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Crossroads Second Chance South Teacher

Pleads for Fulton Board and

Superintendent Avossa to Show Mercy,

Have a Heart! 

     I am a teacher at Crossroads Second Chance-South in Fulton County and I am a member of MACE.  On April 9, 2013, Superintendent Robert Avossa and the school board of Fulton County voted to close down the Crossroads South and North programs.  To add to insult, on Thursday, April 18, 2013, the school board will vote for a Reduction in Force (RIF) in regards to the faculty and staff members at Crossroads South and North based on the ‘strong recommendation’ of the superintendent.  Most of us at Crossroads South have accepted the fact that Fulton County has decided to turn over their alternative education program to the Ombudsman group.  We can no longer fight for this issue because the decision has been made.  What we are fighting for is our jobs.  The superintendent would rather take our jobs from us than to surplus us to other schools within the county.  This is not fair!  Keep in mind, the superintendent continues to brag about 800 vacancies in the county last year.   I am a certified Mathematics teacher and I have been teaching for 22 years.  For 22 years, I have NEVER had a reprimand or a bad evaluation.  In Fulton County today, you still have substitute teachers in math and science classrooms.  So, why would the superintendent vote to get rid of ‘certified’ teachers in critical shortage areas?  It makes no sense!  MACE, we need you!  We need you to speak on behalf of the teachers at Crossroads South at the board meeting on Thursday, April 18, because Fulton County needs to know that they can’t just treat us any kind of way.  I’ve learned through this process that Fulton County is NOT ‘where the kids come first’.  Superintendent Robert Avossa tells the AJC that privatizing Crossroads is not about the money.  What else could it be about?  At Crossroads South, only three teachers out of 28 do not possess advanced degrees.  Therefore, when you look at the salaries of the teachers, you would see where Fulton County spends the most of their money in regards to the budget at Crossroads South.  So, is it right to punish teachers for earning advanced degrees?  Something is wrong with this picture.  Once again, I am asking MACE to stand up and fight for your members at Crossroads Second Chance-South because we NEED OUR JOBS! 

Thanks,

[Name Withheld by MACE]

     Superitendent Avossa, there is indeed a difference between substantive due process and procedural due process.  They may not have taught you this at Wingate College or NOVA or may not have taught education attorney Glenn Brock this at the now-defunct Atlanta Law School, but it is a balancing test of weighing the needs of the school system against the property interests of the tenured teachers.  If you are still in need of hiring new teachers, then why aren’t you surplusing the Crossroads teachers into other Fulton County teaching positions?  I presume that Eli and Edyth Broad, billionaire insurance moguls, didn’t teach you this at the Broad Academy, heh?   

Norreese Haynes and MACE Staff Fight for Teacher Falsely Accused!

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   "On May 26, 2011, I retired from the Atlanta Public Schools. MACE was one of the most 'peace of mind' supports for me and well worth the price of admission. It is said that 'Gratitude is the best attitude and Silent Gratitude isn't much use to anyone.' I would like to say 'Thank You' to the three 'We Got Your Back' gentelmen:  Mr. Norreese Haynes, Mr. Jeff Cox, and Mr. Benjamin Barnes.  Always Grateful, Dr. Martha J. Reid." -- Dr. Martha J. Reid (Atlanta Teacher).

   "David Brown, one of MACE's Network Attorneys, did a tremendous job representing me in a hearing when I was falsely accused recently.  Mr. Brown represented me like he was representing someone in a murder case.  He was all over them, dotting all of the "I's" and crossing all of the "T's."  He turned their witnesses into my witnesses.  Attorney Brown is personable and thorough.  I appreciate what all MACE has done for me!" -- Earl White (DeKalb Teacher/Coach).

   

“Dear Dr. Trotter,

“I am short of words to thank Mr. Norreese Haynes and MACE for the overwhelming support that turned a weak case to success. Prior to visiting MACE, I consulted a few volunteer attorneys and they advised that my chance of winning the appeal was at most 25%. In fact, one advised that I really had no case unless I wanted to waste my time. At this time, I had lost hope of any positive outcome on this appeal, but I just wanted to fight anyway.

“I did not think that I needed to involve MACE because I considered that my issues with DOL was outside the classroom and consequently outside the scope of my relationship with MACE. However, as my last resort, I called and discussed my appeal with MACE and I was immediately invited to the office and was supported all through the preparation for the appeal. Contrary to my expectation, it was an unbelievable appeal victory. With the assistance of Mr. Haynes of MACE, I achieved victory and the DOL appeal decision was in my favor. Go To Testimonial Page to See Glad Obiago's Complete Letter...

Click Here To Read What Other Teachers Say About MACE!

    "You didn’t come to MACE because we give you a tote bag or do spelling bees for the children or sell you auto insurance at an alleged discount.  We don’t give out tote bags.  We have never put on a spelling bee contest for kids.  We don’t sell auto insurance.  Heck, we don’t even endorse any political candidates.  You vote like you want to vote.  We don’t care.  We don’t even agree in the MACE Office about political candidates or parties!  But, we do agree about this:  Teachers should be respected, esteemed, and supported by the administrators to do their jobs in the classroom.  We know that you cannot have good learning conditions until your first have good teaching conditions.  This is an inexorable law.  It can no more be set aside or ignored than the Law of Gravity.

     “MACE simply exists to protect and empower classroom educators…one member at a time.  You came to MACE because you have heard of the reputation of MACE.  You have heard that ‘MACE doesn’t play.’  You have heard correctly.  You came to MACE because you know that better than any other organization in the State of Georgia, MACE is able to tighten up your angry and abusive administrator.  You know that there is not another union, organization, association (or whatever you want to call it) for teachers in Georgia which is as effective as MACE in legally scaring the heck out of administrators who are already terrorizing you.  This is why you came to MACE.” 

