Words of Advice:
"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne
“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *
"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown
“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie
"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul
"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad
"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown
"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers
"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown
"Eck!" -- George the Cat
* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone
3 comments:
Why exactly do we need administrators in schools? Why not just teachers? I suppose you could argue that teachers need a manager to set wages and give raises, but for what stupid reason do such people have any say about kids at all?
I'll open with the new rethug motto..
Women and children first..
That will be the their bannerfor reducing rights by selective criminalization. Yep, they get to select.
Stupid, stupid thugs!
Eck!
Nangleator, principals don't set wages and give raises, that's all done via the state-and-school-board-mandated pay scale. Principals have some fundamental duties that teachers don't have:
1) Manage the physical plant. In many smaller school districts, the school district has no maintenance personnel on staff. If the roof leaks, the principal has to find someone to fix it.
2) Fund raise for the school. If there isn't enough money in the maintenance budget to fix the roof, or if the roof is unfixable and the school needs a new roof, the principal has to get out there and rattle the bushes to find someone willing to either a) donate a new roof to the school, or b) donate enough money to fix the roof.
3) Keep up with state, local, and Federal mandates. The amount of paperwork required is astounding. All disciplinary incidents must be recorded on official State forms. If it involves a firearm, this requires a separate form for the Feds. The myriad legal complaints from various special interest groups must be accounted for -- for example, those disciplinary incidents must be filed by race so that when a parent complains to the Office of Civil Rights that you're being mean to those poor innocent little black boys, you can haul out the discipline reports to show that you give black children and white children the same punishment for the same crime. (Which is another cause of Zero Tolerance -- it's one way of making sure that the OCR can't whack you for being mean to those poor little brown children).
4) Instructional leadership. Most principals fail miserably at this but one reason to have principals is to mentor new teachers to help them become better teachers, and to make sure that all teachers are teaching a consistent curriculum so that if a teacher leaves another teacher can be slotted into that spot without a major disruption to children's learning. Assessing teachers and hiring/dismissing teachers based on those assessments is also part of this area,
5) And, of course, handling student discipline. Teachers should teach, not be required to be policemen inside their classrooms.
That said, it's arguable that principals should work for teachers, and not vice-versa. Texas tried doing this with their Site-based Planning Committees, but without the power to hire and fire principals (who were still hired and fired by the district), the exercise was futile. RIght now the job of principal is a political job, not an educational job -- and we're seeing the results of that in the schools as folks who are politically connected but not good educators get these "plum" jobs and proceed to act like the idiots that they are.
-- Badtux the Former Teacher Penguin
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