE the People have, is that the tests results coming from districts using this plan that show great results, were all obtained through cheating by high officials changing the answers over to correct ones after the students had taken them.
Two: teachers under this system are spending too much time explaining to their superiors everything they do in order to be evaluated, instead of teaching. More time is spent in evaluation, than on lesson plans. This hurts teacher. This hurts student.
Three: the curriculum being forced upon these classrooms is far inferior to what teachers themselves are able to dole out. Education only works when a student’s interest is held. These corporate templates are as interesting as your corporate financial meetings. Teachers do a much better job.
Four: low income students don’t have technology the rest of us take for granted. Broadband costs money. Computer power costs money. Software costs money. Laptops cost money. Notebooks cost money. The best way to raise low income students scores is to put them on par with students who have technology. You can’t just tell someone how to log in and expect them to remember it whenever they next see a computer. They have to do so to learn how.
Five. Testing at the beginning, the middle, and the end, is a great tool. It evaluates a student’s progress over time. BUT! Holding a teachers job accountable to results over which they have absolutely no control, means… a) all teaching by that teacher is geared to only what will be on that test… and b) since poor scores demand the loss of one’s livelihood, rampant cheating is bound to occur…. We saw this in Atlanta, Texas, and DC.
Six. The only proven and effective way to improve teaching, is to increase the number of teachers so there are 11 students per teacher. Teaching is a personal science, like counseling, psychology, and doctor’s visits. Without a personal relationship between teacher and student, there is no incentive to learn. Studies as well as our personal experience, show that if we aren’t psyched to learn, we don’t….
Seven. The students who do the poorest are the ones who have the largest social dishevel in their lives. A person from this background can learn from a teacher just as easily as anyone else, if he believes the teacher is pulling for them, and they don’t want to let that teacher or their peers down. That can and does happen with a 11-1 ratio…
Eight. Teachers DO NOT GO into teaching to get rich. They go to help children learn. If you don’t know this, you have no human right to ever write another editorial on education. That is just plain stupid not to know. If you want to motivate teachers, the best way is to give them MORE resources with which to teach…. More maps, more books, more software, anything to provide more excitement to their classrooms.
Nine. We all incorporate what we learn, into the categories we already have inside our heads. Being an inner city child with no mother (on crack), no father (never knew him), living with grandma (forgets who I am sometimes), dodging getting beaten up by the drug lords every time you walk home from the bus to porch (its safe in the morning; they’re still asleep), disappearing when the molesting uncles happen to drop by, … reading about Sally having to choose between buying a candy bar or putting all her cents into a piggy bank, doesn’t cut it. You’d think Goldman-Sachs created the curriculum (they paid for it)…
Enough background….. At least you know Sweeney is on metaphorical crack just like he was with Kinder Morgan. (Panama Canal ships sailing up the Delaware, Sheesh)….
The heart of the matter lies in the News Journal’s phrase….Teachers that have earned highly-qualified credentials..
One would think that having a master’s degree or a doctor’s degree in education would qualify… But no. Mr. Sweeney, it does not. Mind if WE, the People interrupt for a second to ask if you happen to have a masters degree? A doctor’s degree? Is it in education? No? So, tell us again, what makes you such an expert can we ask? We, the People are dying to know.
