the child probably won't!"

"I suspect that a person who is not deluded into believing that every child can be educated could not tolerate being a teacher for very long."

I know lots of teachers with no such delusions. They know that many of their students will learn little.

But they also know they can't tell which of those students will learn well. Granted, by the time you're a junior or senior in high school the odds of changing categories are long; nonetheless, it still happens, that kid who goofed off for 11 years and then discovers that while he hated the arithmetic disguised as Algebra I he got into college algebra by accident and hit that teacher that made him love math.

They also know that they're teaching at least some kids that want to be taught and others that can be taught.

The problem is the administrators who know this but have to act as though they believe that they don't. Then when things go bad because demographics change they have only one viable option to keep their butts covered: Blame the teacher.

I wish I could send it to all the admins, and the school board, in my district. I can't, though, without risking being labeled "old school" for not enthusiastically embracing "reform."

Except that I already have. I guess it's not risking any more loss of support.

Hi,
Great post. This is really something a very nice information for the readers to go through. This can be helpful for the educators as well who are unaware of the facts what educators are missing out to speak up now-these-days. Thank you very much for updating such a nice information.







Thank you once again...

4. It is unacceptable to hold students and teachers accountable for making gains and learning skills and content which is not developmentally appropriate for the student. Just because you might increase rigor of standards and standardized tests doesn't mean that students are capable of making such gains.

Last edited Fri Nov 9, 2012, 10:20 AM - Edit history (1)

>>>>2. To Legislators: “Do not order us to repair the developmental damage that is done to children before they reach school age. We cannot do so and pretending otherwise wastes resources, damages K-12 education and does nothing to help those utterly innocent children who need it (and deserve it) most.” >>>>>>

If the dim-wit politicians and hedge-fund ghouls know zero about K-12, I guarantee you they know LESS than zero about Special Ed.

The real tragedy here: their "less-than-zero-ness" evolves into required , even *mandated* pedagogy. ( See the Danielson thread below.)

It's like friggin' sci-fi.

But in sci-fi usually something good happens after a while.

we could say the U.S. is #37 in education spending, and it shows. But hey, we're number one in military spending, so it's no mystery why we are the most powerful in that area.

we could say that while poverty doesn't always cause poor academic performance, the two are so strongly linked that the vast majority of poor academic performers are also poor financially. This is a huge hidden/contributing factor in the points above, and until addressed, we can all go on spinning our wheels.