My GED Hotline GED Practice Test

Here is what I have to say about their idea up front. Here we go again. A good system is supported by substitutes that can perform their duties well. I know about how substitutes keep schools open because of the high absenteeism of teachers. The first duty of the system is to certify that substitutes can do the job and there are substitutes assigned to the schools. Industry helped improve used car sales by certifying in writing that used vehicles were great for people to buy and by not throwing the vehicles into the dumpster (and a guarantee comes with it). Here we have a plan to throw good teachers into the dumpster, when the system is supposed to have hired competent subs that can teach. Sure children suffer when they do not learn anything for ten days or more. People in other jobs rest comfortably knowing that the work will get done(by others) even if they are not there. If it doesn't get done, again, that is because of the administration and its decisions as much as anything. And that means keeping children engaged and under control. At this point, after thinking about it and sensing my blood pressure rising, the Educators4Excellence should find their niche by teaching substitutes and administrators how to perform their duties better before they do anything else. If an arbitrator ever agrees with them, okay. So be it! But first things first. An excellent teacher who is out 22 days is counting on the system to do its job. Even Bill Gates should know these things. The parents and the children need the same kind of guarantee from the school system that people get from the certified car dealers instead of all this rhetoric.

Okay there is more. The tutoring for those students didn't work and there was probably insufficient parent involvement, something that the Department of Education has not focused on well enough. The DOE can report to him soon and tell you just how many schools are not in compliance with No Child Left Behind. Let us see the current figures and add this to the debate. The fire is coming out from my fingers as I type.

Okay there is more. I see a pattern here. There are schools closings instead of school improvements. The Department of Education really did not show enough commitment to the children as it allowed schools to fall apart by not providing important services and ideas that can work and now we see that it wants to fire long term teachers that are not really totally responsible for the failure of the children and it did nothing to improve the system. Joel Klein was responsible and he is gone. Do you feel that he really should have been terminated? Perhaps he terminated himself after realizing that what he built up has been collapsing as decisions and statistics reveal that things were not being done right , even though there was some success. Cathie Black is now taking the heat because of Mayor Bloomberg. He put her there. If she does not change fast, she will be gone. There is too much at stake and what happened in Cairo will be seen in New York City.

• Chronic Absenteeism: Studies suggest that for each ten days a teacher is absent, student performance in math declines by 3.3 percent of a standard deviation. Significant portions of teacher absences are discretionary and policy changes could increase teacher attendance rates and raise student performance. Under the formula, a teacher would have to have been absent for at least 22 school days from September 2009 to February 1st, 2011, to be laid off under this provision.

The UFT contract is always subject to negotiation within limits. I do not represent the union, but that is my feeling. The young teachers group Educators4Excellence wants teachers who have an attendance record of 8 percent of the calendar year to be fired if they do not have medical reasons. Excessive absences has always been a reason for being fired, at least it was when I taught. Is 8 percent the result of an expert on urban schools who has researched in depth the city of New York (or any other major city for that matter). Did any of the teachers at Educators4 Excellence produce their own detailed report of their own school? Conservative talk show hosts want ineffective teachers out the door without a hearing (much of the time). Will the 8 percent hold up under arbitration? Don't you think that each case is different and should we not protect excellent teachers that happen to have poor attendance during the calendar year? Things do happen to all of us you know and the teaching is not about the "survival of the fittest." Most of us who have seen the schools of the past and the schools of today know that a good administrator is supposed to reach out to teachers with poor
attendance early and begin to work things out with them. That should be done by individual techniques that motivate the teacher or other techniques researched well by the administration that can be shared with all principals. The neglect of principals and schools by the Department of Education is well documented and needs more attention. A source at the UFT told me that even tenured teachers can be fired for excessive absences. I am not clear if the amount of absences was close to 8 percent or not. I was not involved in any case where it happened, either physically or emotionally.

