'Teacher of the Year' gets pink slip amid budget cuts

That's right people. Do right by the system and your students and get rewarded with an extended vacation. Why is it the good folks are always punished these days? She seems to be taking the news rather well. Hell, I'm more pissed off than she is...

"It hurts on a personal level because I really love what I do," Apperson told KXTV of losing her livelihood. "But professionally and politically or economically I get why it happens."

A district spokesman told KXTV the teacher layoffs were based on seniority, not performance, and mandated by the state.

The line needs to be drawn here when it comes to education. Seniority should have nothing to do with it. We used to award students based on merit, but in today's world EVERYONE gets a trophy just for being there. Complete and utter PC bullcrap. I suppose it works the same for teachers.

Sacramento sixth grade teacher Michelle Apperson was recently named “Teacher of the Year” for her entire district. A pink slip from California’s cash-starved government followed the good news for the Sutterville Elementary School teacher of nine years, KXTV reported.

According to The Sacramento Bee, the Sacramento City Unified School district approved $28 million in budget cuts earlier this year. The district is bracing for a worst-case scenario that it will have to cut another $15 million if Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax hike initiative fails to make the grade with voters in November, the Bee reported.

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reply to post by freakjive


A result of unions, and lawyers, and whiners. We no longer hire or promote based on merit, it is all based on seniority or documentation. The entire country is moving in this direction, and that is why we are falling behind other nations in every key area. We no longer foster hardwork and innovation, we now foster the status quo and fitting into the system. The very things that made us superior to China and the USSR are now gone, and we have adopted their old tactics of homogenizing the population and squeezing everyone into particular roles.

BUT, for the record, being a "teacher of the year" is pretty lame too. I had a good friend that got that, and we couldn't believe it. We thought there must be a mistake, but we congratulated her anyway. The next year, she got suspended without pay. I still don't know how she got teacher of the year, but I do know how she got suspended, and she certainly deserved it.

i thought from watching t.v. america is the greatest and richest country in the world.

and they can't even afford to pay a grade school teacher.

is america really rich, or do they just think they're rich.

reply to post by getreadyalready

I completely agree with you on your first paragraph. Will it ever change? Are we going to implode first?

I can also understand where you might think the teacher of the year thing isn't a big deal based on your experience.

However...

A friend of mine also received a similar accolade here, but it was voted on by the parents in the large city schools district. She was definitely deserving of the award.

reply to post by freakjive


Oh ya, I'm sure the majority of them are well-deserving, but I don't think it necessarily corresponds to merit, just popularity. Some of the worst teachers are also the most popular.

Will we implode? I'd say odds are majorly in favor of it. This November will tell us a lot about our future, and unfortunately it looks like either Obama or Romney will be the next president, so I think and implosion is imminent. Neither one of those guys has a solution for our mediocrity.

As long as they keep choosing teachers based on seniority and not performance, the educational system will continue churning out millions of mindless idiots per year. Exactly according to plan no wonder the US gets its ass handed to them academically by so many other countries.

The continuing war against education continues.

They want serfs not free thinking people, but hey I guess we can spend another few billion in foreign aid, or More drone strikes...


Chinese proverb.

"When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people"

IF the Chinese are heeding this and we are not, than we are doomed to be a failed super power, in a generation or so Americans general populous will be uncompetitive on the world stage (some argue they already are)

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by freakjive

 

BUT, for the record, being a "teacher of the year" is pretty lame too. I had a good friend that got that, and we couldn't believe it. We thought there must be a mistake, but we congratulated her anyway. The next year, she got suspended without pay.

I still don't know how she got teacher of the year, but I do know how she got suspended, and she certainly deserved it.

Same thing with my Jr.High German teacher..a woman everyone loved, won lots of awards, and I thought was awesome intially. It did not take long to see through her guise. She was pretty sadistic and also tried to claim I had not turned in a bumload of work. I had her marks/grades on my work and presented them to her and she would not even look at them. It was a very frustrating time as I had always respected teachers before her and did not understand why she seemed to have it out for me. Well she got an odd comeuppance. Her husband, a principal or supervisor at a high school got caught having an affair with a student. Pretty nasty. I always remember her bragging about how awesome her kids and husband were..I wonder how proud she was after that?

There are thousands of hard-working awesome teachers, but there are also real power abusers, too. And those tend to be the ones that get awards! Weird how that works.

Same thing with my 10th grade Honors English teacher. Everyone loved her and I seemed to be one of the very few that could see right through her. She got awards all the time. In reality, she was very manipulative and creepy.
I did okay in her class, despite her underhandedness. However, towards the end of the year, I got on her bad side by writing a report on JFK and Oswald that went against the teachings in public school. She claimed I never turned it in and took a large chunk off my final grade. Because it was so important to our final grade, I had even had her initial it was turned in on time. She refused to acknowledge that. Seeing two separate teachers do that years apart really opened my eyes.

Anyway, a year or two later I heard she had gotten in big trouble after helping her teenage daughter fill a dissed boyfriend's truck with dead fish. What an example, eh?

Been laid off twice.

First time, big company laid me off after shelling out $5000 twice a year for six years as tuition assistance to finish engineering school...

Second time, laid off after being employee of the month about six months before.

Big companies, big school districts do not behave in ways that make sense to thinking people. Decisions are made by uniformed people who have no idea who does what, or made automatically due to seniority.

This is not surprising but in fact the way the world is.

The teachers union is hugely strong in California.

Seniority rules, no matter how good a teacher that person is. But they say unions are good!

Originally posted by bg_socalif
The teachers union is hugely strong in California.

Seniority rules, no matter how good a teacher that person is. But they say unions are good!

Oh, and could you please outline exactly how you think this layoff is something the Unions are behind?

This layoff was by the District, at the behest of the State. It has nothign to do with the Union. In fact, in this instance, without a Union, all the teachers would likely be laid off and homeless people would be hired for 5 bucks a day to 'teach' kids.