Fwd: [ARN-state] Oregon Trail District strike

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Ready to stand up yet?
Susan

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>
> Date: Sat Apr 1, 2006  6:38:16 AM US/Pacific
> To: ARN State <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>, ARN Main List 
> <arn-l@interversity.org>, arn2-strategy > <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [ARN-state] Oregon Trail District strike
> Reply-To: ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
>
> I've been doing research on the Oregon Trail District strike from
> last year. It was settled after 16 days, but the "settlement" is
> rather murky. I hear and read different things about how NCLB was or
> was not a major issue. I read that teachers were opposing a militant
> administrator imported from Arizona who was doing the typical top-
> down union-busting stuff we've come to expect from people who love
> public schools and teachers. Implicated in this -- surprise, surprise
> -- was that little detail in NCLB that says that teachers -- the ones  
> that work in classrooms -- could be fired if the school does not make
> AYP for 4 years in a row.
>
> see http://www.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/schools/accountability.html#5
>
> The teachers at Oregon Trail, from what I gather, interpreted this to
> mean, "Holy cow! They're gonna fire us for low test scores!!!" Other
> teachers across the country have not (yet?) come to this conclusion.
>
> Ultimately, it's all about the stare-down. It's a game of chicken,
> both sides waiting for the other to blink. "You can't fire teachers!"
> say the unions and the teachers. "Oh, yeah?!?!" shouts back the Feds.
>
> Meanwhile, on March 29th, in a completely unrelated move, the State
> Superintendent of Schools in Maryland ordered that 11 public schools
> be taken over by the state because they were "failing" under NCLB.
> Apparently these 11 public schools are staffed by workers called
> "teachers" and that these teachers no longer have jobs.
>
> Peter Campbell
>
>
>
>
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