Wednesday, February 20, 2008

BIG ED

Bill and Melinda Gates join with the College Board to seduce HCPS with money to entice "traditionally underrepresented students into honors and AP classes" under the innocuous title of "The Accelerator Program". Are the kids capable of succeeding or is being "underrepresented" enough.

They saw an increase in attendance and Grade Point average (due, no doubt to "the curve").

Decrease in referrals (hmmmm - submitted? acted on?) due to being challenged! No kidding.

I await the response postings from veteran teachers on this one since the "administration" was anecdotally referenced.

The meetings? When the heck did these folks meet? During their ONE conference?

BIG EDucation has been shown into the classroom - goader's been warning us about it for a while.

Let's look at the College Board numbers, and then how many kids complete college. Will Microsoft provide patches and fixes?

We need bona fide front line thoughts from teachers that are currently in the high school Accelerator program. Does anyone actually know any teacher that worked on this program?

Don't expect me to show up for the summer training - I need to commit to my summer job.

Am I the only one who thinks "somebody" should be investigated for "solicitation"?

Keep this in mind when they come to us to take a pay cut for next year.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the straw that breaks my camel's back. I am NO DOUBT leaving this county once it is confirmed that my high school will be force feeding this crap...

They claim teachers "know" and that they were "included" but please tell me who the heck that is!!! I don't know of any teachers that really know about this but a small few... Even the ones that do have knowledge of its existence actually don't know much about it either...

Suzie Creamcheese said...

Isn't this the same Yellow Brick Road the Superintendent took us down during the 6 out of 7 fiasco?

How many more examples of this type of management style must we endure before someone says "ENOUGH!"?

Does the district ask for teacher volunteers or do they reach for the "lemming bin" when populating committees?

Anonymous said...

I spoke with several math teachers at my school about this and none of them had ever heard of it and my school is on the list. Guess the Principal will inform everyone at one of our useless faculty meetings.

I would find it more amusing than the Ruby Paine dribble we were forced to endure.

BTW...Teachers are no longer given blank referral forms at my school. We are not permitted to write them.

Guess whose referral rates are down?

I had a student slap me and she got a few days of ISS. I was not given a referral to document this. The SRO gave her a good "talking to".

Anonymous said...

You can (and must) tell your SRO that you want to press charges!

Not to merely perpetuates the myth that the student skates! Protect me! Chances are the student will be walking in my classroom!

Demand a referral. If not tell them you want a street unit sent or you will call one.

Please do it tomorrow. Its the law!

Anonymous said...

These links take you to what real teachers think of SpringBoard because they are already doing it, and there are many flaws:

http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.html?id=7486

http://www.susanohanian.org/show_nclb_stories.html?id=305