Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Anderson gets an earful in Elgin

Arne Duncan's senior advisor, Jo Anderson, former director of the IEA, got an earful Monday when he met with teachers in Elgin, IL.
Jane Jorgensen, who teaches at Ontarioville Elementary, questioned why the federal government would bail out the auto and banking industries when 300,000 teachers across the country stand to lose their jobs next year. "Why isn't the world freaking out?" she asked. "We're talking about the future here."
With a new Illinois law that ties student performance to teacher evaluations, passed this winter to help the state's bid in the federal Race to the Top education competition for federal stimulus dollars, "some teachers are now just teaching to the tests," Horizon Elementary teacher Johnnie Zurek said."We are assessment crazy. Who would want to teach at a (low-performing) school with these new rules?"
Anderson's response: "You're not going to get money without doing something different." 

2 comments:

  1. Editorial in today's NYTimes: http://nyti.ms/bTHjdY

    This is the same derivative, corporate swill that continues to fashion students as consumers. Take out the 25% for drill/kill testing improvement and start focusing on what's important in schooling: that students learn to love learning by rigorously pursuing their *individual* passions. This plan is designed to win money, not help foster better people/citizens. Fuck you, SchoolBot 2.7.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is the same derivative, corporate swill that continues to fashion students as consumers. Take out the 25% for drill/kill testing improvement and start focusing on what's important in schooling: that students learn to love learning by rigorously pursuing their *individual* passions. This plan is designed to win money, not help foster better people/citizens...SchoolBot 2.7.

    ReplyDelete

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