-- Dr. John R. Alston Trotter and Norreese L. Haynes

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What Our Urban Students Need. What All Students Need. Discipline and Real Knowledge.

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

                                                                                                

The average parent has no clue that the average middle school student in urban schools could not tell you if Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln wrote the Declaration of Independence or if  the Civil Rights Movement took place in the 19^th Century of the 20^th Century, much less tell you the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and historical significance of Selma and Hiroshima. These students are just clueless…and without much future. Now, if you asked the same aged students at Marist or Westminster or Lovett the same questions, they probably readily know the answers. Public education’s curriculum, by the design, is full of mush, full of touchy-feely crap, full of games and group discussions/projects. It is this way all the way up to graduate school now.

Bill Gates even admits that he envisions using games to teach the kids (using his app, I’m sure). But, the idea of transmitting knowledge (the foundation of a “common” culture, if you will) is so 1950ish to these new educational policy wonks (who don’t have the good sense to get out of the rain). But, in the 1950s, at least we could tell you that Idaho was out west and that Massachusetts was in the northeast. We had a very definite idea about the location of Japan, Iceland, and Argentina. We knew how to multiply off the top of our heads and how to break down words phonetically. We knew the parts of language and how to write cogent sentences and paragraphs. But, these poor kids in the public schools (especially in the inner city schools) are lost when it comes to such standard and basic knowledge. The key to success in the business world is being able to communicate in writing and orally the King’s English. Now I am not taking away the exceptions to the rule, viz., the entertainers and the athletes who earn incomes outside this standardization of common knowledge, but how many people are going to be successful in these endeavors? It is really somewhat criminal to set up expectations for these children to think that they are going to be the next T. I. (“King of the South”) or another Michael Vick whose mastery of juking skills have earned him millions.

Look at the successful people in our world today. Look at President Barack Obama. He attended Punahou Academy with very high academic standards. Then, he was off to Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School. Look at President Clinton. Georgetown University, Oxford College (Rhodes Scholar), and Yale Law School. George W. Bush. Started off at Midland Elementary and then San Jacinto Jr. High. But, Poppy and Barb sent him on up to the northeast to go to the very rigorous Phillips Academy before matriculating to Yale undergrad and Harvard Business School. This is just politics. Look at Ted Turner. McCauley Prep in Chattanooga and then to the very tough The Citadel in Charleston. (I think that I am right about Ted’s education.) Look at Oprah Winfrey. Fish University, I think. All of these successful people learned knowledge…yes, information. None of the touchy-feely stuff. None of the holding hands and singing nursery rhymes.

Today, however, none of the educrats or the educational wonks know what to do with urban education. They are afraid of it. They think, like Social Security with politicians, that it’s hands-off topic. It reeks with charges of racism. So, they think that perhaps that they can just try the soft approach…you know, group projects which will not hold each student accountable for how he or she performs. The individual’s success or failure can be hidden in the collective meltdown. And, be sure, it is a meltdown. It is a meltdown of knowledge. It is, as I often say when I see that an administrator criticizes a teacher for being “teacher centered” and not “student centered,” a pooling of ignorance. If the students don’t know squat about the U. S. Constitution or about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, then how can they teach each other in some group discussion/project. They first need to have some knowledge transferred to them. But, as one of my good friends says, “They want a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage.” This is a good way of putting it. Teachers become mere facilitators, not transmitters of knowledge. Why? Because in this new way of thinking (can we say, “Common Core Curriculum”?), verifiable, objective knowledge is no longer cherish or even tolerated. We are now witnessing the philosophical deconstructionism attacking our schools like a far eastern tsunami.

No one wants to first tackle the near dearth of discipline in the urban schools. This is a dirty job and not very appealing. But, until these schools are put back in order discipline-wise, no significant learning will take place. We have said over and over that you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions. The first thing that any school leader worth his or her salt has to do is to get the school in order. In other words, he or she has to first establish sound, fair, and consistent discipline in the school, and the students have to know undoubtedly that the administrators support the teachers when it comes to discipline.

Bill Gates and His Common Core Curriculum and His Profitable Common Apps Need Merit Pay to Shut the Mouths of Outspoken Teachers!

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Dear Classroom Educator:    

     The mantra at MACE is simple and direct:  You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  We have found that not a single politician, policy-maker, educrat, school board member, or snoopervising administrator can dispute this mantra, but like mindless boobs they continue to try to improve public education by attacking classroom educators.  This is indeed mindless and unconscionable.  At MACE, we don’t play.  We devour petty, insecure, myopic, and angry administrators who abuse teachers.  

     I remember when we founded MACE in 1995 that the administrators were immediately afraid of MACE.  There was an attorney for the DeKalb County Board of Education who stated:  “MACE terrorizes the principals!”  We are now into our 18th year, and our message has not changed one scintilla.  We continue to legally terrorize those administrators who seem to gleefully terrorize teachers.  Once these abusive administrators find out that the teacher is a MACE Member, they suddenly changed their direction.  We say:  “They suddenly get religion.”  Although our membership is strictly confidential, there comes a time when you want your administrator to know that you are a Member of MACE and are protected by MACE! 

     The other organizations (AFT, GAE, PAGE) talk a good game, but their walk is different from their talk.  In Georgia, everyone knows that the most aggressive and feared teachers union is MACE, by far.  One of our aggressive attorneys just defended a MACE Member in Hart County and kicked ass for her.  In fact, Vivian Morgan, the reporter for the Hartwell Sun newspaper, called me and stated:  “Lowell Chatham [the MACE attorney] was phenomenal!”  The teacher still has her job.  MACE Attorney Chatham also recently defended a Clayton County teacher in a four-day hearing.  The teacher won his case and is still teaching in Clayton County!  MACE protects and empowers classroom educators…one MACE Member at a time.

