I have a concern about 5B.

My wife is a teacher and I live with this everyday. It seems to me that all the "higher-ups" care about is testing. Yes, testing is a good way to determine the advancement of a student, but they are taking it to the extreme. My wife is consistantly coming home and telling me that she has something new mandated on her. They are taking teaching away from the teachers. She is buried in a mountain of paperwork.

What are your thought on NCLB?

I have many friends in many places who teach and none have had anything good to say about NCLB. Instead of posting things I have simply heard I would like to suggest you take this opportunity to let our local teachers know there is a local platform where they can express their detailed opinions.

My kids have not been in public schools for the past ten years. That does not mean I do not support strong public schools. I do and I know others who don't have kids in school that also support strong public schools. We outside the loop only know what the generals say and we would very much like to hear from the real warriors in this fight- the teachers.

Mello,

I agree with the sentiment. I got out of teaching because too many things were being mandated. Yes the school day ends at 2:45 for kids, but I got to the point where I brought so much home to do because of all the requirements I worked nearly 24/7. NCLB has done nothing but mandate teaching to a test. This is so innately wrong it is criminal. It short changes the children because they don't get to learn as much as they could if they were not mandated to pass these tests. Testing is great and it is a good way to gauge progress, but mandating scores does more harm than good.

The other thing I think Blount County in particular needs to address is their hiring procedures for their teachers. I taught the first 4 years I taught out of state and my teaching degree is from one of the most highly respected private liberal arts colleges in the South East. However, I didn't graduate from U.T. or Maryville College. I tried to get a teaching position in Blount County for three years and was bounced around all over the county doing "fill in" positions because had they hired me with the experience I had they would have had to pay me a larger salary than they would the fresh young things out of the two most prevalent colleges around here. I believe this attitude in their hiring practices also short changes the students in Blount County. Here I was with an excellent background, with experience and they chose to hire kids fresh out of college with no experience. As a parent, I would much rather my kid be in a classroom with an experienced teacher as with a "girl" who has no children, fresh out of college, and having to learn how to teach.

Mlaw