Dave Speas speaks out on Husted's stand

From Dave Speas, February 18, 2007
Subject: Re: Educators, Mr. Husted thinks your contracts are too generous!

As a school board member I have met with Mr. Husted, and he is anti-public schools. As a group, we asked him questions, and it is obvious he is for charter schools, no matter how poorly they might produce, as a matter of principle and choice. Many politicians no longer retire into our public retirement system because of term limits, and so no longer see the need to back other professionals, like teachers, in their drive for salaries and a better retirement system. Mr. Husted will not bend on this issue, no matter how poorly charter schools do, and will not give educators or public schools their due in the hard work they do to make Ohio children competitive in the work place and be outstanding citizens of our state. Teachers today do more work formerly done by families than in any time in our country's history. I wonder where this country would be without public schools and the people who do the job for our kids. We know, but he does not want to admit any successes. -- See below an article [below] I sent out last week to friends and fellow educators.

Dave

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TOO TRUE TO BE FUNNY AND OH SO VERY VERY TRUE. TEACHERS ARE THE TRUE HEROES OF OUR LIVES.

The Next Survivor

Have you heard about the next planned Survivor show? Six (6) CEOs (3 male - 3 female) will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 6 weeks. Each CEO will be provided with a copy of their school district's curriculum, and a class of 28 students. Each class will have five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.H.D., and two who speak limited English. Three will be labeled as severe behavior problems. One or two will be gifted. No less than 4 will be native speakers of English who are reading 3 grade levels below the one they are in.

Each CEO must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, bandage and document injuries, defend teaching technique and books chosen from extremists of all vantage points, and arrange and conduct parent conferences. They must also supervise recess and breakfast, monitor the hallways, and load children into cars and/or buses every afternoon. In addition, they will complete drills for fire, tornadoes, shooting attacks, and bomb threats. They must attend workshops (100 hours), faculty meetings, union meetings, and curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor those students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the Terra Nova, EPA, CAT or End of Course tests, which they will be required to take whether they can read the tests or not.

If they are sick or having a bad day, they must not let it show. Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, technology, Spanish language, social studies and multicultural tolerance into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment, at each child's instructional level, at all times. The CEOs will only have access to the golf course on the weekends, but only after papers have been graded, assignments modified for concepts missed, and re-teaching opportunities addressed. On their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway.

There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to 20 minutes, while supervising students who are going through the lunch line, eating (and throwing food or throwing up). On the rare days when they do not have recess duty, the CEOs will be permitted to use the staff restroom as long as another survival candidate is supervising their class. They will be provided with two
40-minute planning periods per week while their students are at specials. If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time. The business people must continually advance their education on their own time and pay for this advanced training themselves. This can be accomplished by moonlighting at a second job or marrying someone with money.

The winner will be allowed to return to his or her corporate job.

~ Author Unknown