'Turnaround' job descriptions are straight out of Orwell's 1984...

[Hannah Bell]

By September 1, 2010, Chicago and its public schools administrators had created an Orwellian masterpiece. Since June 1, 2010, Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman has eliminated the jobs of more than 1,500 (and perhaps as many as 2,000) veteran classroom teachers. The eliminations took place with the beginning of so-called "turnaround" at five schools after the regular school year ended in June (700 teachers and others, including principals, dumped) and continued throughout the summer...

And all the while, Ron Huberman and the Board of Education's $1 million propaganda office was proclaiming that CPS valued veteran teachers.

If there was anyone who didn't see the irony in all this, the Board's September 1 personnel notices show it again. Dozens of jobs are being offered for non-teaching, basically bureaucratic work in favored places within Huberman's patronage bureaucracies, even as veteran teachers are being forced to apply for unemployment compensation.

From the looks of it, CPS is adding at least four different quasi-administrative jobs at Fenger High School alone for the coming school year. As a close reading of the requirements for each of the jobs indicates that the person best qualified would have a sense of humor based on a close reading of "Animal Farm" or one of the other classic works of George Orwell. Classroom teaching experience is not listed among the desirable traits for these "turnaround" specialist jobs. It almost seems like the less experience an applicant has, the better. But the salary schedule begins far above the average teacher's beginning salary, and can run as high as $110,000 per year. This in a year that just heard Ron Huberman proclaim that thousands of teachers and PSRPs had to be fired in order to balance the budget that was supposedly facing a catastrophic "deficit."

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1634§ion=Article


Read the job description: it's a bureaucratic hoot.

[Fumesucker]

1. Here's the first one...

Position Summary Purpose of the Position: Reporting to the Manager of Teaching and Learning, the Turnaround Teaching & Learning Specialist will assist teachers in focusing their instruction on the College Readiness Standards, with an emphasis on assessment. This professional will focus on individual and group professional development that will expand and refine the understanding about research-based effective instruction as outlined by parameters detailed the CPS Turnaround Model. In order to meet this purpose, this Specialist will provide personalized support that is based on the goals and identified needs of individual teachers. This is an individual with extensive successful classroom instructional experience and as well versed in instructional best practices.

:wow:

[Richard Steele]

2. K&R

[Jim Sagle]

3. 'Turnaround' means 'turning everyone's wealth over to the top .1%.'

It's only Orwellian if you don't think they really mean it.

[Iterate]

4. Just couldn't eat the whole thing.

A bit fatty and may lead to knotted neuron syndrome. Not sure, but it might be a dialect of "mission statement" speak, but from hell.

I don't know anyone who would have a shot at this position, as none of them have the proper standards alignment, and though they do excel in enduring understandings, they all probably understand too much and have known it for too long.

Despite the cloaking, it seems so simple. If you already know who you wish to hire, simply restrict the standard so that only the one would qualify; if your pick has no merit, make the qualifications dense, vague, and arbitrary. Either way, you get your guy, and as a dear friend once said "beware the overpaid man." The hired cadre will have absolute loyalty and will do anything to keep that position because they know in their heart of hearts it's a such long fall to their true level of competence.

[JCMach1]

5. shocked, NOT

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Repellent. Yet... grimly amusing. When can I retire? nt

[xchrom]

7. +1