KICKASS TKC TIPSTERS have been covering recent developments concerning a Proposed Incentive Program for Teachers like nobody's business and in REAL TIME.
Now, just as so many predicted . . .
THERE LOOKS TO BE A MAJOR FIGHT BETWEEN SUPERINTENDENT COVINGTON AND TEACHER'S UNION LEADERS ON THE WAY OVER THE PROPOSED INCENTIVE PROGRAM!!!
This is the most organized opposition that Superintendent Covington has faced in his short tenure and could signal the end of his early victories.
Check the latest e-mail blast from Leadership at The Kansas City Federation of Teachers & School-Related Personnel thanks to THE MOST AWESOME OF TKC TIPSTERS:
"This afternoon an email was sent to all teachers about what the District entitled an Incentive Program for Teachers at Central High School. This Incentive Program is nothing more than a Pay for Performance initiative tied to student achievement. The Union did NOT agree to it, and we intend to fight it.
"I strongly urge members not to apply to Central High School, and for those of you who have already applied, I ask that you take a stand against this initiative, too. No pay for performance initiative should be implemented that does not have input and agreement on the people it will affect.
"This Union has never stood for a pay for performance program that directly ties pay only to student test scores, and we aren't about to start now.
"I will be in Dr. Covington's office early tomorrow morning and will let you know the outcome.
"In Solidarity,
"Andrea Flinders
President, KCFT & SRP"
###################
So when do we get our new Superintendent?
ReplyDelete"In solidarity" = "We all fail equally and quickly."
ReplyDeleteAmong the various teacher unions, leaders of this one are Neanderthals. They just won't face realities.
That's what ya'll get. Dummies!!! He made all those promises so that he could get your support for his right-sizing plan and now he screwed ya'll. Oh well, too late now.
ReplyDeleteOk I'm standing with Dr. Covington on this one. Let's see Andrea Flinders and the AFT have been here how long and the district did things the union way since atleast the 70's. We see what the lazy unions brought us. To continue down that path is pure ignorance. Andrea stop robbing the poor Black and Hispanic kids in our district and get with times! Pay for performance!
ReplyDelete"Pay for performance." What an evil, evil idea! Everyone knows minority kids are too stupid to learn anything, therefore the teachers can't be blamed when they don't!
ReplyDeleteNo one else in the whole world gets paid for performance.....oh wait, I guess they do!....Well, never mind, we can't be promoting actual results in schools! It just won't do!
(Note: this is meant to be sarcastic.)
7/1/10 8:58 AM
ReplyDeleteRight on. God Forbid we hold these so-called professionals to the same standard as every other working adult in US. In time of mass layoffs, fighting against what everyone knows should be standard working conditions is ridiculous. Imagine having to pay for cable this month eventhough the cable channels didn't work for 30 out of 31 days(with no refund?) That's what this so-called union is fighting for. They want to get paid with out actually working or producing results. Disgusting really.
Whoop-de-fuckin'-do.
ReplyDeleteWho gives a shit what the union wants.
How 'bout this one...
The citizens of K.C. want the teachers union gone. Yesterday.
Lets see how many of them show up for work when they stop getting paid.
Unions are fine, but they must perform. You can't just have a job and not do it. Kids in the KCMSD CAN LEARN. It's not as easy as babysitting the suburban kids, but for teachers who want to do their job well, they should get paid for results! I don't know why the union opposes this. And yes, I am an educator and a union member, not in this district.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want to be a teacher--talk about hellishly hard work for little pay and constant criticism. We expect schools to solve all our social problems. Teachers can't succeed when kids have crappy homes, loser parents, and are surrounded by poverty, crime, drugs, and such like.
ReplyDelete10:56 makes some valid points, but you can't fire the parents. We can't go on for generations not addressing the problem. Covington is trying to actually solve some problems. I'm for him. Inner city minority students do quite well when they are placed in charter schools, etc. Wonder why KCSMD can't turn itself around? I think it can if the Covington approach is followed. It won't be easy, but improvements can be made.
ReplyDeleteWow, the teachers have been doing such a good job so far. Heaven forbid we critque their performance.
ReplyDeleteI say gut their ranks and start over. If you have to get rid of the union then do it.
yes, the teachers have been doing a GREAT job.... we will miss them when this new guy and his posse split town for new jobs with new rubes...the ugly truth is that front line teachers are holding up society's mess while politicians and educational carpetbaggers pillage...if you need any proof, just drive down Troost, Independence Ave., Prospect,Indiana, and see how all of the past hero/superintendent have done so far. Blaming the unions and teachers is like blaming the Jews for pissing off Muslims.
ReplyDeleteScrew this, as a teacher I want to be paid for simply showing up. Being paid for actually educating kids and innovative approaches to learning? I don't think so. Just give m a pay check and leave me alone.
ReplyDeleteThe front line teachers in this town have produced a high dropout rate and graduates who can't read.
ReplyDeleteThe union teachers in this town have been the biggest contributor to society's mess in K.C.
That's not correct. The teachers have been there for students and the Administration has been too political to make any progress.
ReplyDeleteAnd where is the School Board prez on this?
ReplyDeleteThe last time I saw him he was praying to a statue of himself in a coffeehouse.
