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There is nothing to show that the "reforms" of Roosevelt, Lane, and French have worked. On the contrary, Pittsburgh continues to slip, stumble, and fall. Yet these people get hired to greater and greater positions.
Maybe the work just got too difficult for French. All of the reforms that our principals spout off to us are just words. The data still shows PPS as a struggling district. Prior to the Roosevelt-Lane-French-Lippert years, PPS was seen as an innovative urban district that was making progress in student performance.
Now the only progress PPS is making is in terminating veteran teachers through RISE to lower salary expenditures. RISE is only reform that PPS can claim as working! Yes, every classroom deserves a teacher who is a master teacher. However, with a boring canned curriculum that fails to meet the academic needs of students and limits how teachers implement the curriculum, we see student achievement continue to decline or stagnate.
Instead of lowering administrative salary expenditures, non-teaching staff continues to balloon. These non-teaching persons lack any collective experience in the actual art of teaching and learning. I appreciate Dr. French's expertise as a psychologist but her lack of preparation and experience as a classroom teacher speaks volumes to what went wrong and continues to go wrong in PPS. The administrators at the top are good people who lack the experience required to establish a working vision to improve student achievement.
Well-stated! A challenge, however, could be directed toward "good people" as a description for those who continue to at risk while in positions that could, should, and would improve achievement if they stepped aside to allow educators with the necessary experience and expertise to take on the responsibility and accountability for successful outcomes.
4 comments:
This is just crazy. I don't understand it at all.
There is nothing to show that the "reforms" of Roosevelt, Lane, and French have worked. On the contrary, Pittsburgh continues to slip, stumble, and fall. Yet these people get hired to greater and greater positions.
Why?
Maybe the work just got too difficult for French. All of the reforms that our principals spout off to us are just words. The data still shows PPS as a struggling district. Prior to the Roosevelt-Lane-French-Lippert years, PPS was seen as an innovative urban district that was making progress in student performance.
Now the only progress PPS is making is in terminating veteran teachers through RISE to lower salary expenditures. RISE is only reform that PPS can claim as working! Yes, every classroom deserves a teacher who is a master teacher. However, with a boring canned curriculum that fails to meet the academic needs of students and limits how teachers implement the curriculum, we see student achievement continue to decline or stagnate.
Instead of lowering administrative salary expenditures, non-teaching staff continues to balloon. These non-teaching persons lack any collective experience in the actual art of teaching and learning. I appreciate Dr. French's expertise as a psychologist but her lack of preparation and experience as a classroom teacher speaks volumes to what went wrong and continues to go wrong in PPS. The administrators at the top are good people who lack the experience required to establish a working vision to improve student achievement.
Well-stated! A challenge, however, could be directed toward "good people" as a description for those who continue to at risk while in positions that could, should, and would improve achievement if they stepped aside to allow educators with the necessary experience and expertise to take on the responsibility and accountability for successful outcomes.
Should read "continue to put students at risk ..."
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