Ken you will be my true hero if you get this on the NATIONAL news! A superintendent job will be opeing soon in Everett I hope...

Not all teachers WANT to live in Bellevue and teach there. I love living away from where I teach so I can have privacy. Living close to where you work may be convenient and save gas money, but I want to be able to go down to the grocery store and shop without running into some kid in one of my classes. I love being able to go out to dinner at a place down the street and not see any students. My family is more important than my job, but my job pays the bills- well, usually...
The money? Yes, the salary is not that great for teachers under 10 years experience. I make less then the average Bellevue teacher. I do feel annoyed when I see the public salary list and I see teachers making 20K more than me and I look at my workload compared to theirs and I have more challenging and bigger classes. But they do have more experience and maybe in 15 more years I will be making more money... Not sure...

The script could be a cover for for teachers who are hired at the last minute and don't have experience. That does happen in BSD405 whether people want to believe it or not. However, not all teachers know thier subject matter as well as they should and maybe the universities are not doing a very effective job training new teachers in their particular subject specialties. Maybe our schools should be hiring more teachers from liberal arts teaching programs that offer a "well-rounded" approach to learning. There is something to be said about a quality liberal arts education that involves spending a significant amount of time studying a wide range of disciplines and seeing how they intertwine and effect on each other

I refuse to teach with a script because the students want to learn from their teachers knowledge, experience and when they witness the passion to teach a subject he or she believes in and knows - it provides students with encouragement and desire to learn. Take it away with a script and you are left with unmotivated learners who see their teacher as a robot with no personality. Most quality teachers in BSD know what an effective lesson looks and feels like and when we are given a scope and sequence of what we are supposed to cover and the objectives (what the students should learn) we can get the kids to that point with high sucess. If there are web resources there to use many will use them on the path, but word-for-word scripts? BAD idea.

When this strike is over I welcome you to be a guest in my harmonious classsrooms and see what it is like to be a teacher and guide to 32 students each class period of the day. Don't be scared off by the 2-9 special ed students in each one of my classes. Maybe you will or will not notice who they are. But I bet you will notice the one with the aid or the one who is obviously in the high functioning autism program. You might be surprised how integrated the classrooms are with various grade and academic levels of students. You'll be shocked at how patient they are with each other and how respectful they can be when they realize thier teacher knows what he or she is talking about or presenting. With content to cover and assessments to conquer you might notice that the students are engaged and learning not only from their teacher but from each other. So BSD wants to change this type of teaching and add a script. How pleasant for them How unpleasant for the special needs students in my classes who will be frustrated and become further behind than they already are. Add a script to my day and most kids will be bored out of their minds, especially the high functioning autism students.

And whereabouts did you dig up your idea that most of the BSD teachers should not even be teachers? And do you realize that teachers do not have the choice of being in the union? It is required and union dues are deducted from our paychecks every month. And most support the union.

The Washington Policy Center's Blog has an interesting article worth reading entitled "Bellevue Strike: Let's double teacher pay"

http://washingtonpolicyblog.typepad.com/washingto...
Here's part of the article:
Bellevue Strike: Let’s double teacher pay
Bearing signs saying “No Contract? No School!" officials at Bellevue union officials have led teachers on strike, closing classrooms to 16,000 area students.
Part of the union dispute is over teacher pay. But in Bellevue money is not a problem. This year taxpayers are generously providing Bellevue school administrators with $164 million, or about $10,000 per student, to educate children. A typical classroom of 25 students, for example, receives $250,000 in funding. Obviously, much of this money never makes it to the classroom.

I invite you to read the rest on their blog...

Great Britain adopted a type of scripted curriculum many years ago. Universities taught teachers how to "follow the curriculum" and how to teach just like the person in the room next door. How did that go? Well, it was filled with lectures and note taking -not much hands on learning. The government realized that using a one-size-fits all curriculum didn't fit all kids, inhibited teacher creativity and worst of all- new teachers coming out of the Universities knew how to teach a script but generally could not think on their feet, challenge students with inquiry based lessons and generally were not preparing young people for the realities of daily life. So last year, the British government labeled the curriculum as DEAD and gave back more power in the classroom to the individual teacher to alter lessons to the learning styles and needs of their students. (The BBC even nicknamed the outgoing curriculum The Dead Parrot curriculum for you Monty Python fans.) Great Britain has one of the best regarded educational systems in the world. If they have abandoned the scripted curriculum after heavy research then why is BSD405 trying to fall into the same hole? Oh yes, and a teacher in Britain makes double what I make in Bellevue.