Thirty years ago I taught in the KC School Dist. I don't know for sure, but I bet it is similar now to what it was then.
ReplyDeleteSome good and great teachers, some bad and some downright pernicious.
On your best days, you might break even in secondary. A sysaphian task complicated by parents who, if they did care enough to talk to you, never took any resposibility for their kids. In the teachers lounge at Southwest they hung pictures of battered teachers with black eyes and broken bones. It was 1977. I was 27. I was pretty impressed.
Primary, a different story. I went to a grade school called Blenheim (Named after the Battle in the Spanish Succession(?). Apt enough for the KC School Dist. A rediculous expediture of enery and lives with very little result, for reasons not entirely clear, or valid in any context.)on E 71st St.
The teacher was pregnant, and after a few days of confusion, I got fed up and threw everything on top of her desk in the closet (She wouldn't be back until late May.).
At that point, I decided recess was the key to education. I made the kids run laps, do push-ups, play kick ball and jump rope until they were dead on their feet.
Then, I hammered them relentlessly with reading, writing, learning their long division, and multipication tables until they puked. 31 out of 32 kids could do it all after 2 months.
Recess baby. They hated it.
p.s. I once replaced a math teacher at the old Paseo. He had his jaw broke by a student the previous week. The kids told me all about it. Then, they pointed to the student who did it. He was in class. I watched him pretty close.
The current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools.
ReplyDeleteDumb Ass outsiders and know-it-all's seems to think that if they just apply THEIR school experience to others, that schools will improve if we fire teachers and close schools. They do not recognize that schools and teachers are often the anchor of their communities, representing values, traditions and ideals that have persevered across decades.
They also fail to recognize that the best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers.
hey, chuck @ 4:37 - I graduated Southwest in 1978. I must not have taken any of your classes, because even Mr. Sese (from Nigeria or somewhere) had better English skills than you. What did you teach, home ec?
ReplyDeleteTo bad the union just doesn't get it. After BILLIONS of dollars has been spent by Kansas City taxpayers the schools still fail the residents.
ReplyDeleteThe union doesn't care about student scores or graduation rates only money coming in from the dues the teachers pay so the union will keep their jobs that they fail at!!
anon 4:37
ReplyDeleteI am in complete recapitulation. That eviscerating commentary had me thinking that you were hung by your own petard, but then I thought, no, she is actually prima facie. A living proof, straight line reference from 1978, to this inspirational moment, shared for all.
I am in your debt.
Enough with the pseudo-socialist anchor bullshit. Unions have stifled innovation in the Public schools all over this country and have shirked in horror as Citizens exercised their right to Choice and choose Charter and Private schools (Whose teachers aren't part of the union thus don't pay dues) They along with the Liberal Mantra/ racism of low expectations have robbed countless generations/ anchors of proper education. Very soon this opposition to change will come to an end. When the Covington haters run him out of town expect the state to take over and break up the district and thus finally bust up the "Solidarity" Andrea values more than Student Achievement.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, we could repeal the No Child Left Behind Act, offer free public education through college, eliminate most standardized tests, reconfigure town planning to make neighborhoods accessible to bicycles and pedestrians, and slash homework requirements. Doing so would be freeing.
ReplyDeleteSome people will find such proposals shocking. They see the heightened prescription of childhood as a positive development. They argue that to remain economically competitive, American kids must learn the same kind of self-discipline that their counterparts in China or India have. They also assert that because many children grow up without “structure” at home, especially poorer kids in cities, school must be all the more regimented and authoritarian. Modern life is often chaotic, so I understand why advocates of regulated childhoods have an audience.
Yet, much evidence suggests that these “reformers” have it wrong, that imposing new layers of discipline onto American kids’ lives will not lead to the production-oriented results they seek. We see, already, that the current state of prescription has produced a backlash: binge drinking is up, rates of mental illness among teenagers have risen, academic cheating is on the rise. Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation shows how poor, inner-city schoolchildren suffer intellectually and spiritually in overregimented schools. But even if the advocates of more discipline and rigor are right, I question how the ends justify the means.
Our society puts a priority on freedom, at least in theory. We consider its export worldwide a noble diplomatic and military goal. We idealize freedom as the ultimate political and economic aspiration. When this cultural rhetoric is out of step with the experience of young people, we should not blame them for becoming cynical. Neither can we realistically demand that they make good use of freedom without allowing them opportunities to practice it.
Since 1776, Americans have touted freedom as the essence of our exceptionalism. We remove it from childhood at our peril.
As a conservative, I am against No Child Left Behind. It may have been a noble effort on the part of G.W. Bush, and it may have done some good. But public education is not the job of the federal government.
ReplyDeleteJust think. America achieved its greatness and dominant role in the world BEFORE there was a U.S. Department of Education.
6:19: If a state wants to offer free public education through college (and can pay for it), that's fine with me. But show me in the Constitution where the federal government has a role.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any topless photos of the gal with the sign?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I wanna see that teacher gal topless. She's got an attitude on her face like a lot of those porn stars you see on TKC.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinkin I'm seeing a nip peaking through in her picture! Is that possible!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it IS a nipple!
ReplyDelete