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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Classroom Teachers or Critical Thinking Consortium: You Decide!

On November 10, 2009, the Board of Education approved a contract for $200,000 for "technology consultant" to.....the "Critical Thinking Consortium." (See page 16.)

Why?

Earlier that same year, Jerry Weast wrote a memo to the Board of Education dated January 7, 2009, about Promethean boards. Weast stated:

In addition, Promethean is funding the professional development provided by the Critical Thinking Consortium. Ongoing professional development on use of the interactive classroom technologies is being completed through a job-embedded model. There are no current plans to increase the number of participants, and the program is not expected to incur additional expenses.


Which is it? Is Promethean funding the professional development, or are we paying $200K for it? And why doesn't this show up under "consultants" in the answers to the BOE questions?

And the fundamental question: would you rather have your child in larger classes, or pay $200,000 to a Canadian consulting company to teach "Promoting Critically Thoughtful Use of Promethean Activboards?"

Lyda Astrove

1 comment:

  1. Oh, the irony, Lyda! You're using critical thinking skills (brilliantly highlighting contradictory statements made by Jerry Weast on different occasions) to question the value of spending money on a... Critical Thinking Consortium! And I bet you did all your thinking without a Promethean board at home:-)

    Keep up the good work, Lyda!
    Patricia

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