Buffalo plans to move 200 teachers

[Godhumor]

Source: Buffalo News

More than 200 teachers in the Buffalo Public Schools must be removed from seven of the district's lowest-performing schools before September and reassigned to other schools, under federal rules for a school reform plan chosen by district officials.

The unprecedented large-scale reassignment of teachers -- often compared to a major game of musical chairs -- has many people worried about how it will play out.

...

Philip Rumore, president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation, said newer teachers at higher-performing schools cannot get bumped by the displaced teachers.

"They can't bump teachers out of their schools. It's in our contract," he said. "Why would you want to disrupt a building like that where a teacher's doing a good job? That's the whole insanity of this."



Read more: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/schools/article381701.ece

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Turnaround model being used. Buffalo has many, many educational challenges right now and the city is trying to do whatever it can to turn things around. However, this particular plan has a lot of negatives associated to it and has a very large chance of making the situation even worse.

(I student-taught at City Honors, one of the schools mentioned in the article afraid of bringing in "low performing" teachers. It is where athletes, mayors, etc. have traditionally sent their kids while still being able to say they use the public school system.)

[Igel]

1. Of course, it misses the point.

Then again, politicians and parents are firmly dedicated to ensuring that the point is missed.

I've known a lot of teachers that had 10, 15, 20 years' experience. They were good teachers but the demographics in the school shifted. In short order they were bad teachers. Then there were the bad teachers who managed to get a job in a good school. Suddenly, overnight, they were good teachers.