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Retiring Douglas County Teacher Praises the MACE Teachers’ Union

     “To my dearest MACE:  After 30 years in the classroom, I am retiring from teaching and beginning a new life.  I have taught over 6000 children in the Douglas County School System, many of whom have been the children of the children I taught. Knowing three generations within some families has created very powerful relationships and feelings of trust that few other jobs allow.  Several former students are now close friends who will last a lifetime. Parting will truly be difficult.... briefly.

     “I have been a MACE member since very near the beginning.  If Dr. Trotter was going to leave GAE to develop a better organization, I was going to follow. Over the many years since, I have been involved in only one grievance (as a witness) and was astounded at the brilliance of Dr. Trotter and his team to reduce opponents to whimpering, stuttering, dumbfounded fools.  ZAP! ZING! WHAMMO!  It would come hard, fast, and with unquestionable clarity.  I have never had to bring one of the MACE team into a meeting with an administrator or parent because the mere mention of that as my next step has solved problems.  I have played that card only three times over the years (seeking advice from MACE beforehand) because someone in authority wanted a grade changed to make an outrageously annoying parent go away.  Each time the 'veiled threat' from a weak principal instantly vaporized.

 Note from Dr. Trotter:  “Thanks you, Kathryn!  It is the unsolicited thank you notes and letters from members like you which make us feel so good about what we are doing for the dedicated teachers of Georgia.  Please enjoy your well-earned retirement!  You have the highest respect from your children and colleagues – and from the MACE Staff as well!  I remember when several of us guys on the MACE Staff first met with you and several other teachers in your classroom many years ago!  Please stay in touch with us!

Click Here To Read What Other Teachers Say About MACE!

   "On May 26, 2011, I retired from the Atlanta Public Schools. MACE was one of the most 'peace of mind' supports for me and well worth the price of admission. It is said that 'Gratitude is the best attitude and Silent Gratitude isn't much use to anyone.' I would like to say 'Thank You' to the three 'We Got Your Back' gentelmen:  Mr. Norreese Haynes, Mr. Jeff Cox, and Mr. Benjamin Barnes.  Always Grateful, Dr. Martha J. Reid." -- Dr. Martha J. Reid (Atlanta Teacher).

   "David Brown, one of MACE's Network Attorneys, did a tremendous job representing me in a hearing when I was falsely accused recently.  Mr. Brown represented me like he was representing someone in a murder case.  He was all over them, dotting all of the "I's" and crossing all of the "T's."  He turned their witnesses into my witnesses.  Attorney Brown is personable and thorough.  I appreciate what all MACE has done for me!" -- Earl White (DeKalb Teacher/Coach).

   

“Dear Dr. Trotter,

“I am short of words to thank Mr. Norreese Haynes and MACE for the overwhelming support that turned a weak case to success. Prior to visiting MACE, I consulted a few volunteer attorneys and they advised that my chance of winning the appeal was at most 25%. In fact, one advised that I really had no case unless I wanted to waste my time. At this time, I had lost hope of any positive outcome on this appeal, but I just wanted to fight anyway.

“I did not think that I needed to involve MACE because I considered that my issues with DOL was outside the classroom and consequently outside the scope of my relationship with MACE. However, as my last resort, I called and discussed my appeal with MACE and I was immediately invited to the office and was supported all through the preparation for the appeal. Contrary to my expectation, it was an unbelievable appeal victory. With the assistance of Mr. Haynes of MACE, I achieved victory and the DOL appeal decision was in my favor. Read More...

Click Here To Read What Other Teachers Say About MACE!

    "You didn’t come to MACE because we give you a tote bag or do spelling bees for the children or sell you auto insurance at an alleged discount.  We don’t give out tote bags.  We have never put on a spelling bee contest for kids.  We don’t sell auto insurance.  Heck, we don’t even endorse any political candidates.  You vote like you want to vote.  We don’t care.  We don’t even agree in the MACE Office about political candidates or parties!  But, we do agree about this:  Teachers should be respected, esteemed, and supported by the administrators to do their jobs in the classroom.  We know that you cannot have good learning conditions until your first have good teaching conditions.  This is an inexorable law.  It can no more be set aside or ignored than the Law of Gravity.

