" Are you a voice or an echo?"

H/T al.com

Now that the proposed, and ill fated Lee High School name change has been tabled, can we focus on what's happening inside the building? Not just Lee, but ALL the schools in Huntsville? I look at the picture above and wonder how many of the students have passed all parts of the Alabama High School Exam? I wonder how many are reading below/at/above grade level? I wonder how many are National Merit Semi Finalist or Finalist? I wonder how many are prepared to enroll in college? I wonder if their parents approve of them marching out of school to protest in support of keeping the school named after Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee?

"There's been any number of councilman and officials call to inform me that I've made a gargantuan mistake," Wardynski said, to applause from the crowd that made him smile. "Thank you for acknowledging my mistake"

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Why aren't any number of councilman and city officials calling to inform Wardynski he's making a gargantuan mistake bringing Teach for America to the poor/black/brown schools at twice the cost it was first reported?

H/T Geek Pavaler

On Thursday night, the Superintendent recommended that the board approve the contract with Teach for America. The board, in turn, approved this recommendation. Dr. Robinson, Mr. Blair, and Mr. Birney all voted in favor of the recommendation to hire Teach for America teachers. Mrs. Morrison voted against the recommendation. Although the Board President does not typically vote unless there is a tie, I believe that Mrs. McCaulley also said, “Nay” (although she said this somewhat under her breath).
So what exactly did the board vote to approve on Thursday night? The details of the contract have changed dramatically since the original Teach for America presentation on October 11th. That night, Mr. J. W. Carpenter of TFA presented a plan for the system to hire 110 TFA teachers over a period of three years. I reported, as did the Huntsville Times, that this contract would cost Huntsville City Schools $550,000 for three years, or $5,000 per TFAer.
The Plan Changes
Carpenter said in his presentation that in 2012-2013, the system would hire 30 TFAs, 40 in 2013-2014, and 50 in 2014-2015. I reported that the total cost of hiring these teachers was going to be $5,000 per teacher. The Huntsville Times has also reported this. We were mistaken on two counts.
For some reason, when the contract was presented to the board on November 3rd for the board approval, the superintendent didn’t recommend hiring TFA for just three years, but rather four. The hiring plan presented in the contract was as follows:
In 2012-2013, TFA will hire “30 or more” TFA teachers.
In 2013-2014, TFA will hire “40 or more” TFA teachers.
In 2014-2015, TFA will hire “50 or more” TFA teachers.
In 2015-2016, TFA will hire “50 or more” TFA teachers.
No one, not Dr. Wardynski nor any of the board members, bothered to mention that the contract had been altered from three years to four. So while I reported on October 18th that we were hiring 110 TFA teachers, we are in fact hiring 170 TFA teachers.

Teach for America is a gargantuan mistake. Knowing how Alabama values college football and football coaches, in the words of Larry Larry Lee writing for WaPo, If football coaches used Teach for America logic

Using the logic of the Huntsville City Board of Education, University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban should only use his youngest, most inexperienced players when his team plays a Top Ten opponent.

Anyone who pays attention to education knows that the most persistently poor-performing schools are those in impoverished neighborhoods. For example, there are nine schools in the Huntsville system where more than 90 percent of students receive free-reduced lunches. According to an analysis by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, none of these schools have reading and math scores where all grades (three through eight) are equal to or above state average.

By comparison, of the five schools where all grades are above state average, free-reduced lunches range from 4 to 25 percent.

But in spite of this, the Board of Education plans to hire 110 Teach for America teachers over the next three years and put them in schools in poor neighborhoods. These are recent college graduates, most of whom got degrees in something other than education and will receive a five-week crash course in how to teach before being sent off to work in the city’s most challenging schools.

I don’t believe this is the way Coach Saban thinks.

But this rather convoluted logic is not the only concern raised by hiring Teach for America teachers.
Earlier this year the Board of Education released a substantial number of employees, citing continuing budget concerns as the reason. Yet in addition to paying the salaries of the TFA teachers, the board will also pay an additional $5,000 per teacher to the TFA organization.

Teachers across the state have just had their pay reduced by the Legislature; Gov. Robert Bentley announced a few days ago that the state’s education budget will be $108 million less next year than in the current year, money for classroom supplies have been slashed to the bone and educators are being asked every day to do more with less.

Let's recap. The HCS board replaced a certified, experienced educator (Dr. Anne Roy Moore) with someone with no education experience or training (Col. Casey Wardynski) creating a double standard in hiring.

Back in June when the board announced that they had reached a decision and agreement with Dr. Wardynski concerning his contract, I asked two of the board members (two of the three who voted for him), how they could justify paying a man with 11 months experience a salary that was $55,000 over the minimum salary of $120,000 when teachers’ salaries were set at the state minimum. According to the 2010 Superintendent Salaries, Dr. Wardynski is the fourth highest paid superintendent in the state.
Both of these board members separately said the same thing to me: “He’s the best man for the job, and he wouldn’t come for anything less.”
When Dr. Wardynski offered a defense of Mr. Spinelli’s contract, he stated that it was a salary that was “competitive with what it would take to bring in an individual from out of state as well.” Again, when I asked board members about the salary afterwards, I was told, “He’s the best man for the job, and he wouldn’t come for anything less.”
This week when I contacted a board member about the extra $7,000 above the maximum salary being offered to Dr. Cooper, I was, once again, told “she is the best person for the job and she would not have come for less.”

In turn Wardynski is replacing certified trained educators with persons with no education experience or training.

And who wins in the end?

Not the faces in the picture at the top of the page, that's for sure.

Teach for America is not worth the expense nor the potential harm it will cause poor/black/brown students. Don't they deserve and need the best trained, certified, professional educators in the classroom that Alabama A&M University, Athens State University, Oakwood University and UAH can provide? What did they do to deserve teachers who entered into the profession because it is a way to pay off student loans from private institutions of higher learning then leave?

TFA teachers receive the same salary and the same benefits that a non-TFA teacher receives.
Additionally, TFA teachers also receive $5,350 per year for two years from AmeriCorps to pay off student loans.
TFA teachers can postpone the repayment of their student loans for the two years they are in the program, and AmeriCorps will repay the interest that is accrued during their service period.
TFA also pays for transitional expenses during the summer after they graduate.

Dr. Wardynski and the board are responsible for these decisions, but they’re not answering questions.

Now that's a real gargantuan mistake. It's not wise to lie to taxpayers. Nor is it wise to balance the budget on the backs of children.

Members of the HCS Board, elected officials, city leaders, HEA, AEA, and taxpayers and elected officials, are you a voice or an echo?

H/T Geek Pavaler for being a voice.