                                                                                                 Chairman & CEO

 

 

Editor’s Note:  This article is a re-print of what Dr. John Trotter wrote on May 12, 2008.  Look what Dr. Trotter wrote nearly four and one-half years ago about the Atlanta Public Schools and its obsession to raise standardized test scores.  Look what he wrote about the real problems in public education.

 By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD    

       Are our educrats nuts or what? Why do we put up with the crazy notion that all children are bound to be scholars? A recent study (conducted by Colin Powell and others) showed that in the urban areas of America only about 28% of the students who enter the ninth grade actually graduate. (Detroit led the drop-out rate with only 24.9% of those entering the ninth grade actually graduating.) Are our educrats (defined as those people, be they legislators of educational bureaucrats, who never see students each day) blind to this most obvious fact? Do they not see that so many of our students are totally disengaged from the schooling process? How long has it been since they have actually taught school (especially in the urban settings) on a daily basis? They are clueless. Are they not aware that students these days actually curse out our teachers carte blanche and say the most vile and vicious things to them (as well as physically attack them)? No one wants to state the obvious: Our students are not engaged in the learning process. Remember: Motivation to learn is a social phenomenon. If the students are not motivated, then they will not learn. A teacher can teach a student, but a teacher cannot “learn” a student. Note: I want to credit the quirky and brilliant Dr. Eugene Boyce of the University of Georgia for first putting this concept in writing. He was an educational expert who engaged in studies throughout the world. I always want to credit others for their research. Dr. Boyce was a member of my dissertation committee in 1982-84 (as well as other UGA scholars like Dr. Carvin Brown whom I served as a graduate assistant).      

     Educrats can blame teachers for the mess in public education but this does not make it so. Teachers today are the more educated, better trained, and more dedicated than all the teachers whom we have seen come down the pike. But, teachers today face the most unimaginable of obstacles to overcome, viz., (1) Defiant & Disruptive Students; (2) Irate & IrresponsibleParents; and (3) Angry & Abusive Administrators. These are the three main problems in public education. If we solve these problems, then nearly everything else falls in place.        

     If you poll all teachers in America, at least 90% will privately concur with our analysis, albeit this conclusion is politically incorrect. It is politically correct to say that we need more money and resources put into public education. Our teachers need more training, so the reasoning concludes. Hardly anyone has the guts to state the obvious: The students are out of control. Discipline is no longer in the public schools (especially in the urban areas). We at MACE know that you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions. This is our mantra at MACE. We passionately believe this. We also passionately believe that order is the first law of the Universe. Without order, a school is just floundering.    

    Finally, let me say a word about Vocational Education. The notion that schools should rid themselves of the very useful vocational courses is sick. Yes, it is sick. One of the reasons that our students are tuning out all education and can hardly wait until they turn 16 years of age (to be able to legally drop out of school) is because they do not see the educational process as being relevant to them. I remember visiting Mr. James Whitehead’s body shop (for automobiles) classes in the late 1980s. His classes were taught in the middle of one of Atlanta’s worst hoods at the old Archer High School. Mr. Whitehead’s students were so engaged and were so proud of their work. Mr. Whitehead’s students won many state competitions. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Whitehead was informed that his (and others’) vocational programs were going to be jettisoned in the Atlanta Public Schools. What happened to “Whitehead’s boys”? Now, so many of them just dropped out of school whereas before they were gainfully employed at Beaudry Ford and at other establishments. Why did this happen? You asked me, so I am going to tell you. The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (which got heavily involved in political races for school board around this time) apparently wanted to raise the test scores of the Atlanta students on the nationally-normed tests. You know why? When large corporations are trying to decide where to locate their headquarters, they look at the national tests scores for school systems located in places like Dallas, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Atlanta. If the test scores of the Atlanta students are below those of the students in Charlotte, then perhaps Charlotte becomes the location of the Fortune Five Hundred companies. Then, these large companies deposit their monies in Charlotte banks instead of an Atlanta banks. So, damn the students from the hood who were joyfully learning a trade at the old Archer High School! The standardized tests do not ask any questions about bondo!       

     So, the students now languish until they reach the age of 16. They are totally disengaged in the schooling process. They resent being taught algebraic equations which they will never use in a million lifetimes (at least this is their thinking) and thus they disrupt the activities of the classroom just for fun. Our schools are out of control, and our educrats are willingly ignorant of this fact. Until discipline (and relevant vocational programs) is re-established in our public schools, all school reform is a joke with no hope of being successful. © May 13, 2008

     Many times you see me rail against what has happened to the teaching profession.  Sometimes I may seem like a broken record (ala "You can't have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions").  I am passionate about what has happened to the teaching profession...educrats treating teachers like they are hired hands and expecting them to mindlessly teach a prescriptive curriculum like they are robots.  It is a tragedy.  When I taught in the old days, we could be zany and creative in the classroom.  We could have our own style, a style that the students knew and to which they adjusted...and usually with a degree of delight.  That's the great part of growing up...learning to adjust to different people (teachers, in this case) with different styles.