     “MACE simply exists to protect and empower classroom educators…one member at a time.  You came to MACE because you have heard of the reputation of MACE.  You have heard that ‘MACE doesn’t play.’  You have heard correctly.  You came to MACE because you know that better than any other organization in the State of Georgia, MACE is able to tighten up your angry and abusive administrator.  You know that there is not another union, organization, association (or whatever you want to call it) for teachers in Georgia which is as effective as MACE in legally scaring the heck out of administrators who are already terrorizing you.  This is why you came to MACE.” 

-- Dr. John R. Alston Trotter and Norreese L. Haynes

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         By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD 

        The Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is by no means the only school system in Georgia or in the nation to engage in widespread cheating, but the cheating in Atlanta was so pervasive and so endemic in the system itself that it turned the school system into a cruel hoax, a cruel caricature of education, a hackneyed institution bent on inflicting fear, intimidation, retaliation, and pain on anyone who deigned to summon a scintilla of integrity and mettle within his or her spirit to speak out — ever how muted the voice — against the heinous actions of those in positions of power and who feigned to be caring educators but who were really jackals of the night, only pushing their own fiendish agenda with no regard whatsoever for the innocent children or the still innocent teachers.   A prophetic voice was needed.  Speaking truth to power.  We at MACE always tried to be this prophetic voice.  We tried to do our part.  We were one voice, but some teachers and other employers became single and lonely voices, crying out for justice and mercy, and suffering for their cries for justice and mercy.  They just wanted others to know that injustice and cruelty reigned in the Atlanta Public Schools.  Their voices were heard ever so faintly…not because of their own failings but because the cold wax of fear, intimidation, retaliation, and pain cluttered up the anvils of others’ ear drums.

 

       A blistering July, 2008 picket in the middle of the day:  “Atlanta:  Still A Gangsta System!”

          Well, what can I say?  We at MACE said it all many times on the streets of Atlanta.  We held up signs through the years which declared that the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) was “a gangsta system.”  I remember when my colleague at MACE, Darryl Plenty, and  I were signed up to speak at an Atlanta School Board meeting three or four years ago concerning the happenings at Douglass High School, strangely enough Beverly Hall‘s seat was empty and was later filled by Sharon Pitts.  Mr. Khaatim El came up to me before the meeting started and greeted me, saying, “They told us in the back that you were out here.”  I didn’t actually organize the outpouring in the attendance; Michael Bond called me and invited me to participate, as he had organized a large protest concerning the closing of the magnet school at Douglass High School.  Nevertheless, I noticed that as soon as Mr. Plenty and I had finished our turns addressing the school board concerning this matter that Chief of Staff Sharon Pitts got out of Superintendent Hall‘s chair and went into the hallway and escorted Hall into the room and to her seat.  I thought to myself, “Hmm…we must make her nervous.”

 

          MACE picketing against Beverly Hall in the rain at Douglass High School.  This was not the only picket in the rain at Douglass High.  Hall removed the popular magnet program at Doug.

          There has been so much foolishness and pure evil taking place in the Atlanta Public Schools under the administration of Beverly Hall that it would take years and years to chronicle.  For those who would like a more detailed view of the fight that MACE has had with this soulless and Soviet-styled administration, go simply to www.theteachersadvocate.com.  Didn’t the Good Master ask, “What would a man profit if he gained the whole world but lost his own soul?”?  Or, what would a man or woman gain if he or she gained and maintained a $115,00.00 administrative job but lost his or her soul?  Understand me:  I am not assigning people to hell or to purgatory or to anywhere; I am just asking what good does it do for a person to have a nice job if he or she can’t look at himself or herself squarely in the mirror?  A person like the infamous Joe Stalin (whom Leon Trotsky described as a boring bureaucrat — and murderous too!) had consummate and ultimate power in the Soviet Union but had become soulless.  (As a young man, Stalin had actually studied for the priesthood in the Soviet Republic of Georgia.)

