In Tennessee, the other Race to the Top  Contestant besides Delaware, there is a county, with a “Managerial” educational director, that is now  25% understaffed staffed.  The reason?  He used his accountability powers to punish everyone who wouldn’t kiss his ass.

“Won’t sleep with me?  Humph.  I’ll show you”  Won’t pay me a $1000 extortion fee to keep your job?  Humph, I’ll show you.”  “Try to tell the truth on me?  Humph. I’ll show you”

Delaware will be there next year.

The problem is the accountability clause in each contract.   One must perform well to keep one’s job.  That is acceptable if it is within one’s powers to succeed or fail.  But there are limits.  Any of us could stop traffic on our neighborhood street to allow kids to cross safely.  But to expect the same across Interstate 95 in rush hour is asking too much.  And that is exactly what Cheatham County Tennessee was doing, if you got on their “bad side”…

That’s why  93 teachers out of 379 are calling it quits.

In Cheatham County High School, 18 of 36 teaching positions are vacant!

Including the football coach and basketball coaches, after their best record seasons ever…

“There’s rule by fear here,” the basketball coach Dawson said. “They seem to want everyone to walk around on egg shells in constant fear of losing their job.”

As an example, Dawson added that he was “quite vocal” about his English class not getting books until this past November, and soon after “he was a target.”   He cited things like a class observation scheduled late in the same day when his basketball team was playing a game to get into the state tournament.  “When you start feeling that pressure and stress, it trickles down to the kids,” added the former teacher. “Its not a healthy work environment for teachers, and not a healthy work environment for kids either.”

In the end it is the kids get hurt.

So how good is their educational program going to be next year?  When the summer is spent just hiring the vacancies that just opened up?

All the crap about tearing down the existing structure to get rid of all the dead weight is happening.  Now there is nothing and no time to rebuild…..

Tennessee went faster down the accountability trail than Delaware.  We waited one year.  Our year is next…

We must ask ourselves as we read the spittle in the News Journal that hasn’t even been fact checked, just how well our small state’s educational system would be if we didn’t have teachers?

Our affluent citizens would then be boarding up their children in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or  Maryland….  Those middle class and under, will be sitting in class with the unemployed hired off the streets to take attendance and yell whenever students talk……

This is the Eli Broad Superintendent School in full effect.  This is the philosophy of  the Bill/Melinda Gates Foundation, unvarnished….

25% of  teachers quit… Now what?