      I have often told my colleagues and teachers that I would be fired every day  under the current culture of teachers being placed in straightjackets.  I even bowed up to the odious structure that was in place in the old days (especially those horrid TPAIs and the accompanying written lesson plans and behavioral objectives in the old DeKalb County -- when DeKalb was King of the Rock and thought that their mess didn't stink).  I turned down my second contract (didn't even sign it -- which was stupid of me) and left.  Moved back to Athens and the next year car-pooled each day to Greene County High School.  I had a great principal, Dr. Donald Garrett.  He was so supportive of me and just let me do my thing.  When MACE picketed the superintendent in Greene County on three occasions about three years ago (yes, this superintendent moved on not too long after these downtown pickets which were joined in by local towns people!), I had one of my former students, Vincent, to happily meet me on the picket line.  We laughed, talked about where my old students were today, and just reminisced.  I had a blast teaching at Greene County High School, but I was offered a good assistantship in the Department of Administration at the University of Georgia for the next year, and Dr. Garrett (who was finishing up his doctorate there at the time) encouraged me to take it.  He said, "You can always come back here anytime you want."  But, after my assistantship, I took a job as Assistant Principal at Washington County High School down the road...at 27 years of age.     

     This morning I looked at my Blackberry to see my emails and my Facebook comments.  I saw the nicest comment from one of my former Jonesboro Jr. High School students.  It was from Eric Jensen, a First Team All State football player from Jonesboro High School and a student and player whom I taught and coached at Jonesboro Jr. High School in the early 1980s.  Forgive me for my vanity but he wrote the following:  "Well I hope my boys have a teacher as dedicated and passionate about education.  A legend is a person whose fame or notoriety makes him a source of romanticized tales and exploits.  That's you coach."  This is why teachers teach.  We teachers (and I am still a teacher at heart) teach to have an influence (not to artificially raise the standardized test scores to fatten up the superintendent's wallet or pocketbook).  We love interacting with the children and watching them grow -- even to adulthood.  I get a kick out of watching Norreese Haynes run the day-to-day operations at MACE...especially since he was the classroom "bishop" in my 7th Grade History class.        

By Dr. John Trotter and Norreese Haynes

 

        Discipline is the 800 pound gorilla in the parlor that is knocking over all of the marbled-top furniture and is stinking up the mansion big time, but no one is willing to broach the fact that the gorilla is in the parlor.  I mean to say that it is downright nasty in the parlor.  The gorilla is taking huge dumps, and no one will deign to even mention that the darn gorilla is stinking up the entire mansion.  Look at the gorilla!  He stinks to high heaven!  He's noisy.  He's completely unruly, and the house servants are blithely walking around as if nothing is wrong.  The house servants are concerned about buying name brand vacuum cleaners and the best Persian rugs but are totally ignoring the darn gorilla which is wreaking havoc in the parlor.  Now the gorilla is beginning to roam all over the mansion, even sleeping in the guest bedroom!  When is someone in the mansion going to acknowledge that there is an unruly and destructive gorilla in the mansion?

"If you focus on discipline, you will see some academic improvement, but if you focus on academic achievement with no regard for discipline, you will end up with the mess that our public schools are in today." -- Norreese L. Haynes, MACE Executive Vice Chairman.

Norreese Haynes

Jeff Cox

Corruption Of Atlanta Schools

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

     If students perceive that they come from a non-reading culture, then these students will not value reading.  If there are not books in the house (just National Enquirer!) and the students do not see their parents reading, then the students will not value reading.  It is very simple.  The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon.  I always want to credit one of my old UGA professors, Dr. Eugene Boyce, with this concept.  Dr. Boyce studied on location how education worked in Nigeria, Kenya, China, and the Soviet Union, besides running the lab school at Florida State University.  I always thought that he was brilliant and never got the credit due to him.  If I "borrow" an idea, I always like to give credit to the source.  From his observations through the years in several parts of the world, he concluded that motivation was the key to learning that this motivation was culturally conditioned. 

     The motivation to learn is a social process or a cultural phenomenon.  And the legislature wants to give these non-reading, irresponsible, and, in  many cases, irate parents the control over the professional educators?  Good grief.  When desperation sets in, there's no telling what they will do.  It would be nice if they starting off by mentioning the unmentionable...a lack of discipline in the schools.   Discipline (or the lack thereof) is the 800 pound gorilla in the dainty parlor that no one (and I mean NO ONE) is willing to talk about.  All of the moving of furniture in the parlor will not remove the fact that an 800 pound gorilla is still moving around in the parlor, knocking over marble-top tables and French chairs.  This is how ridiculous Fran Millar and the other Georgia legislators look; they are re-arranging the French chairs in the parlor and ignoring the 800 pound, smelling, and growling gorilla in the parlor.  Ha! © MACE, February 11, 2011

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

       You know what makes good schools?  Good students.  When the students lack any (yes, in some cases, "any") motivation to learn and many (yes, in many cases, "many") just want to substantively and materially disrupt the learning processes of those students who actually want to learn, then neither Arne Duncan,  nor New City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Georgia State Representative Lindsey, nor Atlanta Journal-Constitution educational pundit Maureen Downey or even Bill Gates can make them learn -- or should be held accountable for their non-learning.  These students should be removed from the regular classroom environment and sent to "The Non-learning Center."  (Note that I copyrighted this phrase a while back!   When the educational pundits start "stealing" this phrase like they "stole" my "snoopervision" and "educrat" words, just think about me.  Ha!).

