Teachers v. Administrators and Promethean Boards

Does a classroom teacher have the same impact on a student's learning as an administrator or a Promethean Board?


Superintendent Jerry Weast thinks that teachers have equal weight with administrators and tech gadgets and so hundreds of MCPS teachers are being cut from the FY11 budget while layers of administrative positions and trendy tech gadget budgets are preserved. Weast wants all parts of the school system to suffer cuts, classrooms are not spared. 


Here's an article about the power of a classroom teacher to change lives. 

The Washington Post: Talented and Gifted: In one year, she taught her students to see the wonders of their talents -- then and forever
By Steve Hendrix
Sunday, May 9, 2010

...My darlings, she told them, I'm not sure just what all we're going to do, but we are going to do a lot, and we are going to do it together.

"It was completely different from anything that had come before," Neill said. "Before, it was always five rows of desks, with the teacher at the front of the room talking. There would be lots of grand pauses while a student went to the board to work a problem or write a word. Dull, is how I would describe school up to that point."

...Suddenly, they found themselves in a room where reading wasn't mocked, where being creative, outlandish, even effete didn't risk a punch from a recess tough...

"The thing I remember most about that year was the pace," Neill said. "It was driven. She never had a down day. She never came in dull or slow. She was a charismatic leader, and we all responded."

"I picked him up one day, and he said, 'I'm going to be an electrical engineer,'" June Ewing said. "He came home happy almost every day from that class. He had so much fun learning, and that has stayed with him."