Now get this. To be one of these “teachers that have earned highly-qualified credentials” you have to first have attended a corporate seminar, one from a pandering company to which the state paid $180 dollars a person; you have to sit through 6 hours of power-point presentations; your know-it-all instructor was just hired out of college by this corporation, and they proceed to tell you everything ever known about teaching without ever having been in a classroom. After this, you then take a test, having been given the answers ahead of time by clues of where the instructor casually says “this will be on the test”, and then, if you passed, you get a certificate saying you are a teacher with highly-qualified credentials. Just like that. You are now a highly qualified credential teacher; so who needs a masters, who needs a doctorate, who needs to read a stinkin’ Gannett publication? You got all the knowledge anyone ever needs to know. You got a certificate that cost the state $180 dollars!…. You are now, eligible for a bonus… (if we (the DOE) like you enough we choose to give it to you…
So if there are 8640 public school teachers in Delaware, at a cost of $180 per teacher, over time this company that originated out of nowhere, helps itself to $1.5 million dollars of our annual budget… Now, not counting for the printing I can buy 8,000 sheets of 8 X 11 pieces of 24 lb. paper for around $71 dollars at Wal*Mart. It would only take 20 sheafs of printer paper. So to dole out $71-80 worth of pieces of paper printed with the words “Congratulations, You Are Certified“, our state is investing $1.5 million of your dollars… Why? Can you say umm … kickback? Personal favor? Thanks for all you did back then?
In case one hasn’t been paying attention to the educational field, one would know that in the Christina district primarily due to our economy there are very few vacancies open from year to year. One would also know, that in the Christina district we have really good teachers practically in every classroom, who do better than the job that is expected except when they have to pull themselves away to do RTTT paperwork and explain to their evaluators how they are reinventing the wheel of teaching, or are on a pilot program teaching the Common Core agenda and cannot deviate.
So the Christina Board says this is ridiculous. The Christina Board recognizes that teachers with a lifetime of experience, with masters and doctors degrees, know more about education then some punk out of college who passes the corporate litmus test. After all, one would think, right?
The DSEA representing ALL THE TEACHERS IN DELAWARE, and the Christina Education Association are fully backing the Christina Board on this. As stated, teachers primarily want to teach. This state program is very, very bad for teaching…. Although Mr. Sweeney might think otherwise, what teachers think, matters. Especially if they are the ones teaching our kids.
Teachers are our most valuable resource as a society. They are more important than our President. They are more important than our Governor. They are more important than any Mark Murphy or Lillian Lowery. They are more important than the head of Goldman Sachs. What? You scoff?
Tell me, Mr. Sweeney? When you look in the mirror in the morning… what president do you thank for making you who you are? “Aww… Richard Nixon… Thank you so much for your leadership which was soooo inspiring, it made want to be like you…. I’m eternally grateful for all you did to inspire me, coach me, teach me, and give the the building blocks to make me as I am” But sincerely, like all of us, I would damn well bet that somewhere in your growing up, there was one teacher or two, who is responsible for everything you’ve become.
In the book of We, the People … that teacher out ranks any governmental official…. any day…
I’ll close with an analogy to a story told long ago… A woman was brought before Jesus accused of adultery. They asked what should be done to her. Jesus asked who was condemning her… knowing they too would be guilty of adultery if they admitted. They left. Jesus asked her, “who has condemned you?” She looks around, and says ” no one Sir.” “Then neither will I condemn you. Arise, Go, and sin no more…”
It would be wise for Mr. Sweeney to remember this, before he goes writing his next editorial condemning the wrong people………..
9 comments
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April 12, 2013 at 7:09 pm
John Young
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
April 12, 2013 at 7:40 pm
minnehanh
Amen. Offer a teacher a chance to have a class of 10-11 kids and they will jump for it. Offer them money and they’ll ask how many kids will they have in their class….
April 12, 2013 at 8:31 pm
4equity2
A teacher thanks you, Mr. Young.
April 12, 2013 at 8:43 pm
Nancy Willing
Yes, this is gettting to the crux of it. the paper is getting it wrong. Badly wrong. Crackhead wrong.
April 12, 2013 at 8:59 pm
4equity2
“Crackhead wrong”- tragic that this is closer to the truth than News Journal coverage of anything related to ed reform or RTTT.
That all newspapers are not necessarily committed to truth, to real investigative journalism, is most unfortunate, especially when a community depends on a single publication.
