A reader posted this comment:
I am a teacher in TN. I have 6 years of experience and a masters degree, and I don’t make even 40k a year. Our district already has a performance incentive program – the top level of merit pay, which I did earn last year, was $2,000 – about $1600 after taxes. Insulting. In fact, many teachers earned it. So what are they doing for this year? Raising the qualifications to make it harder for teachers to earn it because they didn’t want to give out so much $$.
Yesterday I received an email from Huffman – I think it was sent to all educators in TN through a listserve. I was so, very, very very very very tempted to reply to it and say just what someone said above – “Dear Mr. Huffman, I think it’s only fair that you too tie your salary to a measurement of our evaluation of your performance in office, and not receive any further raises unless warranted.”
But I didn’t, because I value my job. Unlike him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
WTH???? There are days I truly believe I’m living in an alternate universe. Where is the outrage?
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Everyone is asleep at the wheel. Or, the use of fear and intimidation is working. Where is the Education Secretary? Doesn’t he care about the opinions of the nation’s teachers?
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“Where is. . .? Doesn’t he care. . . ?
Kissing his masters’ arses, and NO, he doesn’t.
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The outrage is there! It’s just not quite organized yet!
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Petition to Governor Haslam to get rid of Kevin Huffman:
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-hurting-our-schools-remove-kevin-huffman-as-the-appointed-tn-commissioner-of-education
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I’m a parent in TN and this is the email I sent to Governor Haslam this morning:
——————————————————–
Dear Governor Haslam,
I voted for you because I believed in you. Now, I’m not so sure.
The more I find out about education “reform,” the more I see how billionaires are changing our public schools for the worse:
…with each new charter school I see popping up where a neighborhood school should be fully funded and thriving,
…with every report of Charter Schools: achievement rates (at the expense of students being kicked out to public schools for low test scores), corruption with money, discriminating against students, being operated by non-Americans (Gulen Charter schools), etc.
…with every teacher lost to the profession because they were unappreciated or offered a job that pays much more,
…with every minute wasted on Standardized Testing and stressing our students,
…with every teacher stressed over how her students will score on Standardized Testing because it will affect her employment,
…with every dollar paid to testing companies that could be spent funding classrooms,
…with every teacher that spends out of her own paycheck to buy supplies for her students,
…with the student TEI “Tripod” surveys that were given to our children, without parental consent, that asked personal questions about our homes, our TVs, their parent’s education, etc.
…with every unqualified, inexperienced Teach For America person that is put in a classroom with poor students who deserve an experienced, qualifed educator,
…with forcing our kids to Race to the Top of nowhere for money,
…and now with the Common Core being forced upon us…
I’m just not so sure anymore that I made the best vote for Governor. I think you’ve been bought out by your rich buddies. I think you’ve been fed a pail of hogwash with this education reform movement. You have lost touch with those that voted you into this office.
When I heard that the minimum salary ranges for teachers had been approved last week, that was the last straw for this Momma Bear. I started a petition on change.org to demand that you to get rid of Kevin Huffman. I’m sure it made a rotten Monday for you to find those in your email inbox. Well, it was a rotten weekend for those who are in college wanting to be teachers knowing they’ll never make what they deserve in TN. It has been a rotten decade for teachers and for students. Their morale is worn, and they are afraid of the future. I had to speak up and do something, and I’m glad I did because…
In less than 24 hours over 300 people have signed it from across the State of Tennessee. Some are teachers and some are parents, but all are FED UP with our schools being “reformed” by those who have no vesting in TN public education, no children in the public school systems, no qualified experience in classrooms, and no business telling teachers and educators how to do their jobs. We’re fed up. Do you hear us???
We’re demanding that you listen to teachers and parents, and NOT Students First, NOT Stand For Children, NOT Achieve, NOT ALEC, NOT Teach for America, NOT The New Teacher Project, NOT Education Pioneers, NOT Charter School Vultures, NOT Bill Gates, NOT Sam Walton, NOT Eli Broad, NOT Michelle Rhee, and NOT any other “non-profit” education reform group. It is imperative that you listen to your voters, and represent us, or we will elect a candidate who will in 2014.
Sincerely,
a Momma Bear in TN
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Cheering you on, Momma Bear!
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+1
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+ 2… Love to momma bear and her cubs. 🙂
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I retired from teaching last spring after having taught in Tennessee. It broke my heart to see what was happening to students and teachers over those 12 years. Kudos to you, Momma Bear, for standing up for the teachers and the students in Tennessee.
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You are amazing Momma Bear and I would vote for you for governor. If you are on facebook check out the Badass Parents group that is starting a nationwide campaign to right these wrongs you have articulated so clearly.
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Getting teachers in Tennessee to vote as a pro-public education block is like herding cats. They all want to complain about how badly they’re treated, but they don’t want to put their votes where their mouths are.
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That sounds like a great way to get the “best and brightest” teaching candidates. I’m sure young people are lining up to become teachers. (I’m a 27 year veteran teacher who’s glad he only has a few years before retirement.)
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Why would you have believed in Haslam or any republican. They’ve been pretty open about their desire to privatize everything including education. They cut budgets for essential services including public education and give tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations but people vote for them because they talk about God a lot. This isn’t just Haslam but most republican governors and legislatures.Pay attention people!!
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…and democrats as well. There are no differences anymore; both parties have become sock puppets for plutocrats.
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Every now and then someone says I am bad for my outrage in public at the crooks. I say to them who is winning? The public loves it and the crooks hate it. That means it is on the right track. The public understands the truth. This is a war not tiddlywinks. The rules are different. If you do not play warfare rules you will lose. If the unions want to be controlled and their membership by the corporate forces you will get wiped out. Unions must join with the parents and public as they have in Chicago. Unfortunately the corporatist privatizers only understand “In your face with the facts and taking no prisoners.” Again, unfortunately, it works. They cannot stand attitude with knowledge with their signatures on the information which shows them lying. Such as in the new LAUSD Superintendents Final Budget on special education. How can it be 4.6% in the budget and 11.47% according to the Chanda Smith Federal Court Monitor and from the same data base as declared by the Federal Monitor? That is a 250% difference. This has been presented to CDE, The State Board of Ed. and the Chanda Smith Monitor last November and yet in this budget once again there it is. CORE-CA is now looking back through budgets to see how far back this goes. So far for two years that we know.
Educators, get with the program and be vigilent. Time is running out yet we are now just starting to win some big ones. I love BadAss Teachers. Both the name and what it says. We have had enough of this is the message. They are playing hardball you must also. It works. Their army will crumble under the constant assault of the truth.
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Over the years, I occasionally would hear teachers say, “I know why we don’t get any respect, anyone stupid enough to make this a career doesn’t deserve respect.” I don’t think any of them believed they are stupid, but it does say a lot about the value our culture places on education.
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Shoot we don’t even make 40K in NC after 15 years of service.
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