Race to the Top isn't really working......

[Rosa Luxemburg]

at least not for teachers! We are being evaluated on test scores and inner cities schools have huge attendance problems. Therefore students are failing. Failing students = failing teacher.
The evaluations are not fair. Now a teacher's performance is judged on the performance of their school. In the leafy suburbs where there are eager students and almost perfect attendance teachers are going to have good evaluations.
Teachers are spending hours gathering data, adapting to the common core and teaching to the test. Teachers do not have time to produce quality, rigorous lessons and reflect and reteach. The students are also suffering. This war on teachers is making our lives a misery.

[rurallib]

1. failing students + failing teachers = failing schools =

privatized schools = big bucks for capitalists = mission accomplished

[femmocrat]

2. Anyone who enters the teaching profession these days is insane.

Politicians have killed what used to be a meaningful and fulfilling profession. And the kids are suffering as a result.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. They need more politicians who have had experience as teachers

There are no members who have any experience in education on our school board.

[blkmusclmachine]

3. RTTT is meant solely to transfer public funds into private hands. Mission Accomplished, bay-bee!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. Who in the Democratic Party wants private schools?

The parents who won't send them to the local failing schools. Instead of improving failing schools they segregate.

[Sunlei]

6. What ever happened to those many, many schools where the cheaters got national cash awards?

And the teachers who didn't cheat got the boot as unproductive teachers.

I guess they all went private, where the private schools still get our property tax school tax money called 'vouchers' , they still get federal funds and the parents also pay. The teachers even have to buy extra things, some stores like staples have special prices for school buyers. They're all set-up to take as much state and federal money as they can grab.

Couple friends I know who teach in these private schools (paid our public school tax money) seem very stressed. Others went to other countries to teach, the pay is better and they love working there.

Students should be put first, instead students are last after a bunch of 'for profit' middlemen take their profits, there is not much left that directly helps children learn.

The USA can't even feed all school children a decent free breakfast and lunch with all the 'for profit' middlemen in the way.

Its not like this in other 'first world' countries. The meals are free, those schools don't spend time to argue over decent meals.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

7. Public schools have become a brutal place for children and teachers.

[Sunlei]

8. I'm in Houston area. Know someone who just sold their home. The school districts were divided by

the road in front of their home. Because their home was connected to Westberry High School and that district, their home sold for 40k less than the same home directly across the street.

It sucks the PUBLIC school districts in America are still segregated by class/race? and are not treated equally, as they should be.

On top of that the major real estate agents know full well how to direct buyers to their 'class' of home.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

11. Finland's dedication to equality

is what makes their schools so outstanding. There are no god schools or bad school. There are only good schools. In Houston, I had my daughter apply to five middle schools and five high schools to make sure she got into a good school. We have a capitalist school system. Good for some, but horrendous for most.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. Why aren't we following Finland's example if they are good?

I thought that we were supposed to be fair?

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

16. Our school system is part of our capitalist society.

Parents want their kids to do better than other people's kids and they start by finding better schools. It's a competition. Finland is socialist. They want everyone to do well. It starts at birth when every baby is sent home with supplies. The U.S. is now taking capitalism in education to an extreme by allowing corporations to make money off of schools. Money is more important than children. Teachers with Finland are treated with respect and allowed to teach unencumbered. Teachers here are now treated like dirt and are under continual attack. I fear that in our future a teacher will be a minimum wage worker watching fifty students on computers.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

15. Indeed there have become war zones

We had a stabbing in the classroom down the hallway from me. Now they have a scanner at the front door.

[PatrickforO]

9. Did you know...

That schools in Colorado no longer teach keyboarding, which is vital to nearly any job, because they don't have time? They are teaching the students to pass the worthless CSAP tests instead...

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. Do politicians know anything about education - quality education?

We don't get any advice from the 'chiefs' on how we are going to solve the problem of absentees.

Principals in this school system are going to be put on assistance plans unless they get their absentee problem under control. What are principals supposed to do - send taxis to collect the absent students?

[Doctor_J]

10. it's working just fine for the investors. The Bush family and the rest of

the predator class are doing great. Like the ACA and TPP, RTTT is another corporate windfall the turd way is so fond of

[Sunlei]

12. besides the schools,the prisons and student loans,I see the next big 'for profit' bonanza rising

They have their greedy eyes on our, Federal money used to subsidize the ACA health 'insurance.'

Health care should be non-profit, no middle-men.