New TN education commissioner is a VP of Teach for America. Rhee there also as anti-union.

So Tennessee is getting a full dose of education "reform". Rhee founded TNTP The New Teacher Project. It has contracted with Memphis schools for several years to provide new teachers.

Add Bill Gates to the mix, and you have got a full-fledged case of "reform" going on. Indeed Memphis pays TNTP 2.5 million a year of Bill Gates' money to find teachers for them.

Why don't they just save money and hire locally? Good question. No good answer. As in the case of the Miami High School which President Obama visited last week, they are using the "reform" process of getting rid of experienced teachers and bringing in new teachers which they had to pay to recruit. In fact 20 of the fired teachers at Miami Central were replaced by TFA teachers. They had to get rid of other teachers to make room for them.

More about Tennessee and Huffman and Rhee, his ex-wife.

Teach for America VP named Tenn. ed. commissioner


Picture from TFA website



And his ex-wife, Michelle Rhee, is taking time out from wreaking havoc on Florida schools and heading to Memphis. In Florida she recommended that 8% of the state's teachers be fired.

From the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Ex-D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee joins anti-union offensive in Tennessee





And Bill Gates is giving them money, lots of it.



My best to the teachers of Tennessee and especially Memphis. Memphis joins Tampa and New York as part of the Bill Gates Earbud Project for TFA teachers.

I believe teachers in both states are going to have to be just like WI teachers if they want to survive as public employees.

Here are the very astute words of Jennie Smith about Obama's standing with Jeb Bush on education policy.



What is happening in Tennessee is happening in Florida and other states. The education "reformers" are not about what's best for kids and teachers or parents. They want what's best for them and for their business cronies.

There is no one standing with those of us who are/were teachers. Neither party is for us. We have been negotiated away.

I find that that is one of the most tragic things that ever happened in this country. Public education has been traded away in the name of "bipartisanship."

that she made improvements in the classroom during here tenure as a teacher. So she opted to become a hustler for the the "financial"class who are trying to make $$$$$$$$ off of basic education.

That is the simple fact.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/11/eveningnews/main4254956.shtml

"Today, the group has 5,000 teachers-in-training and a $75 million budget - a third of it from local school districts, state and federal government. That's your tax dollars, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. Which is why it was such a blow when Teach for America recently got a failing grade on the subject of handling the public's money.

The Department of Education Inspector General examined a small slice of the group's federal funding. What they found was shocking. In all, Teach for America failed to account for half the money audited.

Time and time again the audit said there were no basic records or receipts: None for a $123,878 training expense; none for a $342,428 bill. Teach for America vice president Kevin Huffman chalks it up to poor record keeping.

"We're confident, we're confident that we spent the money on the training of new teachers," Huffman said."

That is public money that the new TN education commissioner could not account for at all.

"We're confident, we're confident that we spent the money on the training of new teachers," Huffman said."

how few wealthy and powerful people it takes to transform a whole education system. Just a handful. But they have the power.

Jeb Bush's deputy education commissioner to up our scores. I just read that the big fixation on "no social promotion" is a way of improving all-important-for-evaluation test scores in the 4th grade by keeping less than compliant 3rd graders out of the mix. I wondered why there had been such a fuss over it at the Roundhouse this last week or so, pushed by Susana. It must be a crucial part of the "reform" and making it look good.

I have about as much faith in this pick as I did in Harrison Schmitt, her climate-change-denier choice to head the Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources.

There is something in our state constitution that says the head of education must have teaching experience, but the Tea-hadists are thinking that rule doesn't apply to them.

Not sure if they still have it. It's so zero tolerance that it can not work.

The big issue has to do with the vote today on whether or not to give up the Memphis City Schools charter, in which case the county is responsible for education of the city schools students. Nobody knows what is going on with that but it is full of racial, political, and $$$ issues with all kinds of different people on both sides of the issue. This is all anyone here has talked about for weeks, and not many people are paying attention to the rest of all this. The Gates money just hasn't been controversial. I'm glad my kids have all graduated, and I have a grandson in private schools. Whatever side wins, this can't be good for education. Have no idea how it leaves the teachers (???)

and the teachers will have to like it or leave. Since he doesn't believe teachers improve after 3 years, he sees no reason to have experienced ones. :shrug:

Education will suffer for those who can't afford private school. And many private schools in Florida don't even require certified teachers because they don't think it matters if they teach what they are told.

Watch the outcome and consequences of the vote today if you are really interested in education and the fate of the teachers in Memphis City Schools.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/mar/06/showdown-over-schools-surrender-leads-but-tide/

As an aside, our governor and legislators :eyes:

Thanks.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/mar/08/memphis-school-charter-approval/

Obviously the full vote isn't in. The teachers were completely against it because of all the uncertainty about their positions after the merger takes place. There is some sort of compromise whereby in three years smaller districts may form out of the combined system. I have no objection to that if the funding is equitable. It costs more to educate the city school students per student compared to the county because there are a lot more kids with special needs in the city.

