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Bless You, Matt Damon
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Thank you to a reader alerting me to this video. Matt Damon is at some event and gets a question about teachers and the incentive to work hard. (He also gets in a good shot to a smarty-pants cameraman.)
Do teachers in Seattle really work long hours for crappy pay?
Jack Whelan said…
Same motivational criteria ought to be applied to superintendents and other downtown staff. What about finding a dedicated educator whose first priority is to make SPS into a model urban school district, not to get a salary the north side of 250K.
Is it my imagine but is he getting hotter as he gets older?! Must be the shaved head. Or his anti-reform stance. : )
Anonymous said…
Ironic that MSNBC (Ed Schultz & Lawrence O'Donnell) is heralding Damon's comments as Right-Wing comeuppance, while meanwhile they have, to this point, been completely in bed and in the tank with the Ed Reformers, Waiting for Superman fans, Gates, Rhee, and the usual suspects. I guess 24 hour television makes for strange bedfellows too!
By the way, if anyone watched any of the videos from the Save Our Schools march, a couple of reporters mentioned this blog, although not by name, as they couldn't recall the "organized group" in Seattle.
OMG!! Lawrence O'Donnell just skewered Ed Reform, perhaps unintentionally, on The Last Word, tonight (8/2/11), while heralding Matt Damon and calling out the "blame the teacher" nonsense.
Unbelievable! Will he have a job tomorrow? Gates owns a healthy chunk of MSNBC, and OMG, O'Donnell has gone ROGUE! Watch for revisions and retractions in the coming days, as MSNBC tries to unwind this ball of string!
WSEADAWG
Anonymous said…
Wow, Wow and WOW AGAIN!
Teachers, you've got to give Lawrence O'Donnell a prize for what he just did for you all. He's doing it primarily to hit right wingers, but let's be honest: When it comes to ED REFORM, Gates/Walton/Broad, et al, are purely RIGHT WING in their tactics and beliefs.
A good day for teachers, when L O'D calls the attacks "maliscious." WSEADAWG
Anonymous said…
See Damon's piece and an MSNBC report about it here. WSEADAWG
WSEADAWG - I think they were referring to the Seattle Ed 2010 blog, the people who started it and who work with other activists, some of whom also are part of Parents Across America Seattle....
and the SOS March was a joint event, with people from Parents Across America involved in the planning, execution, speaking at the rally, marching etc...
The emphasis seems to have become that this was a teacher action.... it wasnt teachers only - a huge number of the people involved are parents/community members...
IF WE ARE TO TAKE PUBLIC EDUCATION BACK FROM THE ED DEFORMERS, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PRESENT A UNITED FRONT...
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
I know I may have said this before but I used to think that a school was only as good as the three-legged stool that it is - parents, teachers/staff and principal. I soon learned that without a good principal, you might not ever want to sit on that stool. I have also often wondered if Seattle Schools had just bad luck/poor judgment about principals or if other districts have the same kind of churn. And principals aren't the same category as teachers. They don't have a union per se but in SPS, they have their own org, PASS (Principals Association of Seattle Schools). They oversee hundreds of students, not a single class. They have to juggle multiple balls of budget, discipline, curriculum and governance of a staff. That plus make parents and students feel good about the school. It was also an interesting fact for Seattle Schools that only until recently, they had three principals who had all graduated from the school that they now oversaw. That was Martin Floe at Ingraham High
Updates: from The Seattle Times , it appears that Franklin High School was also closed yesterday due to COVID and staffing issues. As well, Also on Monday, Lake Washington High School in Kirkland shifted back to remote learning temporarily, according to a statement on the school’s website . The shift was due to COVID-related staffing shortages, other illnesses, and absences. On Monday and Tuesday, Lake Washington students will be learning independently from home (asynchronous learning) while staff plan to make the switch to live online learning with a teacher (synchronous learning). On Jan. 19, students will return to in-person learning. Last week, state schools superintendent Chris Reykdal warned that some local school districts may need to close temporarily over the next three to four weeks. While state-mandated preventive measures make schools among the safer public spaces, a lack of staff may force a district or individual school building to shut down, he said. And here's the
Comments
I got it by following a link from An Urban Teacher's Education Great blog with good coverage of the SOS March with lots of links.
By the way, if anyone watched any of the videos from the Save Our Schools march, a couple of reporters mentioned this blog, although not by name, as they couldn't recall the "organized group" in Seattle.
Check it out here.
WSEADAWG
Unbelievable! Will he have a job tomorrow? Gates owns a healthy chunk of MSNBC, and OMG, O'Donnell has gone ROGUE! Watch for revisions and retractions in the coming days, as MSNBC tries to unwind this ball of string!
WSEADAWG
Teachers, you've got to give Lawrence O'Donnell a prize for what he just did for you all. He's doing it primarily to hit right wingers, but let's be honest: When it comes to ED REFORM, Gates/Walton/Broad, et al, are purely RIGHT WING in their tactics and beliefs.
A good day for teachers, when L O'D calls the attacks "maliscious." WSEADAWG
Finally, somebody speaks out and calls bullshit on all the hate aimed at teachers. WSEADAWG
The emphasis seems to have become that this was a teacher action.... it wasnt teachers only - a huge number of the people involved are parents/community members...
IF WE ARE TO TAKE PUBLIC EDUCATION BACK FROM THE ED DEFORMERS, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PRESENT A UNITED FRONT...