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New Report Shows that Billions Spent on Professional Development is Largely a Waste of Money!

If you have listened to our School Superintendent at Committee meetings, you would think that the the hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent in our school district for professional development of our teachers was the answer to improving our schools. These efforts require a substantial amount of money, time away from classroom work during the year, as well as shorten school days to accommodate this effort.

Well a study was just completed of 10,000 teachers by the nonprofit group, TNTP, which states that the billions of dollars being spent in the US on teacher professional development is largely a waste! This study also echoes the results of two previous government-financed studies. Go the following link for more information on this study....http://tntp.org/blog/post/do-we-know-how-to-help-teachers-get-better.

Here is another major result of the study - it found that school districts are not helping teachers understand their weaknesses. Does this all sound familiar to us here in Melrose?

I remember the days when teaching was a vocation - not a business, as it is today. In today's school system, it is "who you know" that counts for fast-track promotions and for those hard-working and dedicated teachers - they seem to spend more time on paperwork, forms to fill out, student evaluations, classroom reports and updates, constantly updating their classroom websites, performing endless statistics, periodic self-evaluations, committee assignments, attending admin meetings and conferences, and so many other endless bureaucratic functions - it's amazing they have time to teach students!

And on top of all this - the average teacher is now made responsible for the sucess and failure of their students - while senior school administrators who overload teachers and implement failing policies remain free of blame. And why do I say this? I encourage you to read the performance standards we judge our current superintendent, Ms. Taymore, and you will NOT see any reference to her responsibility for a failing school system or poor student outcomes. That should tell you all you need to know aboput accountability in our school system.

Re: New Report Shows that Billions Spent on Professional Development is Largely a Waste of Money!

Thank you. These random 'professional development' expenditures appear just to put more money in the pocket of the supt's and CD's favorites. Where can anyone see who got paid to run the 'institutes' and how much they got?

Re: New Report Shows that Billions Spent on Professional Development is Largely a Waste of Money!

Good luck trying to find that out! A school committee member (CKK) can't even find out how much money they have spent on lawyer fees! This is a corrupt school committee and school department - and they demonstrate it so visibly now - that all can see - the absolute arrogance of them is breathtaking!

Re: New Report Shows that Billions Spent on Professional Development is Largely a Waste of Money!

The CES scam is pretty much the same for all professions. I just read Sam Quinones' "Dreamland", a great book about the opiate scourge of the last 2 decades, and he talks about how Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the makers of OxyContin, were a driving force behind the concept of CES being dominated by each industry's vendors, with all the attendant perks and propaganda.

The attendees learn graft.

Re: New Report Shows that Billions Spent on Professional Development is Largely a Waste of Money!

MFD
Good luck trying to find that out! A school committee member (CKK) can't even find out how much money they have spent on lawyer fees! This is a corrupt school committee and school department - and they demonstrate it so visibly now - that all can see - the absolute arrogance of them is breathtaking!


Also MFD: Superintendent Taymore , Kristen Thorpe, of course with the help of Rob Van Campen, actively and openly violate OML laws and Freedom of Information laws specifically to keep our school committee members in the dark. CKK can't even get from these folks what the invoices pertain to, never mind getting the invoices for review! And lets not forget about the Civil Rights investigation coverup. Yet they expect her to vote "yes" to approve the expenses after the fact like the rest of the irresponsible School committee members: Robert Dolan, Maureen Driscoll, Don Constantine, Chris Casatelli, Jessica Duggan(a major disappointment) and Kristen Thorpe.