I think they will work out things about the teachers. Oh, yeah, the county was completely against this move because they don't want to have to deal with the city schools. But they have no choice if the city of Memphis votes for it. Honestly I think the current city school superintendent may be the worst one in the country, not because of any ideological bent, but just because he keeps pissing everyone off. If this gets rid of him, it is all worth it. I have no idea how this school system impressed Bill Gates.:eyes: That certainly causes me to wonder about Gates. There are probably some talented people in the city school system somewhere.................but the superintendent is not one of them.

The city schools keep insisting on things like using minority contractors. That means nothing because getting the percentages right is all a sham, where there are "front" people to sort of pretend to be a minority contractor. Prices are then jacked up for school construction and then the schools fall apart. That's the kind of leadership the city schools has. The superintendent has done his best to ruin some of the best schools in the city by forcing teachers to do strange class setups and schedules. I think he may be on some sort of a power trip. I would take a recent Teach for America graduate over him as a superintendent.

Can you tell I wanted to give up the Charter?

The overall quality of education in America is about to take a very deep plunge -- just like workers' wages and exports.

What is it that Bill Gates cannot understand about GREED. He is even greedy when he is doing charitable work. It's like a virus in his personality. And I bet that if you met him, you would come away thinking he was the sweetest guy. But he just believes that everything works like his computerized brain. It doesn't.

We all learn in different ways. And test scores and grades do not tell the whole story about what a child is learning.

:hi:

They simply give no comment.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2011/03/04/woods-huffman-and-haslams-collective-silence-on-collective-bargaining

" Asked for his view on the Republican bill to strip public school teachers of collective bargaining rights, Huffman declined to answer.

That's because his new boss intends to do all the talking on the issue, right? Woods again:

As he has done for the past two weeks, since the issue pushed the front of the legislature’s education agenda, the governor also pointedly refused to give his opinion.

“There are still some twists and turns in terms of how all that develops,” Haslam said of the collective bargaining bill. “We’re in the middle of those discussions. At the appropriate time, I think we’ll weigh in. We’re not going to throw 100 things against the wall and see what sticks. We’re going to pick a few things that we think are really important.”

become a honeypot of corruption (if they already aren't). I predict that when the unions go out and charter schools come in, money for education will be rewarded to the politicians' favorites. Education will become the means to power for fat-cat politicians and billionaires.

Just mark my words on this.

Let's look at the long term outcome of this ongoing assault on teachers and their unions:

Since NCLB (now RTTT, and does everyone know who continues to profit from this legislation?), the vast majority of our public school 'graduates' cannot read above a fifth grade level, and cannot play math above a sixth grade level.

Here in Texas, the ubiquitous and much maligned standardized math tests (TAKS now, STARR next year) are designed to insure that a given percentage of students 'pass' -- with a score of 58%! As these 'passing' students progress to their next year of math, they have little or no retention of what they were taught the prior year, since our system of public education mandates teaching math concepts as isolates, and promotes the meme that 'we cannot teach 7th graders higher level maths, because their brains are not developed enough to understand that math.' (!?!)

As I struggle to help students learn college algebra and trigonometry at a local community college, I am dismayed at the number of students I meet who don't even have a fundamental grasp of algebra! I ask them about their high school experiences and I consistently hear "I didn't get math" or "my teacher went too fast and I got lost." These students tend to get frustrated early in the course, and a significant percentage drop the course and wait until their final semester to try again.

One of our math instructors was completely flummoxed when one of his students complained after she failed algebra. He observed to her that she had failed every exam, almost every quiz, and almost every homework assignment. She still didn't 'get' why she had failed! I had to remind him that she had just graduated from a school district that restricted all teachers from giving a minimum grade below 55%, no matter how little work a student completes! Most of this district's students can go through an entire semester of math with mostly failing grades, and they'll STILL pass, because our teachers know they'll be in deep yogurt if they fail these low-performing students.

sigh...

Now, the corporatists are fully aware that this plethora of under-educated students are ideal for service industry or factory work, where they'll be little more than slave labor--paid a pittance and provided with little or no benefits. These pitiable people will not have the basic comprehension skills necessary to ask relevant questions, and they'll be too frightened of losing their jobs to demand fair wages, decent benefits or union representation. Given that the Corporate Megalomaniacs are privatizing public education to acquire yet another 'profitable venture' and that the TFAs and the Charters and the Huffmans and the Rhees are raking in megabucks for their 'educational prowess,' this is a win-win for the corporatists, don't you agree?

:hi:

Follow the money and you will find scum

It's nice that we have a Democrat for president so that he will speak out and act against such terrible.... what?

Oh. Never mind.

:shrug:

Good things we have Democratic forums that believe in union rights for teachers. Oh, wait. Most agree with the ACLU and its anti-union lawsuit. :shrug:

Just a bunch of states where the union busting is growing.