When the Transition Planning Committee rolled out its plan, based on the recommendations of the management consultants, the Boston Consulting Group, and led by Stand for Children, teachers were not sure if the public hearings would be genuine and if their voices would be heard.
In a comment posted here, this teacher describes her experience at a town hall meeting. Corporate reformers seem to have an aversion to the give and take of genuine democracy. It is hard to listen when you think you have all the answers. What do educators know about education anyway?
| I went to the town hall meeting today. They went over the TPC powerpoint for the first hour. That powerpoint can be found on the website and if a person chose to go to this two-hour long meeting, that person had probably already read it or the the commission report.
After going over the powerpoint for an hour, they did not have time to answer everyone’s questions (and there were only 30-50 people in attendance). They did not allow people to stand up or to raise their hand to ask a question. They required that all questions be written on a note card and submitted to the panel to be read aloud by a panel member. They did not allow follow-up questions, several times interrupting audience members mid-question. I did not feel that my concerns were heard or that any changes will be made to the plan in response to the community concerns, one of which was discomfort with cutting librarians in elementary schools. Mayor Mark Luttrell inadvertently made it clear at the beginning of the meeting that changes will not be made to the plan based on community response. He said that what the TPC is doing now is “selling the plan to the community.” |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
it’s called community organizing, get going yall!
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Then why waste the time of having town meetings? I know. Why ask? Got to make it look like we’re getting input.
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Here is another good one to read: http://www.vlrc.org/articles/110.html
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http://www.vlrc.org can best be described as a christian right wing libertarian back to the earth property right first anti-everything government with some questionable racist components website.
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Duane, where is your tolerance? Your post seems intolerant against Christians. Possibly libertarians too.
While I do not always agree with libertarians and other Christians, I’m concerned that instead of looking at issues, you look to attack the messenger instead.
I posted a link explaining the manipulation technique known as the Delphi Technique. I don’t care who has been manipulated by it, it’s a technique used against teachers and community members.
If you would like to add to the discussion on the Delphi, please do. I’m not interested in the “attack the messenger” argument. Those are boring at best.
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I received an email from a TPC member yesterday regarding my Letter to the Editor about the TPC plan for overhauling teacher compensation that was published in Sunday’s Commercial Appeal: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/jul/08/letter-teaching-experience-counts/.
She had very positive things to say about my letter and offered a thoughtful response. Unfortunately, the only real support given for the compensation plan were generalities about the importance of increasing teacher effectiveness and student learning. She also mentioned the research about experience and degrees not raising student test scores.
I replied, arguing that improving teacher effectiveness and student learning are noble goals but that the TPC’s plan for doing so lacked evidential support (value-added measures and performance pay).
I don’t expect my emails to change the TPC’s plan, but at least I know my thoughts are being read/heard, which seems to be much more than they’ll concede at the town halls.
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Very good letter and keep up the pressure. They will go after last in, first out next, they will take away all collective bargaining, but you may have already lost that..the trend is to get rid of those as the top, the expensive, experienced teachers. In the long run they want a cheap labor force, five year turnover, easy to manipulate, test prep newbies…etc… They do not respect teachers, students or learning. This is about money, money, money. Their ONLY measure for effective or successful will be the high stakes test results. Their game plan has already been written; they are just showing you the more appealing aspects now…just wait.
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Sounds eerily similar to board of education meetings that are held in my public school district. The arrogance of elected and appointed school officials who make decisions prior to genuinely seeking public input is an outrage.
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They must be getting tips from the Recovery School District, because that’s what happened at every meeting with John White in New Orleans–his “busy schedule” always required his entering community meetings late and leaving early, and using cards that were submitted by audience members but chosen by him as a psuedo-framework for information he had planned to present anyway. These guys sure think they’re slick. Machiavelli would be so proud.
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Please watch this….you need an organized protest that they do not expect….from an older post by Diane:
I found the video…go to this post, the 7th comment down…chemtchr. MEMPHIS, Meghan…you MUST watch this!
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Sounds very much like the rollout of the Boston Consulting Group-designed transformation plan for the Philadelphia schools
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“You lie,” he said. To the president of the United States. The most strongly anti-democratic corporate fait ‘d acompli has come this far. So far as to obstruct justice at will, and allow fraud and corruption to steal Americans of trillions of dollars of wealth. More importantly, robbing the quality of life, especially robbing education, a republics’ education, with impunity. Over and over again, this story repeats itself. Whether at a district meeting of public agency, or behind closed doors, a scheme is in motion and intends to win. At any cost. They lie.
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