Here is food for thought and I do not know if it applies to the Department of Education. Police Department employees may take an unpaid leave of absence with department approval. Under certain circumstances, teachers can take a leave of absence without pay. In the police department they have something called going AWOL. This can be problematic. Here we go again as we try to bring transparency and fairness to the debate and the process. This kind of information belongs in the debate and that is why it is right here. There are 1,500 schools in the city of New York and many principals may object to giving up the power to regulate the teachers. In a system so large, where so many principals are violating rules, procedures, lack the knowledge to perform well, and hostile to teachers, it would make sense to permit the same rights to all teachers who want to take that leave of absence without pay and not be at risk of being fired. This would surely make New York's teachers equal to the finest or bravest in the nation, since it would align us administratively more closely with those highly respected departments. The New York Post had the story about the 8% absences, but I think that newspaper has to report what it wrote about in greater depth. Maybe some of those teachers really need a leave of absence without pay generated by the Department of Education.

Two out of three of those teachers, I was told, are no longer even teaching and it seems they are being paid by Bill Gates.

Substitute teacher salaries were much better decades ago. This has obviously created a big problem for the system. This policy has continued under mayoral control. Now we do not expect any sub (whether it is an external sub called in to the school or a sub who is attached to the school or a sub who is getting paid for coverage for the period) to fill in and perform in an equal manner. There are loses, sometimes great losses. The 3.3 percent is compounded, I guess, by substitutes who cannot get the job done. If we compare better paid and more qualified substitutes with what the Educators4Excellence is writing about, assuming that New York City has this carefully measured 3.3 gap (I would like to know what the actual gap is) by doing a scientific study, we could learn much more about all of this and make a decision that is based on transparency. It would be good to see what the breakdown is for 1 percent to 7 percent of absences to see the loss in math because of those absences. The study, I hope, factors in the absences of the students, as well. I would love to see the study. You know when students are out of school, they cannot learn a thing from their teachers and may even regress.

I just watched the video of Fox News with Sydney Morris and she was the loser. The shows co-host spoke about how he sometimes was not a good student and it was his fault. Her remark at the end was that teachers must stop making "excuses" for not teaching the students in tough neighborhoods. My! My! There is a difference between a reason and an excuse. Also, it seemed to me that the co-host wanted her to tell about some things she wanted to do in the classroom and she jumped over that to talk about layoffs. Another failure, possibly because she did not hear the question, not reacting to its context and thinking about her own agenda. She also did not discuss parent involvement. She was only prepared to talk about the layoffs and promoting better teachers by reforming LIFA (and aspects related to that). Sydney Morris said they got $160,000 from Bill Gates. I can cause a revolution with that kind of money and I do not have to write any reports. I can cause a revolution just by going on the kinds of television shows that Sydney has been on. Just put me on the Oprah Show! You see I have a track record without Bill Gates' support. In other words I got mine the old fashioned way. I earned it. Please see Bill Gates Did Not Pay for This Study. Sydney Morris was also talking about "recruiting, training and retaining" teachers as a goal for the future. In the current financial crisis, it would not make sense for the budget to train experienced teachers to be more effective and retain them. On another show, the host reported that 13,000 teachers had signed on to Educators4Excellence and I said "wow" in disbelief. Sydney Morris mentioned that it was 1,300 and that it had doubled fast. She either chose not to make a point of correcting the mentioning of 13,000 or did not hear it. I do not blame the host for the error, but we do not want people walking away thinking that the organization is ten times bigger than it really is. So "recruiting" new teachers is a business decision that has nothing to do with children. I do give credit to Sydney Morris for being supportive of the union in other ways.

"Retain teachers" she says, is one of the key initiatives of Educators4Excellence. Teacher salaries in New York City are still well below salaries on Long Island where I live, tens of thousands less. The pension system is being assaulted for future teachers, creating less reason to be retained. Does Sydney Morris have a plan to brainwash teachers to stay in teaching for the love of it or the love of the children? Things may get worse for teachers all over the country in this bad economy and the rhetoric of Educators4Excellence is not helping. Give us the plan to retain teachers under these conditions. Where is your leadership taking us?

MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
martin@mygedhotline.com
New:
www.mygedhotline.com

www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.ahorre.com
www.aspira.org