I've got lots of questions for our editor.
* How many principals and administrators have obtained their positions not by superior teaching abilities but instead through relatives and friends with political connections?
** How naive can this editor be. How many people have you known who got on the "wrong side" of an administrator and then "paid the price"?
*** Since when has education become an athletic competition?
**** Compensation - yes!
But also how about -
low status, constant public criticism and degradation, being deluged with mandates and dictates by the DOE, being observed and critiqued by those with little or knowledge of the subject matter, seeing "pension reform" stealing their future, observing the cry of politicians to end seniority and any semblance of job security, being held responsible for a student's unwillingness to participate in the learning process, lack of meaningful discipline measures by the administration, confrontations with parents with little or no backup by administrators and last but not least, a bleak outlook for the teaching profession as whole?
I am sure that there is much more that I have failed to mention.
Maybe you would like to fill the blanks?
***** "a career ladder" - what does that mean and to whom will it be available?
Will it be attained primarily by those who follow the same "career path" as the administrators I mentioned in the first sentence?
Aren't the vast majority of principals/administrators former teachers?
ReplyDeleteAren't the ranks of principals made up primarily of former tenured teachers?
Aren't you indicting your own profession then, when you say that these people got their jobs through cronyism?
WjcW