          Below are some thoughts and reactions to comments and questions on the AJC‘s Get Schooled blog.  Maureen Downey is the Blogmeister, and we have a link to this important blog from our Home Page.  I encourage you to visit it often.  The comments below are in ascending order, starting with the earliest ones and ended with the latest ones, within a span of about 28 to 30 hours.

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Click Here to Read Full Article on APS Cheating and More!

Edmond Heatley, Beverly Hall, Crawford Lewis, Michael Hinojosa, Alvin Wilbanks, Will Schofield, et al., & The Case For Elected Superintendents! 

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

          I am still surprised that DeKalb and Atlanta and Clayton did not and do not break down the doors to beseech Dr. Sam King to come and help.  He may well have put out the word that he was not interested.   I don't know.  It appeared that Cobb County was locked in on him recently, but contract negotiations apparently fell through.  Dr. King seems an exception to the rule that appointed superintendents of large school systems have to be arrogant, insensitive, and rather brutish in their dealings with subordinates.  I realize that Rockdale County is not the same size as DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, Fulton, Clayton, or Atlanta City -- or Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, and Chicago for that matter -- but Rockdale is not small either.  It is a highly congested county in the Metro Atlanta area with Interstate 20 dissecting the county.  It is growing, but it will not be able to grow too much more because it is geographically one of the smallest counties in Georgia.  This year Dr. King's superintendent-colleagues named him the Georgia Superintendent of the Year.  His career has essentially been unblemished, and those who have worked for Dr. King in Rockdale and Clayton Counties have high praise for him. Someone might wonder why I have Alvin Wilbanks in my heading above?  Why not?  His hubris is the main factor.  His arrogant manner of dealing with State mandates is, quite frankly, amazing...whether it is the mandate about reporting serious disciplinary infractions (I suppose that he "forgot" to report the 45,000 incidents for one year a few years back) or the Georgia Statute governing grievances filed by certificated employees.  Also, do you reckon Alvin Wilbanks can get a hold on the millions of dollars that the Gwinnett County School Board appears to be paying for property to build schools?  Mr. Wilbanks and the school board should be custodians of the Gwinnett County taxpayers' money.

          So many of the large school system superintendents are cut from the same cloth.  I have written about these gypsy superintendents on a number of occasions in the MACE website at www.theteachersadvocate.com. They are ego- and money-driven...and are willing uproot themselves from family, friends, community, and church or synagogue to traverse the country to secure more money and power.  They usually bring with them (or hire almost immediately) members of their Cult Family.  And, usually, they usher in a Horror Show.  Working in a school system run by these people with insufficient egos (which have to be constantly massaged) is a harrowing experience, one that cannot be explained unless you have actually experienced it yourself.  Can we say, "Dante's Inferno"?  Ha!  This type of action from appointed superintendents are not confined just to large school systems.  It can happen -- and does happen often but not as much -- in small school systems.  For example, even recently, I hear rumbling all the way up near Lake Hartwell.  There appears to be rumblings in the Hart County School System under newly appointed superintendent Jerry Bell.  He was appointed superintendent on a 3-1-1 vote, with Chairperson Brenda Jordan voting against Bell being appointed superintendent.

