Tuesday, January 23, 2007
FTE: That 3-letter acronym that negates NCLB (NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND)
December 14, 2006
That 3-letter acronym that causes your student to be LEFT BEHIND!
FTE EMAIL TRUTH: The attached (not attached, but available upon request) is an email I generated after learning that some of my Reading students had passed the FCAT by September 2006. The one in question in this email is not at all different from others who were kept in the class in order to increase the FTE count. FTE = approximately $3500/student and is administered to ESOL, ESE, etc. students from our benevolent governing bodies.. One of my scholars did not make the push/pull/tow list and was forced to remain in my reading class throughout the semester. This impropriety caused this achiever to lose.
FTE is a dirty little game of secrets that has been on going since I first began my teaching career in 1982 where it ended painfully with a Massachusetts superintendent chastising me for graduating 5 ESE students out of the program with my teaching intervention techniques. When I was called to his office I thought I was to be congratulated, but instead I heard, “Do you know how much you cost the school?”
My only consolation was, and is, a report from New England Medical Center Hospital that proves that my interventions on one of the 5 to be true and correct in order to augment scholarly achievements. The student had been seen since age three with little growth change, however on 3/8/83, after only 6 months of my interventions the hospital’s physician wrote: “On this most recent occasion, we administered a screening battery of neuropsychological tests, together with a full battery of educational tests. The screening battery of neuropsychological tests yielded results that were entirely normal and at a much higher level than had been true for this youngster in the past.” The report goes on to state that, “He is now achieving appropriately in all academic areas. School personnel, (that was me - added), is to be commended for their fine efforts.”
Who’s at fault? Everyone! Parents, teachers, politicians, State Capitals, Federal Capital, even students who cling to this crutch out of fear of failure or fear of being challenged. Such behavior orchestrates this hypocrisy that only serves to undermine the education of our future; that is, our children, who will be at the helm very soon.
We are the past ladies and gentlemen. To fail in providing a proper academic legacy to our future; i.e.: our off-spring, only serves to chip away at the future of that which we claim to hold dear:
"For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal." JFK
If Jack Kennedy was correct then it is time to bootstrap; that is, it is time to dispense with the excuses and begin to make reasons for why our children are not children, but academic scholars that require no hand holds for they were born of us and we too are great.
Submitting reality,
That 3-letter acronym that causes your student to be LEFT BEHIND!
FTE EMAIL TRUTH: The attached (not attached, but available upon request) is an email I generated after learning that some of my Reading students had passed the FCAT by September 2006. The one in question in this email is not at all different from others who were kept in the class in order to increase the FTE count. FTE = approximately $3500/student and is administered to ESOL, ESE, etc. students from our benevolent governing bodies.. One of my scholars did not make the push/pull/tow list and was forced to remain in my reading class throughout the semester. This impropriety caused this achiever to lose.
FTE is a dirty little game of secrets that has been on going since I first began my teaching career in 1982 where it ended painfully with a Massachusetts superintendent chastising me for graduating 5 ESE students out of the program with my teaching intervention techniques. When I was called to his office I thought I was to be congratulated, but instead I heard, “Do you know how much you cost the school?”
My only consolation was, and is, a report from New England Medical Center Hospital that proves that my interventions on one of the 5 to be true and correct in order to augment scholarly achievements. The student had been seen since age three with little growth change, however on 3/8/83, after only 6 months of my interventions the hospital’s physician wrote: “On this most recent occasion, we administered a screening battery of neuropsychological tests, together with a full battery of educational tests. The screening battery of neuropsychological tests yielded results that were entirely normal and at a much higher level than had been true for this youngster in the past.” The report goes on to state that, “He is now achieving appropriately in all academic areas. School personnel, (that was me - added), is to be commended for their fine efforts.”
Who’s at fault? Everyone! Parents, teachers, politicians, State Capitals, Federal Capital, even students who cling to this crutch out of fear of failure or fear of being challenged. Such behavior orchestrates this hypocrisy that only serves to undermine the education of our future; that is, our children, who will be at the helm very soon.
We are the past ladies and gentlemen. To fail in providing a proper academic legacy to our future; i.e.: our off-spring, only serves to chip away at the future of that which we claim to hold dear:
"For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal." JFK
If Jack Kennedy was correct then it is time to bootstrap; that is, it is time to dispense with the excuses and begin to make reasons for why our children are not children, but academic scholars that require no hand holds for they were born of us and we too are great.
Submitting reality,
# posted by Bite Me Kissimmee @ 6:13 AM 
