An article today on the front page of the Tampa Tribune highlights perfectly one of the reasons I have been voicing concern for this college push that in my and some members of our community’s opinion is de-emphasizing career and technical education.
During board member comments I expressed concern over the CollegeBoard programs that are being heavily pushed in our schools. With the classroom size reduction amendment and all of the assessments we have to comply with (not that accountability is a bad thing), but FCAT is driving our curriculum and we are losing sight of career training. This concerns me greatly.
These are some of my comments from the last board meeting:
"College enrollment is going to be down because of the budget crisis we are facing as well as Bright Futures scholarships due to people are not buying lottery tickets because people don’t have disposable income right now".
"The unintended consequences are that we are eliminating classes that are important for hooking kids into school. With classroom size reduction we have already lost a lot of career tech units".
I made these and other statements to start the conversation with the rest of the board about this CollegeBoard emphasis.
Pushing kids that are not going to further their education in a four year university is doing them a disservice and taking away opportunities to expose them to classes that could lead them to a high paying career. This hurts the community too.
Don't get me wrong I want more students going to college, particularly non traditional students, but not at the cost of losing programs that could help students go on to successful, necessary high paying careers.
2 comments:
I agree, April. We all will see what a bad idea SpringBoard is soon enough. Some classrooms might become improved, but that’s because the teacher is probably ACP or isn’t going to do their job, no matter what is in front of them. BUT, MOST classrooms will be downgraded because the professionalism of academia is being ripped from the real, dedicated teachers hands!!!!!!! A “book” doesn’t trump a B.A. or an M.A. in English Education with years and years of experience.
Mark my words, this isn’t good for anyone. It costs us 3.6 million a year just to have SpringBoard, if I read it correctly. Where is that money coming from in such a tight budget year? Teachers are more over taxed then ever with the 6/7, and now they have to do SpringBoard too. A book, such as SpringBoard won't be the little "miracle" of accountability and more AP money for Elia, like she thinks it will be. It will just mean more inflated GPA's and lower SAT scores!!!!!!! Clearly, it's bad for the kids. Just wait to see the teacher crisis that will be in store. Young ones are leaving in a mass exodus. Many others are going to other counties, leaving the profession, or just giving up. This isn't good for anyone. Teaching isn't a very undesirable career. 40% of teachers leave in the first three years. Why is that? In the next 10 years, we will lose about half our teachers. Where are we going to get the new ones? Things really need to turn around. Keep fighting for that change!
Why do we worship at the altar of diversity and then try to pigeonhole our students into the current group-think tracking?
I always marched to a different drummer ( finding my career after exploring others) and yet even as an employee I am "grouped".
BTW: That guy that talked about his retirement plan last week was ON THE MONEY! I too got screwed April. It's just not fair to punish the "savers" for the mistakes of others. Its not like we are getting paid "big bucks".
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