           Truly, the office of superintendent of schools should be elected by the people.  If "appointed" superintendents are so good, then while not "appoint" the U. S. Senators like we did up into the Twentieth Century?  Taking politics out of schools?  Ha!  I'd rather have superintendents who have to put their work before the people.  Do you think Beverly Hall or Crawford Lewis or Edmond Heatley could have gotten or could get 20% of the voters to approve of them?  I doubt it.  I prefer true and open politics in the school systems over closed dictatorial systems.  From what I have observed for decades, I conclude that the appointed superintendency is a flawed model.  Heck, don't we still elect the State Superintendent here in Georgia?  I don't see a lot of people complaining about Dr. John Barge.  Don't we elect all Governors and all Presidents?  If it is good for these offices, then why not for those people who have inordinate power over the lives of up to 10,000 to 12,000 employees and budgets in the billions of dollars?  It makes no sense to appointed these leaders.  Like Mayors and other representatives of the people, the school superintendents ought to be elected again. 

           The elected school board and elected superintendent puts politics above board.  This is quite refreshing.  There's nothing wrong with politics, as long as it is up front.  A wrong-headed, stubborn, and arrogant superintendent who treats employees and parents brusquely would not survive an election.  Thus, the electoral process rids the county or city of a bad superintendent.  If a superintendent only promotes kiss-ups and sycophants or sorority sisters and fraternity brothers, then superintendent would not survive the next election.  Furthermore, if the superintendent completely ignored disciplinary problems, swept them under the rug, and punished each employee who openly talked about the lack of discipline in the schools, then this superintendent would be kicked to the curb during the next election. (c)MACE, June 26, 2011.

Heatley Needs To Address Human Resources Under Doug Hendrix

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD     

   For years, Ed Edmonds was the feisty superintendent of Clayton County.  He was short and bounced around like a bantam rooster.  No one ever doubted who was in control...when Ed Edmonds was at the helm.  Ironically, I believe that I recall that Mr. Edmonds originally hailed from the state of Kansas.  Back when Mr. Edmonds first took the helm of the schools, there was Jonesboro High and then Forest Park, the two huge rivals.  The location of the old Flat Rock High School (which is now covered by one of the new runways at Harstfield-Jackson International Airport at I-285 in northwest Clayton County) eventually became North Clayton High School.  Depending on his popularity at the time, I understand that the Clayton County legislative delegation would have the superintendency in Clayton County bouncing back and forth from appointed by the school board to elected by the people.  One old-timer told me that Mr. Edmonds might show up at a school faculty meeting and chew out everyone with spicy language, but after the meeting he would laugh and guffaw and hug the teachers.  He was one of a kind.  One of my best friends grew up in a house next door to the Edmonds's house on East Fayetteville Road in Jonesboro (up the street from the back entrance to what is now the Eula Ponds Perry Center).    

     When Mr. Edmonds retired, Mr. Stroud ran for superintendent and was elected superintendent in Clayton County in 1970, 1974, 1978, and 1982.  Mr. Stroud ruled Clayton County with an iron grip.  Like Mr. Edmonds (his mentor), you never doubted who was in control.  But, there was never the nasty animus toward him...like the kind that we hear about directed toward Heatley.  Now Stroud had his detractors, but his principals generally adored him.  But, they too were "his" people.  Very few, if any, women in the early years.  Only M. D. Robert, principal of the old Fountain High School, if I recall correctly, remained as an African American principal during the early days of integration.  (There had been another African American principal when M. D. Roberts was principal at Fountain High before desegregation.  I believe her name was Mrs. Velma Smith -- again, if I recall correctly.  After desegregation, the Jonesboro Colored Elementary School -- yes, the actual name -- was closed.  Now, it is the "White Annex" on Lee Street.)  But, Clayton's African American population was 3.5% during the 1970 Census.  Eddie White was Assistant Principal at Babb Jr. High in the old days.  He was the lone African American administrator when I arrived in Clayton County in 1982.  (After Dr. Bob Livingston was elected to superintendent, he promoted Mr. White to Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources in 1991.)  Mr. Henry Garner, an African  American who had administrative credentials, was never given an administrative position during the Stroud Era.  It wasn't until Dr. Joe Lovin was elected in 1986 that Mr. Garner was given an administrative job within the system.     

