Sunday, July 25, 2010

Every Kid Deserves A Good Teacher

In the four CEAFU conferences I've attended I've heard talks by both Mike Miles of Colorado Springs and Michelle Rhee of Washington, DC, and both spoke about the need for highly qualified teachers and fair, effective, valid ways to measure their capabilities. Miles' program is probably the best I've ever heard of, but that isn't stopping Rhee from moving ahead with her program:

The District of Columbia public school system announced Friday that it is letting 226 employees go for poor performance under the education assessment system IMPACT.

Another 76 employees will be terminated because of licensing issues, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said in a news release. Of the 302 employees who are losing their jobs, 241 are teachers, she said.

"Every child in a District of Columbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher -- in every classroom of every school, of every neighborhood or every ward, in this city," Rhee said.

Rhee said on CNN's "John King, USA" that she thought the cleanup was a long time coming.

"We want to get along with the union. We want to get along with this person or that person. We don't want to fire anyone," she said.

"But in the meantime, children have been done a disservice every single day. We have graduated a generation of Washingtonians who don't have the skills and knowledge that they need to be productive members of society because our schools have failed them."


You certainly can't fault her passion to ensure the students of the capital get educated.

3 comments:

maxutils said...

What a fantastic idea. I'm sure that the experienced, well qualified teachers who have been beating down the doors to get hired in the Washington D.C. school district will make an amazing difference, as early as this fall.

Darren said...

It's not like the teachers they have are getting the job done.

Hey, I know what let's do, max! YOU should apply for a job there. Take the option of not accepting tenure and you'll make *significantly* more than you're making now. Seriously.

maxutils said...

I wouldn't make a difference. Those schools are failing because they are populated primarily by students who don't value education, with 'parents' who instilled that opinion, be it passively or actively. That said . . . who knows?