         All of this poppycock about "value-added" evaluations all begin with the premise that the woes of today's public education is largely attributable to the lack of teacher performance.  Balderdash, if I might editorialize.  When you see any so-called educational reforms coming down the pike which do not address the lack of classroom discipline and the lack of student motivation right square in the face, then this so-called reform too will fall flat on its face like ALL (yes, all!) others have fallen.  Until student discipline and motivation are addressed, then all of the so-called school reform efforts will amount to farting in a hurricane.  I hate to be so graphic, but perhaps this metaphor will bring it on home.  The teachers are not the problems; the students and their lack of motivation and self-discipline are the problems, but one even wants to touch that sacred cow.  Or, are the educrats, legislators, governors, policy-makers, et al., just that stupid when trying to figure out what is really wrong with public education.  If they are, then they need to stay tune for a book that I am writing, along with Mr. Norreese Haynes, called:  School Daze:  The Politically Incorrect and Irreverent Explanation Of What Is Wrong With Our Public Schools! (c). 

          You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  This insulting, inane, ineffective, and stupid "value-added" evaluation of teachers only adds to worsening teaching conditions.  Like merit pay, it will be flawed beyond measure.  Among many downside happenings will be the lack of collegiality among teachers and teachers refusing to share ideas and materials.  The general public cannot begin to comprehend how this evaluation process will be heinously abused by angry and abusive and sex-driven and power-hungry administrators.   (For the record, there will be more people sleeping their way up the educational corporate ladder.)   These booger-eating, weasel administrators will use this process in a manipulative, retributive, and punitive manner.  This "value-added" evaluation of teachers will do NOTHING to improve public education.  Nothing.  Like the No Child Left Behind Act, it will hasten the demise of public education, not the improvement of public education.  It will be the poster child of The Law of Unintended Consequences.  (c) MACE, December 29. 2010.

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By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

    

      The biggest problem in public (note that I said "public") education today is the abject lack of motivation to learn on the part of a very large portion of our students.  It's not a problem with teachers, although some teachers are naturally more effective than other teachers...just like some physicians, lawyers, and engineers are more effective than others.

     The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon, and until the educrats and policy-makers understand this and put this in any equation, their new-fangled educational fads may indeed make money for some publishing companies and other educational-curricula companies but they will not have any positive impact on learning.

     Neither Arne Duncan, Mahatma Gandhi, Eugene V. Debs, Eleanor Roosevelt, Julian Bond, Ronald Reagan, Roy Barnes, Nathan Deal, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Steve Harvey, Steve Jobs, Ted Kennedy, Georgia O'Keefe, George W. Bush, William Faulkner, John Grisham, Bill Gates, Martin Luther, Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, Hillary Clinton, nor Huey Pierce Long could make these unmotivated students learn unless these students first decide to learn.  Julian, Eleanor, and Soren could jump all around the room tooting whistles (of course, the stilted scripted curriculum would not allow them this kind of creativity!) and blowing bagpipes, but if these unmotivated students still refuse to learn, they are not going to learn, despite what any adult does.  This is what needs to be in any equation...the students' REFUSAL TO LEARN. 

     If a public defender's client is found guilty by the jury (and the evidence is overwhelming that the client is indeed guilty), we are not going to tie the public defender's salary to "his" guilt rate, are we?  What about a physician who is assigned Medicaid patients who have very unhealthy lifestyles?  Are we going to tie his or her pay to the incidence of the patients' high blood pressure?  The lawyer can defend a client but he or she cannot acquit the client.  The physician can treat a patient but he or she cannot heal the patient.  The teacher can teach a student but he or she cannot "learn" the student.

     It is easier to just blame the teachers for the shortcomings of the students and their parents.  To heck with it!  Let's just blame the teachers, so think these educrats and politicians.  (c) MACE, November 1, 2010.

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD and Norreese L. Haynes, BSBM 

Reform # 1:  Restore classroom discipline.  Make sure that teachers are supported when it comes to classroom discipline.   Order is the first law of the Universe. 

Reform # 2:  Realize that you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  All of the top-down, heavy-handed snoopervision is counter-productive to establishing good teaching conditions.  

Reform # 3:  Put the onus for learning on the students and their parents.  This is the modus operandus of the private schools, and it works.  Pampering and coddling the students do not work. 

Reform # 4:  Realize that the motivation to learn is a social/cultural phenomenon.  Teachers teach the students, not learn the students.  If a student refuses to learn, then Arne Duncan himself cannot make this student learn and therefore should not be held accountable for the student's refusal to learn.  (c) MACE, September 9, 2010.

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By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

      In Georgia, this snoopervision thing has been strangling public education for the last 25 years.  It began to rear its head in the late 1970s here in Georgia with the now-infamous Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument (TPAI) which the courts in Georgia kicked out because of its inequitable results, abuse, etc.  At the time, the new teachers were sentenced to suffer through this TPAI hell.  I remember one gentleman who is now teaching (perhaps close to retirement now) in Glynn County who kept failing the "observation" of TPAI at a school in Morrow, Georgia back in the early 1980s.  He had a wonderful principal, but a horrible, myopic assistant principal lady who apparently had it in for Jim.  She was either totally incompetent herself or simply was going to refuse to allow Jim to pass his "evaluation."  She kept getting him on "enthusiasm."  Jim told me that he was so "enthusiastic" that he was almost jumping over chairs!  This "evaluator" succeeded in ruining this man's career.  He ended up working at a restaurant in St. Simons Island.  True story.

     When the courts finally kicked out this hellish TPAI, Jim was allowed to teach again, which he did at Glynn Middle School (and I think that he is still there to this day and getting along swimmingly).  I knew Jim and his mother who had retired from the Clayton County School System back in the 1970s.  Good folks.  Jim is a good educator, but he is only one example of many teachers whose lives were destroyed by petty, myopic, and mean-spirited (and often totally incompetent) administrators.