     I could go on and tell you all of the details about how Dr. Joe Hairston became the first appointed superintendent of Clayton County under the provisions of the new Georgia Constitutional Amendment.  I could tell you the gory details of how we got rid of him.  He,  like virtually all "national" superintendents, was arrogant and very unpopular in Clayton County.  Then a came Dan Colwell.  Dan was a popular local choice, and Mike Barnes, Mark Armstrong, and I cut the deal at Riverdale Radiator that got rid of Hairston and put Colwell in his place.  (Some folks whom I had recruited and had helped get elected at that point were totally dissatisfied with Hairston and wanted him gone, even though qualifying for elections was only four months off.  Hairston left in January of 2000, and Colwell was appointed that same night as Interim Superintendent.  The same ones on the school board who made it possible for Colwell to be superintendent became disenchanted with him when he treated them  brusquely in public.  I witnessed Colwell's inexplicable treatment of these school board members.  After the 2002 election, three new board members arrived (two incumbents had been defeated).  In January of 2003, Nedra Ware and Gang cut Colwell with the dull edge in public, which proved to be a big mistake.  Ware handled this situation very poorly, and the whole episode became a cauldron in the media.  Naturally, I was blamed for everything.  Ha!  Against my advice, Nedra Ware and Gang hired  Dr. William Chavis as the Interim Superintendent.         

     Back to Pulliam...I knew what I knew about John Thompson and Edmond Heatley (just doing a modicum of research) that she was going to be disastrous.  Just like when we warned the school board not to hire Heatley, we did the same thing when the school board was contemplating hiring Pulliam.  We picketed inside the school board meeting.  But, the school board had made up its mind.  She cam.  She too was enormously unpopular.  Even Ericka Davis was totally throught with Barbara Pulliam by early 2007.   I even  posed a question on the Clayton News/Daily blog (back then you could start your own topics).  I posed the following:  Is Pulliam's Time Up?  This topic got more comments than any topic ever put on this blog.  Over 2,600 comments.  No telling how many views it had.  Well, the newspaper finally shut down the blog.  (Some folks claim that it was my actions that got the blog shut down.  Ha!)    

     Now Heatley is calling upon the Clayton community to support the schools.  He held a news conference a couple of days ago, and  in this conference, he even referenced rumors about his resigning from the superintendency.  The "comments" after the article in the Clayton News/Daily about his news conference were overwhelmingly negative comments about Heatley.  Such a news conference will not solve Heatley's problems or change the feelings on the ground in Clayton County.     

     I suggest that if Heatley wants to turn around his vast unpopularity in Clayton County, he needs to start in Human Resources.  He needs to process employee grievances according to Georgia law.  He needs to quit inordinately installing folks from California and Kappa Alpha Psi into the administrative positions.  Teachers are howling for change.  I have personally talked to enough of them to know that it's reaching a boiling point.  I have personally known and interacted with a bunch of superintendents in Clayton County (Stroud, Lovin, Livingston, Colwell, Chavis, Pulliam, Duncan, and Lee).  I only met Hairston (I never even wanted sit down with him), and I encountered Heatley just once when I confronted him at a school board meeting about violating the State's grievance law.  I never even met John Thompson.  He was here and gone in a lickety split.  I have seen them come and go.  Unless Heatley drastically changes his ways, he is on his way out.  He may not know it yet, but his professional tenure in Clayton County will come to a screeching halt.  I have always said that Clayton County is "graveyard for superintendents." When have you ever known one to willingly and graciously leave on his or her own?  I haven't known one.  Stroud didn't run in 1986 but most everyone knew that his days were numbered, although he was considered by many in Georgia to be the State's strongest superintendent.  One fellow who ended up in the Deputy Superintendent's seat in Clayton County, reminisced:  "Trotter, we all thought you were crazy in the old days when you took on Mr. Stroud!"  I am still "crazy."  In addition to Mr. Stroud, I have personally  watched nine more  Clayton County superintendents come and go.  I am still "crazy," and I'm still around.     