April 12, 2013 at 9:45 pm
kavips
Well, all.. We did it before with wind. If you remember that was sort of the same deal, … a gigantic percentage of Delawareans wanted something to happen; people at the top got their orders not to let it pass; the News Journal acquiesced; and all of us, citizens at keyboards, did our own work and they capitulated, only because we gave them no choice. None of those who blocked us,are still a player today.
What is at stake is our children. Delaware was the first in RTTT and we should be the first to get out of it and head to a newer system where we have 11 student sized classes.
I’ve been thinking that it is possible considering space, to have two 11 classes in one classroom. Part would be like today, instruction to a class of 22 by a team of two teachers, except that each teacher would only have 11 students they were responsible for, to grade, coach, get to know, and motivate.
If you read this, tell your friends that you think the News Journal is trying to pull a fast one…. Get it on talk shows,
Funny thing is, our General Assembly reps are on our side on this one. This is Big Corporate trying to roll over little citizen… I exaggerate a little, but that is “sort of exactly” what is going on….
We saw it before…. It will take all the “Who’s” in Whoville on this one, folks…
April 12, 2013 at 10:13 pm
John Kowalko
In case you missed this see below, but there is so much more false, misleading, erroneous and deliberately divisive lies in that one editorial that I can enumerate if anyone wishes to discuss. Please call since I am a painfully slow typist.
John Kowalko
Comment by John Kowalko on 12 April 2013 at 12:08 pm:
Not only is today’s editorial content disingenuous and rife with a one-sided misrepresentation of the situation but it was concocted from either hearsay or deliberately misleading guidance from DOE. I can say this very assuredly since I have attended and participated in three recent board meetings and a private meeting (along with two of my legislative colleagues) where I asked direct questions and received deliberately evasive answers from Chris Ruskowski, Sec. Murphy, Mary Kay McGlaughlin, Rebecca Taber and other Administration and DOE staff which I in turn relayed to Supt. Williams and the full board asking them to meet face to face with these same people. The Supt. and Board and DSEA agreed and I (along with my two colleagues)was in attendance at that meeting to attempt reconciliation and seek a compromise. At that meeting I was astounded by the total disregard given to any of Christina’s good faith attempts and the abject intransigence of Mr. Ruskowski, Sec. Murphy and Ms. McGlaughlin to even consider the obvious validity of the Districts proposal. I followed up at the next board meeting with my eyewitness, first-hand knowledge of all that transpired at all the meetings (you may listen to the Board meeting minutes.
Now, the very real point that should be considered in reading and analyzing this subjective and biased “editorial” is the absolute fact that the Editorial Board states that “the governor and some equally miffed STATE REPRESENTATIVES understand the implications of what’s at stake locally” without naming one (and I challenge them to do so) state representative that has knowledge of or personally attended any of the meetings with both parties (as I and my colleagues did) who is willing to express support for the Administration and DOE’s and the News Journal’s editorial boards position.
I certainly have taken a very vocal and firm position that the DOE and Administration position (from personal eye and ear witness participation) is wrong, incomprehensibly obstinate, dis-serving to the teachers and most importantly selfishly ignorant of the needs of the children and an insult to every fiber of intellectual honesty that seems to be woefully lacking here. So let me publicly add my name, (State Representative John Kowalko), to that editorial, (which chooses to blithely ignore the tenets of any journalistic integrity), but please pencil my name in as a “state representative” who “understands the implications of what’s at stake locally” and sides with the reasonableness of Supt. Williams and the Board and against the overreaching, bullying and disingenuous political tactics chosen by the administration and DOE.
State Representative John Kowalko
April 12, 2013 at 10:18 pm
kavips
Btw, John. That is an awesome statement… And thanks for mentioning the tapes. Hope a lot more listen over the weekend.
This issue is… about reality. We all need to remember that, every minute, every day, as we go forward.
Reality. We’re talking children here.
July 7, 2014 at 12:58 am
All About Common Core, Charters, and Public Education | kavips
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