You too may be qualified to create a bad school improvement plan.  Seemingly all is required is:

• Previous school attendance.  The further in the past the better.
• An antiquated understanding of what constitutes quality instruction.
• An underlying disrespect for overpaid baby-sitters. Oops, I mean teachers.

For those that meet the above requirements, they have a near patriotic have a duty to fix public education through the advocacy of their well thought out and completely logical school improvement plans.  Such as the “Hire More Aides” plan.  Here is the logic behind this popular idea.

Hiring certified, trained, qualified and motivated teachers is becoming more and more difficult as salaries remain stagnant, benefits are slashed, and accountability increases. Add to this the fact that some of the teachers that are hired are not effective. 

Now the professional educator might suggest that a possible solution would be to raise salaries to be commensurate with the skill set required to be successful in the classroom. The professional educator might add that the provision of enhanced training opportunities for teachers to continue to enhance their skills would be useful.  And the professional educator would concede that there is a need to remove the occasional ineffective teacher and replace that person with a new teacher.

Not surprisingly, the professional educator would be wrong. Yet again.  

The best (and obvious) course of action is to replace classroom teachers with aides.  Because an aide is not burdened with a college degree, a certificate, and specialized training. This means the aide is uniquely positioned to teach children with a host of creative and innovative strategies that would not be readily apparent to a trained professional educator.  And as an added bonus, there is no need to provide an aide with a pesky high salary and benefits.

Zero offense to classroom aides… But given the choice of a trained, certified, and college educated teacher in the classroom or an aide, there is no choice. You go with the teacher every time.

Think. Work. Achieve. Your turn…

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
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