Click Here For More About Heatley.

     Many times you see me rail against what has happened to the teaching profession.  Sometimes I may seem like a broken record (ala "You can't have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions").  I am passionate about what has happened to the teaching profession...educrats treating teachers like they are hired hands and expecting them to mindlessly teach a prescriptive curriculum like they are robots.  It is a tragedy.  When I taught in the old days, we could be zany and creative in the classroom.  We could have our own style, a style that the students knew and to which they adjusted...and usually with a degree of delight.  That's the great part of growing up...learning to adjust to different people (teachers, in this case) with different styles.

      I have often told my colleagues and teachers that I would be fired every day  under the current culture of teachers being placed in straightjackets.  I even bowed up to the odious structure that was in place in the old days (especially those horrid TPAIs and the accompanying written lesson plans and behavioral objectives in the old DeKalb County -- when DeKalb was King of the Rock and thought that their mess didn't stink).  I turned down my second contract (didn't even sign it -- which was stupid of me) and left.  Moved back to Athens and the next year car-pooled each day to Greene County High School.  I had a great principal, Dr. Donald Garrett.  He was so supportive of me and just let me do my thing.  When MACE picketed the superintendent in Greene County on three occasions about three years ago (yes, this superintendent moved on not too long after these downtown pickets which were joined in by local towns people!), I had one of my former students, Vincent, to happily meet me on the picket line.  We laughed, talked about where my old students were today, and just reminisced.  I had a blast teaching at Greene County High School, but I was offered a good assistantship in the Department of Administration at the University of Georgia for the next year, and Dr. Garrett (who was finishing up his doctorate there at the time) encouraged me to take it.  He said, "You can always come back here anytime you want."  But, after my assistantship, I took a job as Assistant Principal at Washington County High School down the road...at 27 years of age.     

   This morning I looked at my Blackberry to see my emails and my Facebook comments.  I saw the nicest comment from one of my former Jonesboro Jr. High School students.  It was from Eric Jensen, a First Team All State football player from Jonesboro High School and a student and player whom I taught and coached at Jonesboro Jr. High School in the early 1980s.  Forgive me for my vanity but he wrote the following:  "Well I hope my boys have a teacher as dedicated and passionate about education.  A legend is a person whose fame or notoriety makes him a source of romanticized tales and exploits.  That's you coach."  This is why teachers teach.  We teachers (and I am still a teacher at heart) teach to have an influence (not to artificially raise the standardized test scores to fatten up the superintendent's wallet or pocketbook).  We love interacting with the children and watching them grow -- even to adulthood.  I get a kick out of watching Norreese Haynes run the day-to-day operations at MACE...especially since he was the classroom "bishop" in my 7th Grade History class.        

By Dr. John Trotter and Norreese Haynes

          Discipline is the 800 pound gorilla in the parlor that is knocking over all of the marbled-top furniture and is stinking up the mansion big time, but no one is willing to broach the fact that the gorilla is in the parlor.  I mean to say that it is downright nasty in the parlor.  The gorilla is taking huge dumps, and no one will deign to even mention that the darn gorilla is stinking up the entire mansion.  Look at the gorilla!  He stinks to high heaven!  He's noisy.  He's completely unruly, and the house servants are blithely walking around as if nothing is wrong.  The house servants are concerned about buying name brand vacuum cleaners and the best Persian rugs but are totally ignoring the darn gorilla which is wreaking havoc in the parlor.  Now the gorilla is beginning to roam all over the mansion, even sleeping in the guest bedroom!  When is someone in the mansion going to acknowledge that there is an unruly and destructive gorilla in the mansion?

"If you focus on discipline, you will see some academic improvement, but if you focus on academic achievement with no regard for discipline, you will end up with the mess that our public schools are in today." -- Norreese L. Haynes, MACE Vice Chairman & COO.

