Deborah Gist, member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change and former State Commissioner of Education in Rhode Island, is having a hard time holding on to teachers in her job as Superintendent of Schools in Tulsa.
Gist won Arne Duncan’s praise back in 2010 when she supported the decision to fire all the teachers and school staff at Central Falls High School because of low test scores.
Since then, she took charge in Tulsa, where her tenure has been rocky.
Teacher turnover at Tulsa Public Schools spiked the past two years, with an exodus of 1,057, or 35 percent, of all 3,000 school-based certified staff.
Although Oklahoma’s rock-bottom teacher salaries are often cited by district leaders, a Tulsa World data analysis found a significant portion of those former TPS teachers — 295, or 28 percent — are not in higher-paying states but in other Oklahoma school districts with comparable pay.
Leaving TPS wasn’t easy for Melissa Howard, who worked at Lindbergh Elementary School for 10 years but now works at Glenpool Public Schools.
She loved her principal and school community but grew frustrated by what she described as top-down directives from district administration.
“If I don’t think something is best for my students, it’s really hard for me to buy in. And I didn’t agree with the curriculum,” said Howard. “It was very scripted. … If I wanted to read a script, I would be making a lot more money because I would be working in Los Angeles or New York as an actress.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And don’t forget Gist is a Broadie–class of 2008 (prior to her stint in RI).
Broadies are taught to be top-down.
I thought that is what Broadie Supe Adminimals do: Creative Destruction, getting rid of teachers is a sub-specialty.
This is what happens when AH are in charge.
Did any Democrat in either the House of Representatives or the US Senate ever call for Arne Duncan’s resignation or for President Obama to fire him?
No!
We know the Republican Party has an awful record on supporting public education and teachers. They fell in love with charter school campaign contributions and also have a vendetta against public school teacher unions and feel the charter school movement is a way to get even.
But the Democratic Party is only marginally better on these same issues and many Democrats are just as bad.
Our unions have usually lined up behind the Democrats. But it’s a pretty sad state of affairs when we have to vote for the Democrats simply because the Republicans are even worse.
I feel the Democrats take our support for granted. Hillary Clinton had a poor record of supporting us and yet we offered her unabashed support because Trump was so bad.
It’s depressing.
Very much agree with your summary that it’s a sad state of affairs when we are supposed to support Democrats that are only marginally more helpful to ours causes than Republicans. It’s also sad that our public servants transparently care far more about the views of the billionaires than they do about those of the common people. And agree on our national unions. They have been feckless, often counterproductive, yet they often provide a go to strawman/lightning rod for Ed Reform advocates.
Yes. Throughout all of NCLB, RttT and now ESSA, it has always felt that the teachers’ unions have not seen their role as proactive, pushing Democrats toward an essential public school and teacher support, but more as submissive: whatever the Democratic Party wants, we follow
Love this: “If I wanted to read a script, I would be making a lot more money because I would be working in Los Angeles or New York as an actress.”
And have to echo above comments re: Democrats joining Republicans in expanding DofEd role from periodic temperature-taking/ guidance to top-down micromanagement of classroom, à la fed whim-of-the-admin — starting w/NCLB, proposed by GWBush but co-authored by 2 Reps (Boehner & Gregg) & 2 Dems (Kennedy &Miller). Everything that followed was inevitable, given the premise that schools & teachers are to be ‘held accountable for student ed achievement’ = evaluated & sanctioned by closing [/ ‘turning around’] public schools/ firing [putting on probation] teachers– via annual student scores on annual tests 3rd-8th plus one hisch yr… Practical problem emerged: states had wildly varying stds, & manipulated same so as to avoid sanctions… Answer: natl stds w/aligned stdzd tests [unvetted, imposed via RTTT bribe offered during fin crisis] – thanks, Obama – & Gates – & Pearson.
I could go on & on but you fill in the blanks – prof teachers leaving or squeezed out, replaced by mini-qualified TFA churn, libertarians hopping onboard the sch closing> charter> voucher [privatization] train, states catching up to slashed ed budgets via downgrading teacher-cert reqts etc. – all of which leads us from pre-NCLB teaching profession to scripted ‘facilitators’.
Tho I deplore it, I get the contributions of small-govt/ libertarian/ ALEC types & sw/hw ed-industry capitalists to this fiasco. And I understand that Dem party centrists are neolibs & thus play ball w/those rightwingers & corp types. What bothers me most is the contribution of progressives to this mess. I look to progressives to right the lopsided anti-union neolib centrist position that has destroyed the Dem party.
But it seems to me progressives have had a major role in bringing this mess about, by virtue of overplaying the ‘we know what’s best for the public good’ hand. It’s one thing for the fed to step in & demand equal opportunity in ed, as was done in the ’60’s to address the gross injustices of institutional racism. It’s quite another to mandate precise national stds & testing on the diverse national community [bean-counting measures] as a supposed means of ensuring equal ed oppty. Yet these overweening fed measures had the full support of progressives – and left us completely vulnerable, by virtue of establishing fed micromgt, to sea-changes in fed political agenda. Now we are at the mercy of libertarians running the fed DofEd.
Our district superintendent (never a certified educator) bragged that 50 percent of her staff quit within a year when she became the director. Now EVERY teacher (regardless of content area) in our K-12 district is required to do at least one pre-scripted unit per quarter from a website that just happens to feature her photo on the home page.
All teachers, again regardless of content area, are also required to do about 8 hours of PD through the same website – teacher autonomy and professionalism be damned!
****sigh****
This is awful! What district do you work in?
“Downstate” in a blue state. I can’t say much more.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
If a teacher has a35% failure rate, then we would be doing a poor job. We are told we are not meeting the needs of our students.
I’m sure a double standard applies here. 35% is just part of doing business.
I’m also sure part of this is from the state-wide neglect of public education and many teachers leaving the state for better pay in Texas, not that Texas doesn’t have its own warts.