     Now we have Race To The Top (RTTI).  It's just more educational gobbledeegook.   Pure gobbledeegook.  It won't do anything but ruin public education even more.  I have seen it all...APEG, Minimum Foundation, QBE, NCLB, TCT, TPAI, CRCT (Creating Results Cheating on Tests?), PRAXIS, GTOI, GTDRI, ad infinitum.  All of these programs are lame attempts to improve public education.  They are complete failures.  They are really Simply Hatin' & Insultin' Teachers (SHIT).  You know what really works?  Just letting teachers teach!  Supporting, esteeming, respecting the professional knowledge, judgment, and wisdom of the teachers is what works.  Making sure the students know that if they try to cause disruption in any classroom that the teachers have full backing from the administration in dealing with these disruptive students, including removing them from the regular classrooms.  How refreshing it would be to see some of these educational numbskulls actually learn and implement what school administrators forty years ago instinctively knew worked.  Again, you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  (c) MACE, August 30, 2010.

Click Here To View Dr. Trotter's Channel 11 Interview!

 

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

    

     CRCT, TPAI, NCLB, QBE, GTOI, GTDRI, APEG, Minimum Foundation, A+ Program, RTTT, and on and on.  None have or will significantly improve education here in Georgia.  What we need is Discipline In The Classrooms (DITC), Motivation From The Students (MFTS), and Decent Parents At Home (DPAH).  But, how do you fund these essential components?  Harping on these essential components will not secure politicians any votes, so they think.  But, I think that they will secure votes!  Nonetheless, President Obama and Arne Duncan, like most politicians (George W. Bush and the late Ted Kennedy included), continue to adhere to Blame The Teachers First (BTTF).  Added to this is the destructive program called Let Administrators Run Roughshod Over Teachers (LARROT).   Educational Rot.  This educational stench is so strong to every fair-minded and intelligent nostril.  But, the masses will continue to eat the slop until someone points out that this slop is really for educational swine.  RTTT?  Race To The Top?  No, Race To The Trough.  Teachers "teach" the students, not "learn" the students.  Physicians "treat" the patients, not "heal" the patients.  Lawyers "defend" the accused, not "acquit" the accused.  Until our politicians and policymakers start holding the students and their parents responsible for the learning facet of the educational equation, then improving education is like spitting into a tsunami.  Other countries and cultures understand this simple concept, but in our "wisdom," we have become educational "fools."  (c) MACE, August 27, 2010.

    

     A student will not learn unless that student is MOTIVATED TO LEARN.  The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon or social process.  Peer pressure, family history and appreciation for academia, family income, culture, etc., are many of the factors which bear upon a student's MOTIVATION TO LEARN.  What is wrong with so many of our schools today is that students simply do not bring the proper motivation to the table of learning.  It is not that the student is incapable of learning; the problem is that the student does not want to learn.  I have always said that 90% of our students could master (not just have a grade given to them, as is often the case today) 90% of what we dish out to them in way of academics if they truly were motivated to do so.  After my youngest son attended a Lead America program at Georgetown University this Summer and studied about the Central Intelligence Agency (and perhaps the F. B. I. too) and met a friend from Missouri who makes straight As, he announced to his mother and to me that he intended to make all As this school year.  I hope that he does.  He is capable.  And, what if he falls a bit short of his goals?  What if he makes a few Bs?  At least he has cranked up his motivation-to-learn level.  (By the way, his high school has the third or fourth highest test scores of Georgia's public schools.  It's probably tougher than many private schools.)  The key to learning is the motivation to learn.

    

     This is nothing that I just stumbled upon.  I begin to observe this phenomenon in the 1970s when I was student teaching.  In fact, my thesis for my Master of Arts degree at UGA was conducted on peer pressure perceptions (which is a major determinant to a student's  motivation to learn) and later published the results of my study in a major referee journal.   As I began to work on my doctorate and was a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Educational Administration and Bureau of Field Studies at the University of Georgia in 1980-1981 (graduated in 1984 after working two years on a huge dissertation), I begin to learn from the keen observations of a professor named Dr. Eugene Boyce.  I had an office in the department, and I really appreciated Dr. Boyce's acumen.  He was a little eccentric, but highly intelligent folk often are.  Dr. Boyce served on my dissertation committee.  He had served as an educational expert in West Africa, East Africa, the old U. S. S. R., and in the People's Republic of China.  He would ask, "Do you know how they teach students English in the Soviet Union?"  He would hold up a glass and say, "This is a glass," and the response from the students in the Soviet Union would be, "This is a glass."  They did not get into any of the supercilious methods of teaching that are espoused today by our so-called Staff Development experts (my father always called these people "the Insultants").  They did not have to.  The students were already motivated to learn.  Perhaps this is why nearly every student who graduates from the high school level in Europe or China knows how to speak English.  Is it because these European or Chinese students are smarter than my children or your children in the United States?  No, it is because a student from China brings a higher level of motivation to learn to the equation.

    

     Dr. Boyce noticed that in Africa the students who attended those schools which were preparing the students to work in the diplomatic field (whether as interpreters or whatever) had much higher motivational levels to learn than students who attended what Dr. Boyce called the "Village-Tribal Schools."  The latter students did not appreciate the world of academia and did not see how this "book-learning" would be relevant to their lives as physical laborers.  These students had no hope for rising above physical laborers.  They had no hope for a working life different from hard, physical labor.  Therefore, their motivation to learn academic subjects was very low.