Norreese Haynes

Jeff Cox

Corruption Of Atlanta Schools

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

     If students perceive that they come from a non-reading culture, then these students will not value reading.  If there are not books in the house (just National Enquirer!) and the students do not see their parents reading, then the students will not value reading.  It is very simple.  The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon.  I always want to credit one of my old UGA professors, Dr. Eugene Boyce, with this concept.  Dr. Boyce studied on location how education worked in Nigeria, Kenya, China, and the Soviet Union, besides running the lab school at Florida State University.  I always thought that he was brilliant and never got the credit due to him.  If I "borrow" an idea, I always like to give credit to the source.  From his observations through the years in several parts of the world, he concluded that motivation was the key to learning that this motivation was culturally conditioned. 

     The motivation to learn is a social process or a cultural phenomenon.  And the legislature wants to give these non-reading, irresponsible, and, in  many cases, irate parents the control over the professional educators?  Good grief.  When desperation sets in, there's no telling what they will do.  It would be nice if they starting off by mentioning the unmentionable...a lack of discipline in the schools.   Discipline (or the lack thereof) is the 800 pound gorilla in the dainty parlor that no one (and I mean NO ONE) is willing to talk about.  All of the moving of furniture in the parlor will not remove the fact that an 800 pound gorilla is still moving around in the parlor, knocking over marble-top tables and French chairs.  This is how ridiculous Fran Millar and the other Georgia legislators look; they are re-arranging the French chairs in the parlor and ignoring the 800 pound, smelling, and growling gorilla in the parlor.  Ha! © MACE, February 11, 2011

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

     You know what makes good schools?  Good students.  When the students lack any (yes, in some cases, "any") motivation to learn and many (yes, in many cases, "many") just want to substantively and materially disrupt the learning processes of those students who actually want to learn, then neither Arne Duncan,  nor New City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Georgia State Representative Lindsey, nor Atlanta Journal-Constitution educational pundit Maureen Downey or even Bill Gates can make them learn -- or should be held accountable for their non-learning.  These students should be removed from the regular classroom environment and sent to "The Non-learning Center."  (Note that I copyrighted this phrase a while back!   When the educational pundits start "stealing" this phrase like they "stole" my "snoopervision" and "educrat" words, just think about me.  Ha!).

    

     You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  This insulting, inane, ineffective, and stupid "value-added" evaluation of teachers only adds to worsening teaching conditions.  Like merit pay, it will be flawed beyond measure.  Among many downside happenings will be the lack of collegiality among teachers and teachers refusing to share ideas and materials.  The general public cannot begin to comprehend how this evaluation process will be heinously abused by angry and abusive and sex-driven and power-hungry administrators.   (For the record, there will be more people sleeping their way up the educational corporate ladder.)   These booger-eating, weasel administrators will use this process in a manipulative, retributive, and punitive manner.  This "value-added" evaluation of teachers will do NOTHING to improve public education.  Nothing.  Like the No Child Left Behind Act, it will hasten the demise of public education, not the improvement of public education.  It will be the poster child of The Law of Unintended Consequences.  (c) MACE, December 29. 2010.

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By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

    

      The biggest problem in public (note that I said "public") education today is the abject lack of motivation to learn on the part of a very large portion of our students.  It's not a problem with teachers, although some teachers are naturally more effective than other teachers...just like some physicians, lawyers, and engineers are more effective than others.

     The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon, and until the educrats and policy-makers understand this and put this in any equation, their new-fangled educational fads may indeed make money for some publishing companies and other educational-curricula companies but they will not have any positive impact on learning.

