The headline says it all, doesn’t it?
North College Hill City School District in Cincinnati, Ohio, recently ranked #597 out of 607 Ohio school districts, according to the state’s evaluation index. By my grading scale, that’s straight F-minuses across the board. The district’s preposterous excuse? The teachers are “all worn out.” Oh, noes!
On second thought, indoctrinating children five days a week must be a grueling task, at least at the beginning. I mean, you know, programming young minds to believe things they’ve likely never even heard of, the need to remember “who’s what gender?” every day, and working hard to keep one’s “woke” curriculum away from irate parents; it has to be exhausting as hell.
So, the above observations contain a fair bit of sarcasm, to be sure, but as we’ve come to see in cities across America, it’s closer to true than not. And I didn’t even toss in a jab about the hours spent by proud whatever-sex “teachers” on TikTok smugly declaring things I can’t put in writing, here.
Anyway, as reported by ABC affiliate WCPO in Cincinnati, the North College Hill School District school board voted unanimously on Monday to approve a plan that will see children attend school in person four days a week during the 2023-24 calendar year. Students will spend Monday at home (or wherever they end up), and only be required to do “self-directed work” while their poor, worn-out teachers will have time to engage in “some collaboration” and “some planning,” according to Superintendent Eugene Blalock.
Prediction: This insanity will lead to a worsening of education, irrespective of the notion that teachers are overworked beyond capacity.
Au Contraire, says Mr. Blalock, who thinks the plan “could save the profession of education.”
I think this could be a model that could save the profession of education. Teachers are leaving the profession at alarming rates and the idea of being able to have some quality time dedicated time to just get some collaboration and some planning is something that is intriguing to the teachers, and it actually has excited and re-ignited my teachers.
While teachers are indeed leaving the profession in record numbers, many have cited the pandemic and associated draconian school lockdowns as a catalyst. Perceived low wages (or actual low wages in some states), de-professionalization of the field due to increasing external demands, such as the over-reliance on standardized tests, and “changing perceptions of the societal value of teachers” have also been major contributors to the exodus.
Let’s be honest. Untold numbers of teachers are also leaving the profession because they’re fed up with radical school boards, parents who are angry about the indoctrination of so-called “critical race theory” (by whatever name), “gender fluidity” insanity, “misgendering,” self-assigned pronoun nonsense, and “racist math,” to the point that it interferes with good, old-fashioned teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic. (All in my not-so-humble opinion, of course.)
And Blalock’s observation about teachers being “re-ignited”? Please.
Do this guy and his school board really believe that teachers who are “all worn out” by “grueling” 5-day work weeks are going to use Mondays to get re-ignited by work-related collaboration and planning? What your teachers are “intrigued” by, Mr. Blalock, is the prospect of having a day as far the hell away from thinking about school, as possible. Again, call me a cynic, but I’m not a fool.
Still, Blalock insisted:
This is my hypothesis.. … if teachers are well rested, and if they’re mentally ready to go and they are present in a classroom, then student achievement will go up. I think this will reignite that fire in our teachers, and they’ll come in here and teach like their hair is on fire.
Uh-huh. Lemme know how your hypothesis turns out, won’t you?
Finally, third-grade teacher Raven Jackson of course agreed with Blalock’s hypothesis:
We are all worn out — like the kids are even worn out … I think this Monday will help with that. Having doctors’ appointments, not having to use our sick time to take those days off. At least we know Mondays we wouldn’t have to worry about having a sub, splitting our classrooms, [or] putting that extra work on our teammates and I think having that Monday for those set times and set appointments would definitely help out.
I don’t know; maybe it will help out.
But what I do know is the dumbing down of America’s public education system is well underway.
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