In teachers' lounges, I've heard teachers complain about kids who are poor and disadvantaged. But I've also heard other teachers complain about those who are spoiled and overly advantaged.

Why? Because that's what teachers do. They complain. They can't help it. It's in their professional DNA. Everything is always someone else's fault. They never want to accept responsibility for kids who drop out of school but they're the first in line to claim credit for the kids who wind up in the Ivy League.

"These layoffs are wrong, and these layoffs are toxic to children," ACLU lawyer Mark Rosenbaum said.

The organization has filed a lawsuit alleging that the teacher layoffs constitute a violation of the constitutional rights of inner city students to an education.

Attorney Catherine Lhaman, who also is working on the lawsuit, said, "There is something profoundly wrong when children in some schools lose two-thirds of their teachers while children in other schools get to keep all their teachers and continue learning in a stable educational environment."

“I consider myself a union supporter, but I don’t support the seniority system,” said Lynnell Mickelsen of Minneapolis, who is organizing a community group to oppose the main use of seniority in layoffs.

In a shrinking school system, which has resulted in the loss of 1,300 teacher jobs since 2001, “terrific teachers have been laid off, and [some of those remaining] are depressingly, relentlessly mediocre,” Ms. Mickelsen said. “People are so frustrated about this.”

The underlying issue is that teacher pay bears no relation to teacher effectiveness

Joanne also says, "Veteran teachers are attractive targets for cost cutters because they earn so much more than new teachers. A top-scale teacher may earn twice as much as an entry-level teacher - but not be anywhere near twice as good."

Ask leaders what they think makes employees enthusiastic about work, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms. In a recent survey we invited more than 600 managers from dozens of companies to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant: recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals. “Recognition for good work (either public or private)” came out number one.

Unfortunately, those managers are wrong.

Having just completed a multiyear study tracking the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivation levels of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings, we now know what the top motivator of performance is—and, amazingly, it’s the factor those survey participants ranked dead last. It’s progress. On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.

And, of course, many educators in many schools feel that they are making little to no progress...

Imagine the following HS requirements being recommend to the School Board:
• 3 years of economics and business
• 2 courses in philosophy – one in logic, the other in ethics
• 2 years of psychology, with special emphasis on child development and family relations
• 2 years of mathematics, focusing on probability and statistics
• 4 years of Language Arts, but with a major focus on semiotics and oral proficiency
• US and World history, taught as Current Events - backwards from the present
• 1 Year of Graphics Design, Desktop Publishing, and Multimedia presentation

Outrageous? Hardly – if we do an analysis of what most graduates actually need and will use in professional, civic, and personal life. How odd it is that we do not require oral proficiency when every graduate will need the ability. How absurd it is in this day and age that students aren’t required to understand the capitalist system. How sad it is that physics is viewed as more important than psychology, as parents struggle to raise children wisely and families work hard to understand one another. Requirements based on pre-modern academic priorities and schooling predicated on the old view that few people would graduate and fewer still would go on to college make no sense. Ask any adult: how much algebra did you use this past week?

What I’m finding more and more as I visit schools that are getting more serious about “change” is that they have someone at the top who is willing to focus on the learning and not on the other crap. And you can pick these people out in a heartbeat; they are leaders AND learners, and they’re not ashamed to share the driving questions they have about their schools with those around them. They have a passion not for making AYP or top schools lists as much as they do supporting their teachers to be learners, allowing them to look at their own teaching as a deep learning experience and share that learning with others.

If you're reading this blog, you're likely someone who already takes charge of your learning and you choose what to read and absorb. You likely rarely say, "just tell me what to do" on the big issues of your job. Compliance isn't always a bad thing and there are many occasions, when we just are as invested as others and just want to get the job done without a lot of discussion or analysis. But the shift to personalized learning, if indeed you see or believe that shift, demands students and teachers to take charge. That might be the biggest challenge of all.

So when is it okay to be told what to do and when do we suggest, and even demand learners (teachers and students) to own their learning?

Apple’s own iPad website states:

The best way to experience the web, email, photos, and videos.

That might be so, but what’s the best way to create web pages, emails, photos, and videos. That’s the device I want. That’s the device I want in the hands of my students!

I’m willing to argue that even with time and training, interactive whiteboards are an under-informed and irresponsible purchase. They do little more than reinforce a teacher-centric model of learning.

Found via Russ Goerend, http://opt.posterous.com/teacher-magazine-why-i-hate-interactive-white

The federal [Comprehensive School Reform] program did not yield comprehensively reformed schools. Although states largely succeeded in providing CSR funds to those schools most in need, schools receiving CSR awards made little progress in implementing more than just a few of the legislatively mandated components and were largely indistinguishable from non-CSR schools that were similar in baseline achievement and demographics.

Furthermore, the federal CSR program was not associated with widespread achievement gains. Although CSR schools did realize improvements in mathematics and reading achievement after three years of their initial awards, they improved at quite similar rates as those of comparable, non-CSR Title I schools. After five years, any gains that CSR schools made had evaporated so that mathematics and reading achievement were similar to baseline levels at the time they received their awards.

Via http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/other/csrd-outcomes/year5-report.pdf (page 22)