I missed both broadcasts of Tony Bennett's (if I call him Dr. Bennett, I'd be dissing Wendy) "State of Education" address, but I read it on line at the IDE website. It's basically the same thing I heard him say in Columbia City two weeks ago. Today we got Karen Frisco's take on the speech which she published for the edification of "those unfamiliar with Indiana classrooms". That would include Ms. Frisco herself as well as every member of our school board except Kevin Brown.
Ms. Frisco's column has two headings, "Teacher Evaluations" and "Seniority", which are interrelated. She wants to give the "unfamiliar" ones the impression that teacher evaluations are related to a teachers ability to convey knowledge to their students and that they are therefore a factor in decisions on pay and retention. In fact the evaluations are totally subjective, usually a checklist, with no measurable substantiation. They're circular file quality.
Teachers can be fired for a number of reasons through a convoluted (union contractual) process but incompetence is not one of them. No principal is going to go through the trouble of getting rid of a teacher for incompetence when the evidence won't hold up in court. It's easier to leave them alone and hope they trip themselves up for something like insubordination. The only way to get a meaningful, quantitative reading on teaching ability is to tie it to standardized test scores, which naturally they are all adamantly against. It's "not fair". It can be made statistically fair (the LA Times newspaper even did it) but they don't want to hear that. So the only factor in pay and retention is seniority.
Under the heading of "Resources" Ms. Frisco goes off the deep end. Because there was no ISTEP testing in the seventies, she says Bennett's claims of stagnant achievement since the seventies are unsubstantiated and that the doubling of cost to educate kids since then doesn't consider inflation. Bennett's claims in fact are substantiated by national test data and the inflation adjusted cost as well as the number of adults employed per child have doubled in the last several decades. Indiana is no exception to the national trend toward mediocrity in our public schools.
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3 comments:
It cracks me up when the JG editors try to pretend that they are merely putting out news, rather than promoting an agenda.
Phil- The JG might have been a force for change if they had chosen to put some pressure on the district. Instead they were cheerleaders for whatever Wendy did, so much so that they have no credibility on the subject of FWCS.
Everyone has an opinion, and that certainly has it's place in the newspapers, but the J.G. goes so far at times that it is laughable. And their lack of credibility goes much deeper than just FWCS coverage.
I remember in 2007, when they gave their endorsements for City Council. They first stated that, although Crawford had made some recent mistakes, using a candidate's past voting record as a test for judging their future performance was not a valid way for voters to make a decision. That was laughable enough in itself, but then the same article went on to suggest that Shoaff be voted against - because of his past voting record.
You can also look at how the J.G always played cheerleader for the Henry (and before that Grahm) administration. They did this up until the time they were snubbed over the Lemus-Rodriguez video. After that, they began publicly critiquing Henry on a lot of things.
They remind me of little children who are crying so loudly and so absorbed in their own drama that they don't even realize that everyone around them is staring and pointing.
When I ran for Trustee in the primary this year, I purposely disregarded JG's invitation to meet with their editorial board. At one public event where I spoke, I stated that my reason for doing this was because the J.G. was entirely devoid of credibility. There were nods of heads and much applause when I said this. Several people came to speak to me afterwards to say they agreed with what I said.
This took place at the Democratic Party Headquarters. I was standing in the den of Allen County liberalism, dissing the liberal paper, and I was getting patted on the back for it - that should tell you a lot about J.G. credibility!
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