Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Happy "New Year"

Happy New Year!?

Um...Not so much. Our school New Year begins in August and we will return to work this week immersed in the tail end of the first semester .  Exams are staring us all in the face and usually the first day back after the holidays is anything but happy. 

You may have noticed our inactivity...or maybe you could at least pretend you noticed...so we will have to do something about that.  A good starting point might be to touch on a few things that have been going on the past two weeks while we ate too much and slept in just a bit.

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Governor McDonnel announced a host of things associated with 2013 Education Agenda.  These included:
 TEACH FOR AMERICA ACT - supports bringing Teach for America (TFA) to Virginia
A-F SCHOOL REPORT CARDS - proposes to simplify the current school accountability system to an easy to understand A-F grading system.
STAFFING FLEXIBILITY FOR SCHOOL DIVISIONS provides flexibility for school divisions to assign staff to schools with particular needs and areas of focus, rather than blanket mandates.

There's a  lot more meat on the bone but no time to go into detail.  Some is good...some is bad.  Not huge fans of the TFA idea.  And job security is about the only decent actual job benefit and that appears to be on the way out.   How about taking some cash and funding a earnest effort at statewide Pre-K   program.  Just  a thought?
OH WAIT...we can't forget that the governor supports at least a discussion of other staff carrying guns at school.  Right now we have a complete ban which I think the TU is fine with.  Securing schools is a big deal.

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The Education of Michelle Rhee
Don't miss this!


Watch The Education of Michelle Rhee Preview on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

  I had to resize this object from its orginal "666" width.  Coincidence?
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We went through some of this at the start of the year but one little discussed topic...furniture.  The Model #144 remains the king in most places.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/education/some-schools-buy-new-chairs-in-a-break-with-the-past.html?ref=education&_r=0


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And what's the deal with this?

I have no problem with #'s 1-5.  Those are all tough and stressful jobs...But...#s 6-10?  Seriously?  Who the heck made this list?
#6 -Event Coordinator...really?
#7 PR Exec?
#8 Sr Corporate Exec?
#9 Photojournalist?
#10 Taxi Driver?

Pointing out the obvious, teacher is notably absent, as are any other job I've ever done. But come on now I am pretty sure I could name about two dozen jobs more stressful than Photojournalist.  Not that I am trying to offend any of my photojournalist friends.  

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Welcome to the New year Folks.  We can only hope it will prove far less interesting that 2013.

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