Dayton3/Tracker/Dayton Kitchen’s Greatest Hits

Are you currently a coach?

You can read my Blue Room thread if you want the answer.

I thought so, though your posts about work are so vague and infrequent it's hard to tell just what your employment status is.

Worthwhile teachers normally get tenure and stay a while. 4 years seems to be a short term for a teacher.

You are correct that people are normally biased against a complete incompetent nincompoop who is not a team player and generally fucks things up a lot.

There are a lot of people who pass them. This is not a high end test of knowledge. I have met many teachers in multiple school districts who are capable of passing these. They are a cakewalk certification test designed to weed out people who have trouble tying their shoelaces. Since Dayton passed it would seem they are not very good at that.

I could probably pass without study on most general topics.

And of those, how many leave because they're offered a better job elsewhere and how many leave because they get fired?

I went to a small, pissant little school in Ohio. (My graduating class was just 56 people.) The teachers there, either stayed for decades or if they left it was because they got a better offer or retired. Few, if any, of them, were so inept that they got fired. My friends who went to large school districts had similar experiences.

So why do you stay and take the abuse?

I've explained this more than once. @Tererun was a part of that conversation. Ask him if you don't remember it.

"Once"?

You mean, you've never once in your entire career have kept a teaching job long enough to even qualify for tenure?

In spite of the teaching shortage you've bragged about?

And you wonder why it took you twenty two fucking interviews to get hired the last time.

The big guy upstairs is trying to tell you something.

Take a hint.

Well it took him nearly 20 years, but Dayton has finally learned not to tell all his goddamn business online.

Old dogs can learn new tricks if properly motivated.

My high school class was about 500 strong and even there, we lost far more teachers over budget cuts than to outright firing. Such firings usually only affected first year teachers and did NOT include one of the AP Biology teachers who didn't even read the assignments turned into class and gave grades to everything from My Chemical Romance lyrics to penis drawings and the AP English teacher that barely assigned essays at all (who is still there, 14 years after I graduated). And these were the ones teaching the best of the best--i can only imagine what the ones in the remedial courses were getting away with.

As Tererun said, any monkey can pass those exams. And as Dayton proved hen he stupidly posted his scores, he barely scraped a passing score on knowledge comprehension.

"tenure" in the public school system that I'm familiar with is not like the tenure system in universities that I think you are equating it with.

What you call "tenure" in the public school system only means that your contract renewal for the next school year is automatic assuming you have signed a letter of intent to return to your job and your job still exists. The school board still has to vote although in most school systems this is a large scale vote where scores of teachers are listed all at once.

Until you have what you call "tenure" and are still in what is sometimes called a "probationary period" (1-3 years) your contract renewal is NOT automatic and is often handled by a separate school board vote.

But whether you've taught for 2 years or 20 years, the school board can (and will) terminate you if they "give cause" (tell the reasons why they terminated you). You have a right to a formal hearing before the board (I think many of you remember the ones I've had). Almost always "giving cause" is couched in generic terms (such as "failing to follow school policy") in order to the school being liable for defaming a former employee. You have a right to sue the school for wrongful termination. But either way what you call "tenure" in no way whatsoever at the public school level guarantees you a job.

Also, schools in Arkansas are NOT allowed to sign teachers or anyone besides the superintendent to multiyear contracts.

I've known of many people that only passed the exact same exams I passed only after taking them several times.

One of them is a high school principal now.

But you aren't?

He's s principal, and you had twenty two interviews for one position. Think about that.

There's a big difference in knowing facts and having knowledge.

You have to have a masters degree and what is called "administrators certification" in order to become a principal. I don't have a master's degree or even a bachelor's degree in education.

So your friend didn't

They did more?

Like most such exams you can take them as many times as you wish. Different questions each time of course but same subject material.

Ok

He got a masters degree some time after I worked with him and an administrators certification. When we first met he had been hired at Norphlet and was in his second year of teaching but hadn't passed the test to teach social studies. He was reduced to teaching PE to elementary kids. I remember the head coach asked him the first day of school how his day went and he (having worked with Kindergarten all day) said "I spent a lot of time tying shoes".

Annalee was in Kindergarten that year and she just adored him.

Pal, that was 15 years ago, at LEAST, and he's made that much headway into his career while youre still entertaining the fantasy that you'll ever get to be a head coach.

Yes, I know you need a master's for most principal positions but all the degrees in the world wouldn't matter if he'd had the same know it all attitude that you've demonstrated for as long as I've known you.

You have a point.

yours is on top of your head.

And let's not forget that Dayton thinks people are buying lottery tickets instead of insulin.

Are you claiming people have never done that in the United States?

IDo you have proof that they bought lottery tickets instead of insulin?

Anecdotal.

So, you personally know someone who bought lottery tickets instead of insulin?

I wouldn't say I know them. But I overheard someone at a special education workshop on diabetes management (offered by our local clinic) make that comment to a third party.

Yes, @Dayton3, I'd like to know that, too.

We all know someone here with diabetes who didn't have health insurance for himself or his family until he was required to. Anecdotally, of course.

That's not even anecdotal, that's hearsay. AKA an urban legend. You shouldn't give a whit of credibility to such statements.