|
This was a letter to the editor, written by a San Diego County schoolteacher about Bersin (who was effectively fired and run out of town here, only to be rewarded for his misdeeds by Schwarzenegger):
Dear Editor:
When Alan Bersin first arrived, I was overjoyed to see someone who was an advocate for the teaching of basic skills. I personally held similar beliefs, and was delighted to see someone come in to make some positive changes in our district. I asked everybody to give him a chance! I believed that hard working teachers should have no problem with his policies!
I was very disappointed when I observed that his actions did not match his rhetoric. Our school district became extremely top heavy. He began moving funds that should be spent directly on servicing our children to hiring expensive consultants and assistants. Classroom aides who used to help students one-on-one were laid off, they were replaced by the higher wage consultants and peer coaches. Eventually, we went from five Assistant Superintendents to seventeen Instructional Leaders. At my school, we have six administrators, yet we do not have a janitor to clean our classroom. If I don't clean and sweep the floor, my classroom would be filthy! Our clerical staff has been drastically reduced, and our security staff is almost non-existent.
Peer coaching sounds like a good idea. However, the majority of teachers who became peer coaches are people who really do not enjoy teaching, and some of them are actually incompetent teachers who can't make it in the classroom. These teachers leave their classrooms, and proceed to tell the rest of us how we should teach our students. In fact, some of our content administrators are inexperience teachers (3 years of teaching or less), and these people are giving me training?
Attached is a photograph of the gaping holes in my classroom. As a taxpayer and a teacher, I am totally embarrassed! My ceiling tile collapsed in the first rainstorm in November, and it is February now. We've gotten nowhere with the district. The message we are sending to our kids is that they are not a priority! Many of my students' parents are marines, off fighting a war in Afghanistan or Iraq. Yet we can't even repair our classrooms so that we have a decent, clean, and safe learning environment for them!
Lastly, on the topic of teacher's unions. . . Thank goodness for due process and collective bargaining! Without them, teachers may earn less than a Wal-Mart worker!
...Here's an e-mail I received from the same teacher, after she learned of Bersin's appointment by Schwarzenegger:
According to the L.A. Times, Governor Schwarzenegger is going to name Alan Bersin as the state's education secretary TODAY. This man tried to destroy the San Diego School System under the guise of raising test scores, bullying parents and teachers, removing music and the arts from the curriculum as if they were equivalent to a trip to Baskin Robbins, and selling off public land. Our John Bolton of education did such a horrible job that the new school board is firing him.
This is a confrontational appointment meant to insult the parents and teachers across this state. Even though this position is not as powerful as that of the elected State School Board Superintendent, I'm sure Bersin will do his best to further undermine education in California from this pulpit. Schwarzenegger's attacks on California's school system--such as calling educators special interests--are all a part of the conservative Republican agenda to privatize public education. They wrap this effort in the framing of "merit pay" and "accountability" and use No Child Left Behind to accomplish it. DFA should jump all over this issue. I just sent an email to the Governor's office at: www.govmail.ca.gov. I am going to call his district office here in San Diego this morning at: (619) 525-4641.
More details (sent in a follow-up e-mail):
1. As soon as he was hired, he hired a high price New York consultant, Tony Alvarado. This man flew back and forth on tax payers' dime. The reason he "had to" hire his buddy was because Bersin was "inexperienced" in matters of education.
2. He constantly wastes tons of money on hiring out of town consultants (his cronies). Like San Diegans must be so stupid!
3. We had 5 assistant superintendents when he started 7 years ago. He increased that number to 17 Instructional Leaders (with huge salaries) while no one is available clean our classrooms or keep our schools safe.
4. He fired all the classroom aides (who actually help kids) and replaced them with "peer coaches." These are teachers who hate being in the classroom (and make way more money than aides). Their job was to "teach" us how to teach. Let's see, we stay in the classroom because we really like teaching, now we are "taught" by people who fled the classroom as soon as they had the opportunity. Makes sense!
5. He is totally anti-union (anti-teacher having a voice in making decisions regarding our kids).
Bottom line: he made our district top heavy; he moved a lot of resources away from our kids; and he is a dictator who cannot handle disagreement (sounds familiar?). His top down, anti-union stance has alienated and demoralized our district for years. Our new board finally listened and bought out his contract. We run him out of town, and he gets a big fat promotion because he's the gov's revenge on teachers unions.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
