Anxiety ripples through Boston schools as teachers need to "reapply" for their jobs

[Bluebear]

Reach for the top! :eyes:

=====

Anxiety rippled through seven “underperforming’’ Boston schools yesterday, as more than 350 teachers and staff members faced a deadline to reapply for their jobs as part of an overhaul by Superintendent Carol R. Johnson.

Last night, the School Department was tallying how many had filed a “letter of intent’’ to stay at the schools, but both the teachers union and administrators were expecting that many would opt to seek employment at one of the city’s 128 other schools.

The drama unfolded between classes on the first day back from April vacation, when students and teachers typically are recharged and ready for a new round of teaching and learning.

“Today was a rough day,’’ said a staff member at one school who declined to give her name because she reapplied for her job and did not want to jeopardize her chances of keeping it. “A lot of staff members get attached to their students and families.’’

Angst over their future gave some teachers stomachaches. Others kept running tallies of those planning to depart. In some cases, as word spread about who was planning to leave a school, those who had been planning to reapply for their jobs changed their minds.

Some teachers, she said, were choosing to leave “because they feel so disrespected by the process. If the idea is to get the strongest teachers, they blew it.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/04/27/angst_as_teachers_reapply_for_jobs/

[MichiganVote]

1. I-Pod education.

:eyes:

[virgogal]

2. Dreadful.

[MichiganVote]

7. Coming soon to your neighborhood school.

[Bluebear]

8. Courtesy of a Democratic administration.

Disgraceful.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Schools are families

I feel their pain. It's gotta be like a divorce. A family is breaking up.

[CoffeeCat]

4. Just like cheerleading tryouts!

Geez. This is so inappropriate, it's unbelievable.

This is just a way for administrators, principals and other powers-that-be
to get rid of teachers who aren't doing whatever bizarre things they want
teachers to do these days--such as pass the most students on the standardized tests
OR follow the curriculum that helps kids pass tests.

There's a paradigm-shift happening in the schools. There are so many good
teachers in our area, and you can feel that many are being pushed out. Superb,
professional, amazing teachers are being forced to teach-to-pass-tests and it's
hard to really teach while playing the everyone-must-pass-these-tests game.

So, many outstanding teachers--who love the kids and love to help kids really learn--
will be lost.

What a tragedy.

When teachers don't voluntarily leave, I guess they shake the tree with "cheerleader tryout"
type job-application processes. Very sad.

[hayu_lol]

5. I hate to think what the monetary costs are...

of doing this in so many school districts. There are other costs and the students will end up paying in the long run.

What nonsense.

[roguevalley]

10. Boston will get what they deserve. scratch that town as a good place

for public education. pathetic

[mzmolly]

6. Pathetic.

What garbage.

[SocialistLez]

9. ::screams::

:banghead: :banghead: :argh: :argh:

[Daphne08]

11. As a former teacher, I find I can no longer read about

this betrayal without growing frustrated and sad at the same time.

I come from a family of teachers and college professors, and this is the worst assault on education I've seen in my lifetime.

The general public has no idea how difficult it is to be a teacher. I loved it and was really going for 25 years, but I failed.

After 17 years of jumping through ridiculous hoops and tolerating crap from too many Assistant Principals, Central Office idiots and parents alike, I had to leave the profession.

The losers in all of this mess will be the students who don't have parental support from home.

They are the real victims.

[Bluebear]

12. --

You didn't fail :hug:

[Daphne08]

14. Thanks.

I do know that I helped quite a few students during all that time in the classroom. So, when I look at it that way... no, I didn't.

Thank you.

:hug:

[Gormy Cuss]

13. I hope that all of the best teachers choose not to reapply.

That'll "teach" these idiotic school departments a lesson they need.

[SoCalDem]

18. Except for the fact that these teachers have lives, kids, mortgages

car payments, etc...and need a job.. They have been working toward that pension at the end of the road, and may need to keep working.:(

[Gormy Cuss]

19. It's calling a bluff.

IIRC the teachers are unionized and it's time for collective action. My father had kids and bills to pay every time his union called a strike. No one likes it but sometimes it's necessary.

The schools need teachers and really don't want to get rid of the best performers. If enough of those who aren't at risk of being axed threaten to move on maybe this stupid scheme will go away.

[madfloridian]

15. It sickens me our party is not speaking out against this.

[Bluebear]

16. Speaking out? They're encouraging it!

[SoCalDem]

17. US Ed Co, Inc.

This is the new "business" model. Corporations have been doing this for a while now. Company A "fires" everyone, and then Company B "hires" them and "leases" them back to the Company A. Company A is now off the hook for paid vacations, sick-pay and insurance, etc.

Their former employees became "temps" in their own former jobs.

This is how the school districts would like to operate. They can "use' the teachers they like, and discard the rest , by just not asking for their services from company B. Company B will have to find a new place for those teachers, or just let them go:(