    

     I remember teaching one year in Greene County (about half the faculty car-pooled from Athens to Greensboro).  I had several young girls in my classes (I think two in my ninth grade homeroom) who were pregnant during the school year.  There was no stigma whatsoever.  In fact, either in this school system or another system (I just can't remember now), there was an unofficial "Baby Day" where the students would bring their babies to school.  People would ooh and aah over the cute little ones (as we all should praise and stand in wonderment of God's little creatures).  But, the point that I am making is that this was the time that our school systems (including Greene County at the time) were trying to prevent teenage pregnancy by teaching the teenagers to put condoms on cucumbers (literal cucumbers).  Our educrats had concluded that teenage pregnancy was happening because of a lack of information, not a lack of motivation.  The educrats were treating teenage pregnancy as a technical breakdown, not a motivational breakdown.  These young girls actually wanted to get pregnant.  In fact, I'll never forget one of the older gentlemen who car-pooled with us announcing when he got in the car that afternoon:  "Well, Carrie told the class today that she was going out to the Hill this afternoon to get pregnant."  Carrie was a student in his Special Education class.  Motivation is the key, baby!  No pun intended! (c) MACE, August 27, 2010.

  

     Dennie (“Dink”) Trotter was born on April 21, 1925 in Madison, Georgia to Robert Alston (“Doc”) Trotter, Sr., and Nellie Jane Clemons Trotter (both interred in Columbus).  Dink is the youngest child in his family, and he is the grandson of Dr. Robert Walter Trotter and Elizabeth Howard Alston Trotter (both interred in Madison) and the great grandson of Col. Robert Augustus Alston, Esq., and Mary Charlotte MaGill Alston (both interred in Decatur).

     Dink joined the U. S. Navy during the height of World War II and saw horrific action as a teenager.  He married the love of his life, Jo Ann Frazier, toward the end of World War II when he returned Stateside on a mandatory leave because his ship was blown up by a Japanese Kamikaze plane.  After the war, Dink matriculated at Auburn University, graduating in 1948.  Patti had been born in 1947.   In 1948, the young Trotter family moved to Nashville where Dink entered Peabody College (now a part of Vanderbilt University).   Upon earning his Master’s degree at Peabody, Dink and family moved to Dasher, Georgia, a little community outside of Valdosta where he taught and coached at Dasher Bible School (now Georgia Christian School), making many long-life friends at Dasher.  In 1950, the young Trotter family returned to Dink’s hometown of Columbus, Georgia where Dr. William Henry Shaw, Superintendent of Muscogee County School District, immediately offered Dink a principal job.  Dink wisely turned it down to accept a teaching/coaching job at Columbus Jr. High School/Jordan Vocational High School.  Dan was born in 1950 and youngest child Johnny was born on New Year’s Eve, 1953.  (Dink named “Johnny” after his best friend, Johnny Rhodes, who was killed in January of 1945 while fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.)  Dink later became Assistant Principal at Jordan and Principal at Daniel Jr. High School.   He retired from the school system in 1981, after having been blessed with thousands of cherished friendships and associations of colleagues and former students throughout his career as an educator.  After retiring from the school system, Dink accepted a job as the Executive Director of the Columbus Area YMCAs.  (He had earlier turned down a highly publicized offer from Columbus Mayor Jack Mickle to be the Director of Public Safety for Columbus, Georgia.)        

     Not only is Dink a great “School Man,” he most essentially is a Christian, a  Man of Faith.  Many a person, especially in a time of need, has turned to Dink for help, and their needs are met and without fanfare.  He is the essence of the benevolent man.  He served his church for about 50 years as both a Deacon and an Elder.  If Dennie Trotter is your friend, you have a friend indeed!  Since the inception of MACE in 1995, Daniel D. Trotter, Sr., (aka “D. D. T.”) has been one of MACE’s most reliable supporters.  Through the years, he financially supported the young teacher’s union (now a veritable force to be reckoned with) in a quiet and steady manner, knowing that he too has always been a “teacher advocate.”  For over a dozen years, D. D. T.  served on the MACE Board of Directors, and the existence of MACE today is attributed greatly to the support and wisdom provided by Mr. Trotter and by the example that he set in empowering teachers through the years to do their jobs.  This MACE Conference Room will be known  henceforward as the “Daniel D. Trotter Conference Room.”

Click Here To See More Dedication Photos!

     

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

     Sonny Perdue and some of his henchmen have totally disrespected teachers with this Merit Pay Mirage.  Do they really think that this will improve education in Georgia? (I have written several articles on Merit Pay on www.theteachersadvocate.com.) What our schools in Georgia need is a better class of students.  Do you think that anyone at GAE or PAGE will say this?  Ha!  It is true, and in your hearts, you guys know that I am speaking the truth.  You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  This is our constant mantra at MACE, and no one can logically dispute this.  No one.  Another statement prominently displayed on MACE literature (and even on our envelopes) is this:  "MACE Devours Administrators Who Abuse Teachers."  Administrative abuse?  Of course.  Every day.  It is rampant.  In the Spring of 1996, the headline for the lead article in The Teacher's Advocate! magazine was "Teacher Abuse Is Epidemic!"  It's been epidemic for years, but everyone wants bury his or her head in the proverbial sand.  Darn it!  When are governors, legislators, school board members, and other policy-makers (including Arne Duncan in Washington, D. C.) going to take their heads out of the sand and listen?  They are operating like they still believe that the Earth is flat.  They need to sail West (discipline in the classrooms) to reach the East Indies (academic achievement).  They apparently think that they will fall off the Earth if they insist on classroom discipline.  But, there will never be any significant changes in academic achievement without first establishing classroom discipline, and teachers cannot establish good classroom discipline when a handful (or a whole classroom full) of miscreants and thugs substantially disrupt the classes, knowing that the weasel, booger-eating, and kiss-up administrators are either too afraid or too lazy to do anything to the thugs who are running some of our schools.  Abject administrative cowardice, laziness, apathy and/or callousness!

