Reply to Frontline doc about Rhee and cheating

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[quote=Anonymous]
I agree. As a former dcps teacher, I could not believe what I saw. We had no library. We at times had no paper. We were given no textbooks. Handed standards days before we started And told to post our unit tests that met those standards and to find and create material along the way. We had an infestation of rats. We had police officers come to speak to our kids about trusting the police--one 5th grader said that same cop came to his house after his dad was mugged and told his family to move if he didn't like where he lived. We had kids selling drugs in the stairwells--when we tried to expel them, we were told it was a classroom issue. 80% of the 5th grade could not read at a proficient level, but passed the DC-CAS the year before. We had students who were expelled from the charter schools show up days before the CAS. Some of them were expelled for truancy. HR was a mess. The 5th graders had no recess. It was all really sad. All this, with being told, almost daily, that we could lose our jobs at any time. Thus, we could not just stop and go back to try to teach 1st grade reading to our students who needed the instruction so badly. Thus, we taught strategies for the test. We thought we were good teachers (at least trying to be) so we wanted to keep our jobs.

I have been a DCPS teacher in a Title I school for the last 4 years and I still find myself stunned by your story. I believe it to be true as I've experienced some of those things myself and have heard stories about others. I've found that most people are clueless to the actual conditions at some of our failing schools and the totally unrealistic expectations placed on teachers and staff. I myself began teaching with no textbooks or curriculum; I spent the first 2 years reinventing the wheel on the fly. So much $$$ is spent in the name of education but none of it makes it's way into the classroom, directly helping students improve.

I feel like I work in a totally surreal world. The things I hear and see on a daily basis, you can't make this stuff up.  [/quote]

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