[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[wa2egp at att.net]

> NCLB seems to have also brought with it all kinds of testing
> requirements and restrictions on how teachers teach.

Yeah (sigh), unfortunatly yes.
 
> I know a few good teachers, and I hate to see them not get paid what
> they want.
> 
> But my experience tells me that most of them don't deserve what they
> get.
> 
> The system won't allow you to pay some high and some low based on merit,
> so it is hard to increase pay for the good ones, without also increasing
> pay for the bad ones.

That involves the problem of who is did a good job and who didn't.
(I hear another can of worms being hoked up to the can opener.)

 
> I wish I could have gone.  We have some pretty good private schools
> around.
> 
> Either that, or I wish I could have been in the good public districts.
> Some of those schools rank as high as the private schools.

If there are good private schools, it would be great.  My older son is
going to a Catholic HS and he is not getting the education he should.
Even he says it's BS.  He'd be killed in the local HS (lot of racial
problems) and it lost its state certification (as it should have).


> > I wonder why (just kidding).
> 
> I'm sure I was hard to deal with, being smarter than the other kids and
> most of my teachers... :)
> 
> But more seriously, I mean real abuse, mental and physical, went on a
> lot.
> 
> Personally, I can't imagine teaching if you hate kids.

That's what I say.  As soon as it's not fun, I'm gone.
 
> But I think it happens because teachers get decent pay, and the perks
> are garanteed by union and law.

And the perception that the job is easy.
 
> These were people who coudn't have made it in the private sector.

At one time that was true.  In my area, non-public schools are getting
teachers that couldn't make it in public schools.

> > The first is required in NJ for YEARS.  In sciences, they require a minor
> > in the science you're teaching.
> 
> That's good.
> 
> > > A lot of the key to doing well in school and on tests is not
> > > intelligence, but cleverness, knowing how to work the system.
> > 
> > Just in school?
> 
> No, that's just where the kids learn it, and they continue the crap into
> the workplace and other adult life.

That's been my latest fight.  We have a selection process for students who
want to take AP courses.  Now the guidance counselers are letting anybody
in if they have a good story.  I have one <explitive deleted> who never 
applied for the course (because no science teacher would recommend her)
then begged and pleaded at guidance to be put in the course last year 
(for this year).  When I heard about it, I had her thrown out.  Guess 
what?  She's in my class.  
Latest trick to to tell guidance that, "Mr. so-and-so made a 
mistake on my first marking period grade and has to change it".  
I get an email to change the childs's grade.  The grade was correct.

At least I can turn a computer off if it pisses me off. :)

Bob