    Any legislator who goes along with Sonny's maniacal Merit Pay plan should be voted out of office!  Vote all of the   suckers out of office!  (c) MACE, April 28, 2010.

Again, Merit Pay Is Incurably Flawed!

Teachers Teach Students; They Don't Learn Them!

Merit Pay Again, Jackasses, and Same Histrionic Insults at Teachers (SH_T)!

Merit Pay In Public Education Does Not Work!

Merit Pay, Race, Culture, & Public Schooling!

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD, www.theteachersadvocate.com

     I wish that the Governor and the General Assembly would balance the budget by chopping away at the administrative bloat in public education in Georgia.  We could get rid of one-half of the useless administrators in the State, and the school systems would get along just fine because so many of these administrators are worthless and counter-productive.  They hinder learning, not facilitate it.  Hey, I like this slogan on a good picket sign:  "Teachers Teach.  Administrators Cheat."  Or, "Teachers Teacher.  Administrators Snoop."  Or, "Next Election: Teachers With Pitchforks!" Finally, "Let Teachers Evaluate Administrators."  Right now, bad and evil (yes, evil!) administrators can do a lot a damage in the educational process, including destroying and getting rid of good, dedicated, and effective teachers, but a good teacher has no recourse against an angry and abusive administrator.  The Georgia Code permits the teacher evaluation of administrators but school boards and superintendents don't want to know about the terrible administrators; they choose not to exercise this option.  This "option" ought to be mandated by the State.  You would see many administrators "get religion," and the teachers would at least appreciate this small effort to mollify their situation in these very tough economic times. 

     If I were running for Governor, I think that I would tap into this huge frustration and try to actually do some things for teachers that cost the State virtually no money...mandate that school systems allow the teachers to evaluate the administrators and that the compilation of the scores be presented to the school board.  Also, the State should just simply chop in half the administrative bloat so that teachers would not have to be furloughed.  We have way too many useless, ineffective, and abusive administrators in Georgia.  (c) MACE, February 17, 2010. 

  

 

Meet The People of MACE!

   You don't attract better candidates into the field of education by consistently treating them like dog crap.  Is this simple enough?  Also, your problem today in public education is not the teachers; it's the defiant, unmotivated, and disruptive students and their irate and irresponsible parents.  A loose net will always catch any weak teacher; a tight net will only suffocate the entire profession, driving off those who refuse to be treated like dog crap by the angry, incompetent, and abusive administrators.  We try to make it plain. © MACE, November 4, 2009.

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     If you are tired of the I gotcha approach to supervision; if you are tired of being snoopervised by petty and myopic administrators who seem to enjoy any contrived opportunity to "write you up"; if you are tired of having your teaching micro-managed and having your professional knowledge, wisdom, and judgment ignored; if you are tired of being treated like a "day laborer" and dealt with in a heavy-handed fashion; if you are tired of having little or no input into your teaching environment; if you are tired of having to put up with an inept top-down management style that's been proven to be ineffective in business, industry, and education; and, if you are just plain tired of all this mess, then join the Metro Association of Classroom Educators (MACE).

N. Haynes (L) and A. Ramay (R)

MACE's Legal Department Continues To Flourish!

Click Here To Read 11Alive.com Article And See Video!

Click Here To See Video...WSBTV.COM

Click Here To See DeKalb Grade Changing Scandal Video...WSBTV.COM

Click Here To See Video... FOX 5 NEWS!

Crawford Lewis: 

DeKalb County's

Superintendent Clown!

This Joke-of-a-Superintendent Must Go!

Click Here To For Full Article

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"Candy Ass" Picket Three Days In A Row!

Click Here To Read Article On 11Alive.com!

Superintendent "Candy Ass " Crawford Lewis Must Go!

By John R. Alston Trotter and Norreese Haynes

     Not all teachers are the same.  Granted.  Some are better than others.  Some are more skilled than others.  Some have better personalities than others.  Some have more life experiences and teaching experiences than others.  Some are more educated than others.  Some are more motivated than others.

     With all this granted, the number one influence in whether or not a student becomes well-educated is his or her set of parents (or, in many cases, single parent).  I hate to say this, but it sometimes boils down to "the Lucky Sperm Club," as one of my political friends so bluntly states it.

       1.  The teacher's authority is paramount in the classroom.  When the educrats undermine this authority, they only hurt the children, not help them.  As a previous poster noted, the great success of the Ron Clark experience is first establishing the unquestioned authority of the teacher.  The emphasis should be teacher-focused, not this cockamamie student-focused crap.  How can ignorant kids teach each other anything?  Yet, our teachers are written up today because their classrooms are not student-focused enough.  Oh, so we divide up into "centers" or groups and allow the children to teach each other Latin, heh?  Is this how they do it at Westminster, Marist, Lovett, Woodward?  No.

Trotter. Doesn't Suffer Administrative Fools.

Haynes. MACE's Executive Director.

Making'em an offer they can't refuse...

...and if they refuse the offer...

Stop The Standardized Testing Mania!

War Zone Schools!

DeKalb's Crawford Lewis, Dummy Explanation, and Gasolinegate!

Confront The Real Problems In Public Education!

MACE Told You So!

A Double Standard In Georgia! Administrators At Fault, Not Teachers

Motivation To Learn Is A Cultural Process Part I

Cookie-Cutter Approaches To Curriculum And Pedagogy Do Not Work!

Hey Governor, Balance The Budget By Slashing The Administration!

Georgia Needs More Vocational Education

View A Recent MACE Newsletter!

Jeff Cox...A Man Of Patience & Integrity.

MACE Is Not For Everyone!

Meeting with a few MACE members at Douglas County High School.

Keith Murwin was MACE's first member in Douglas County in 1996.