Archive
The case for changing the educational hierarchy. Ex. 3 Decision Making The Replacements
This is the third excerpt from my book THIS CAN’T BE RIGHT The Education of an American Teacher
available at Amazon, Kindle, http://www.danoettel.com
Until moving to the South Texas area, most of my hiring
and job-hunting experiences had been of the type where jobs
were posted, people had interviews, and one of the applicants,
generally the most qualified, was hired.
Everyone knows some favoritism will always exist in
hiring situations. As a matter of fact, I even subbed at an
elementary school in which the faculty consisted of such a
disproportionate amount of pretty women it was extraordinary.
Within minutes of signing in I had know something was afoot.
By the time I arrived at the assigned classroom I had passed so
many stunningly attractive women, I barely had time to enter
the room and shut the door before being overcome with laughter.
It is not uncommon for an employer to go through several
applications, and all things being equal, hire someone with
whom they are familiar. It is another thing entirely to choose
one applicant over another when the employee that is hired has
qualifications considerably inferior to the applicant being
passed over.
While employed at my final teaching position, only certain
job openings at my school were ever posted on the faculty lounge
bulletin board, usually non-professional positions. I know,
because I always looked. Not once did I see a teaching position
posted during my last five years of employment.
Running for school board on the same sign???
School boards traditionally consist of seven members. The format by which those elections take place is normally uneventful, as a matter of fact I almost never gave it a second thought, until recently.
I was driving down the road when I noticed a group of political signs promoting candidates for several local positions. On one there were a group of political figures running for different positions. On two more there were 4 school board candidates running from two different townships. Each of those had 4 candidates per sign. I drove on but little by little, more and more questions began to gnaw at my sub-conscience. What exactly did I just see and what did it mean?
If the only reason 4 candidates chose to use a sign in unison, perhaps it was economics. If it wasn’t, what then? In my world individuals run on their own credentials.
My questions;
Does this imply or intend to imply that all four candidates ran on the same set of principles? Concerning everything?
Would they then always vote as a block?
Were they cumulatively better than the other candidates but not individually?
Did the weaker candidates benefit by the association?
Was this a takeover?
Did the candidates know each other personally prior to the election?
Why would a strong candidate tie themselves to another candidate?
Assuming individuals ran on personal credentials, why would one want to be tied to others without considerable personal knowledge about their character which either means a)They knew each other intimately enough to be willing to be tied to each other and were comfortable doing that or b)They didn’t know each other intimately enough to know personal philosophies but were stilling willing to be viewed as a collective.
At 60 years of age and having spent a lifetime in education, why hadn’t I seen this strategy previously?
Public education is not the same thing as two party politics, why was it being promoted as such?
I do not know if this approach has ethical considerations but just the fact that it raised so many relevant questions is reason enough in my opinion to not do it. Just not in theirs.
danoettel 
Cy Young – Player of the Year – MVP problem solved.
This year at the end of baseball season a discussion popped up for the umpteenth time concerning the appropriateness of a pitcher winning the Most Valuable Player Award. Most position players would argue a pitcher should not win because pitchers already have their own award in the Cy Young and are not deserving anyway because they only pitching one fifth of a teams’ total innings at most.
So maybe my solution is overly simplistic or I just probably missed something.
Why not have:
the Cy Young go to the best pitcher,
the Player of the Year go to the best player, (the word player implying not a pitcher)
and the MVP go to the person who was the most valuable to a competitive teams’ success, whether it be pitcher or hitter.
That’s it.
Piece of cake.