Is anyone else seeing this? Paperwork; so excessive, so time-consuming....

[Smarmie Doofus]

... so lacking in substance, so redundant , so INANE, as to defy description. It's much worse than it was last year which was much worse than the year before. Our admins tell us to expect MORE.

I have two... not mutually exclusive... theories. 1. They're trying to get oldsters ( "los expensivos") to quit. 2. They're trying to consolidate control over everyone ... new and old... by ratcheting up the pressure, thus intimidating and demoralizing the staff.

After all... if you fail to produce some trivial, redundant piece of nonsense paperwork...or even fill some damn form out incorrectly, or PARTIALLY incorrectly.... they can theoretically write you up for it. Evidence of incompetence, or something of the sort.

Anyone else noticing this phenomenon? Please share. Maybe it's me.

P.S. Attention: school" reformers" and their apologists: Thinking caps , please.

Who else , besides teachers, suffer as a result of this particular manifestation of "accountability" ?

I'll give you a hint: they are in the classroom.

[rzemanfl]

1. I am in Florida, not a teacher, since Rick Scott took over I am

constantly being asked to generate numbers we've never tracked, report about things no one ever cared about before and read teabagger emails from our Governor that I would mark as spam if I were at home. It worked, I am retiring in December, three years earlier than I'd planned.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. The "numbers" obsession reminds me of Woody Allen's...

>>>>"to generate numbers we've never tracked, report about things no one ever cared about before and read teabagger emails>>>>>>

description of New York street thugs in the 1960's: "They tend to be mollified by flashy objects."

The general public seems to be getting dumbed-down to the point that they think statistics .....any variety of statistics: good, bad, valid, invalid, clean , corrupted.... is better than no statistics and that a mountain of nonsense statistics is preferable to a mole hill of serious statistics.

More is better than less.

[rzemanfl]

3. Administration seems to thing things will go better for us if

they have lots of number. I think it makes a much sense as wearing your best suit to Dachau....

[YvonneCa]

5. You reminded me of this...

...Dilbert cartoon:

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-03-20/

:7

[Bozita]

8. I've never seen a statue of Buddha jogging either.

Hilarious!

[YvonneCa]

9. Glad you enjoyed it! n/t

[JHB]

6. The last refuge of bad managment...

...endless reports of numbers, without understanding what they mean in real terms. Data as substiture for judgment ("we looked at The Numbers, and did what they told us.")

[femmocrat]

4. I have heard the regular classroom teachers complaining about it.

They are always tracking some kind of "data" or other.

I'm an itinerant so I am spared some of the torture.

[adnelson60087]

7. Gen ed is starting to get what Special Ed has been

facing for years. In IL, it's called RTI and it's a huge pain in the ass.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Well since I teach sped, I am used to the paperwork

I was at school for 11 hours today - 4 hours after the kids went home - working on paperwork.

But they are really laying it on the gen ed teachers. I feel for them.

As for forcing retirement, one of our big wigs visited a school today, called a staff meeting and told the teachers that if they were put on an improvement plan, they need to retire. Guess what? Every teacher at this school has been put on an improvement plan.