School's back in session, sort of!

.. and all over the city, the remnants of the last years under the Educrat/Boys' club has become increasingly obvious...example: all the 'new teachers' that werent supposed to be hired..yet, they are in nearly all the schools I see so far:

with all the controversy over 'last in/first out', the Rhee and Bloomberg camps spending as much time as they did falsely accusing our public school system of protecting bad teachers... and then with the NYC/DOE slashing in school budgets around the city, isnt it INCREDIBLE how many new and youthful teachers there are showing up at schools around the city.

just as a favorite 'case study' of mine, at the G&T (Gifted&Talented) Citywide NEST+m where my son attends 4th grade, there are several of these absolute beginners. In fact, my 9 year old has one such person; a lovely young woman who was hired a week ago.. never taught, and while presumably well educated, never been a full time teacher anywhere..

does a newbie imply that he/she cannot be a great pedagogue? of course not; in fact, it has nothing to do with that possible outcome. A young, smart and energetic person can certainly turn out to be a great teacher.. but that is simply not the point.

in our city, firing older teachers is a way of life for school administrators; creating an ever growing pool of 'excessed' teachers throughout the city is what short sighted principals and their 'network managers' encourage. it's about money; we all know that. but how many people have thought about the true value of all those well trained, intelligent and prepared people who have now been forced to leave, or who left out of sheer sense of desperation that what they have done for years is not important to anyone at the NYC/DOE ??

the staff at NEST+m for example is nearly all a certain age group (well under 30) and they strangely resemble a (cuter) version of the principal herself ( a short, greying woman with glasses). so it's just like a corporate hiring process; nothing to do with experience, and apparently little to do with teaching ability either. funny though, that inside the staff are some gems, but it seems they exist almost in error.

Teaching and Learning; it's like the lost mantra. How can we expect better educated kids when the people teaching them (while they may be individually 'smart') dont know the first or second thing about managing upwards of 29 kids in a class ?? Seriously, it's as if the air at the Tweed building where the NYC/DOE makes its crazy magic happen is being regularly filled with noxious laughing gases.

Does anyone out there realize the intellectual capital of a great and experienced teacher also includes recipes for our children's own love of education and learning? Personally, it appears that money has trumped any common sense about hiring/maintaining or training and retaining great staff for our children to learn and grow from and with.