Obama's education policies causing major problems.in Tennessee

[Orlandodem]

Obama seriously needs to rethink who his choice for Secretary of Education and he needs to drop the RTTT initiative.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/education/tennessees-rules-on-teacher-evaluations-bring-frustration.html?_r=1&hpw

This is going on all over the country.

[Lars39]

1. Thanks for posting that.

And a big fat zero to whoever unrecced it.

[msanthrope]

3. I unrecced it, since the OP was confusing Tennessee state rules with DOE

mandates. The evaluation system was put in place by TN. It needs to be fixed by TN. Blaming President Obama seems reflexive.

[lamp_shade]

4. So did I.

[msanthrope]

2. According to your own link, the problems with the evaluation system

originate from the methods the State of Tennessee decided on--methods they are now tweaking. The federal DOE has told them to take their time.

According to the article, these are standards set by the state. Accordingly, they need to be fixed by the state.

Why are you blaming President Obama?

[Orlandodem]

5. Leadership starts at the top. The buck stops with Obama and Duncan.

It's their program.

Republicans are using Obama as a way to advance their agenda of destroying public schools. They're using a Democrat's policies to destroy people who tend to vote Democrat, teachers.

I live under Rick Scott. I HATE him. But the Republicans in Florida keep citing Obama's RTTT as a reason for their policies. If this isn't what Obama or Duncan intended, they need to fix it or suffer the political consequences.

[msanthrope]

7. Um, the President isn't running a dictatorship. Schools are controlled

locally, always have been. What you want the President to do is take power away from elected state officials and give it to the federal government.

Obama isn't responsible for people believing Rick Scott.

[Vincardog]

9. If the schools are "controlled locally and always have been" as you assert why is anyone "racing"

anywhere?

[Jakes Progress]

10. Yeah. And besides. Obama is never wrong.

Nothing he does is bad. If it goes bad, it's someone else's fault. The buck doesn't stop there. There is no buck. Someone stole the buck. Congress has the buck. After all, he's only president.

Look. Obama's education policies suck. They are bad for students. Bad for schools. Bad for teachers. Bad for unions. Bad for the country.

We can go into detail if you want.

[frazzled]

6. Sounds like the state of Tennessee is the main culprit here

It's Tennessee that came up with the cockamamie system.

Evaluation is hard. My husband is chairing his school's (higher education, undergraduate and graduate) tenure review committee--just one of three steps in the tenure process (the departmental review, the system-wide tenure review committee, the administration's review, in addition to outside assessors). He is spending 30 hours per week or more on a single candidate, including reviewing materials, preparing for the meetings, conducting the meetings, which last often 4 to 5 hours, and then having to write up complex reports that represent a fair assessment of all committee members' assessments. People take it very seriously. He thought this was a good deal in return for a reduction in course load for the year. But it's actually creating a lot more work and a lot less time to prepare his remaining classes and do the writing projects he's committed to (with publication deadlines). But it's a good learning experience in thinking about the criteria necessary to maintain a strong faculty.

I realize that the criteria and stakes for elementary-high school education are different. But there must be a good system to find--helpful to both administrators and teachers--to do this kind of evaluation. But it doesn't come easy. And it doesn't come from a checklist. It takes hours of input and assessment from colleagues, supervisors, students, and outside professionals. Hopefully it is a process that helps everyone (the students and overall working of the school being the most important factors). I know teachers who favor assessment: but few have decided how it should be done.

[Vincardog]

8. IF the Fed does not funds of the education (and it doesn't) it needs to step off. These "races"

are designed to make money for the testing companies and provide excuses to PRIVATIZE our schools.