So, the question of the day is what can we do to improve the education that our High School students are receiving in Wilson County high schools?
Apparently the Board of Education, led by the pathetic Mike Davis, believe that all we have to do is build new high schools to replace old structures, and to give teachers more money to keep them from leaving for Davidson County.
That’s the gist of his continual whining to the Board and the the lap dog press here in Wilson County.
Give more money to teachers? Only if we can hold them accountable for their performance. You want more money? Fine, give up your tenure. Produce and get paid. Don’t produce and get fired. Giving bad/lazy/incompetent teachers more money will not make a bad teacher better. It will only make a bad teacher more lazy. All too often the worse teachers get put into SEEK and/or administration, where their lazyness has a wider negative impact.
One SEEK teacher a few years ago held up as a great achievement a young man who had written a song that was played at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Until the HOF told her the song was plagarized. What does the BOE do with that incompetent teacher? Promote her into management, and now she is a Principal.
Reward the teachers that produce outstanding results, be it on AP tests, ACT/SAT scores, developing young leaders through mentoring, etc. If we leave pay raises up to Principals, then the Principals are most likely to reward those in their clique, despite how well a teacher performs.
Building new schools? Well, we are getting a new Lebanon High School for the 2012-2013 school year. Will that make a big difference in the performance of the students? I think not. Bad leadership, bad teachers, unmotivated students, gangs, etc will just get a new building to play in.
What to do with the old LHS? I say we do what Sumner County did with the old GHS. Move the School Board into the building. If that happens, I GUARANTEE that Mike Davis will do a better job of maintaining the building since he has to work in it, than he did (did not) do when he was trying to let it rot to get his new Taj Mahal.
Next week: Grade Inflation, AP Courses, and how the Wilson County BOE is missing the point. The week after I think we will discuss how Mike Davis always threaten to cut teachers during budget impasses, but never BOE Home Office workers….