     Neither Arne Duncan, Mahatma Gandhi, Eugene V. Debs, Eleanor Roosevelt, Julian Bond, Ronald Reagan, Roy Barnes, Nathan Deal, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Steve Harvey, Steve Jobs, Ted Kennedy, Georgia O'Keefe, George W. Bush, William Faulkner, John Grisham, Bill Gates, Martin Luther, Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, Hillary Clinton, nor Huey Pierce Long could make these unmotivated students learn unless these students first decide to learn.  Julian, Eleanor, and Soren could jump all around the room tooting whistles (of course, the stilted scripted curriculum would not allow them this kind of creativity!) and blowing bagpipes, but if these unmotivated students still refuse to learn, they are not going to learn, despite what any adult does.  This is what needs to be in any equation...the students' REFUSAL TO LEARN. 

     If a public defender's client is found guilty by the jury (and the evidence is overwhelming that the client is indeed guilty), we are not going to tie the public defender's salary to "his" guilt rate, are we?  What about a physician who is assigned Medicaid patients who have very unhealthy lifestyles?  Are we going to tie his or her pay to the incidence of the patients' high blood pressure?  The lawyer can defend a client but he or she cannot acquit the client.  The physician can treat a patient but he or she cannot heal the patient.  The teacher can teach a student but he or she cannot "learn" the student.

     It is easier to just blame the teachers for the shortcomings of the students and their parents.  To heck with it!  Let's just blame the teachers, so think these educrats and politicians.  (c) MACE, November 1, 2010.

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD and Norreese L. Haynes, BSBM 

Reform # 1:  Restore classroom discipline.  Make sure that teachers are supported when it comes to classroom discipline.   Order is the first law of the Universe. 

Reform # 2:  Realize that you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  All of the top-down, heavy-handed snoopervision is counter-productive to establishing good teaching conditions.  

Reform # 3:  Put the onus for learning on the students and their parents.  This is the modus operandus of the private schools, and it works.  Pampering and coddling the students do not work. 

Reform # 4:  Realize that the motivation to learn is a social/cultural phenomenon.  Teachers teach the students, not learn the students.  If a student refuses to learn, then Arne Duncan himself cannot make this student learn and therefore should not be held accountable for the student's refusal to learn.  (c) MACE, September 9, 2010.

Click Here To See MACE's Spring Picket Parade!

 

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

      In Georgia, this snoopervision thing has been strangling public education for the last 25 years.  It began to rear its head in the late 1970s here in Georgia with the now-infamous Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument (TPAI) which the courts in Georgia kicked out because of its inequitable results, abuse, etc.  At the time, the new teachers were sentenced to suffer through this TPAI hell.  I remember one gentleman who is now teaching (perhaps close to retirement now) in Glynn County who kept failing the "observation" of TPAI at a school in Morrow, Georgia back in the early 1980s.  He had a wonderful principal, but a horrible, myopic assistant principal lady who apparently had it in for Jim.  She was either totally incompetent herself or simply was going to refuse to allow Jim to pass his "evaluation."  She kept getting him on "enthusiasm."  Jim told me that he was so "enthusiastic" that he was almost jumping over chairs!  This "evaluator" succeeded in ruining this man's career.  He ended up working at a restaurant in St. Simons Island.  True story.

     When the courts finally kicked out this hellish TPAI, Jim was allowed to teach again, which he did at Glynn Middle School (and I think that he is still there to this day and getting along swimmingly).  I knew Jim and his mother who had retired from the Clayton County School System back in the 1970s.  Good folks.  Jim is a good educator, but he is only one example of many teachers whose lives were destroyed by petty, myopic, and mean-spirited (and often totally incompetent) administrators.

     Now we have Race To The Top (RTTI).  It's just more educational gobbledeegook.   Pure gobbledeegook.  It won't do anything but ruin public education even more.  I have seen it all...APEG, Minimum Foundation, QBE, NCLB, TCT, TPAI, CRCT (Creating Results Cheating on Tests?), PRAXIS, GTOI, GTDRI, ad infinitum.  All of these programs are lame attempts to improve public education.  They are complete failures.  They are really Simply Hatin' & Insultin' Teachers (SHIT).  You know what really works?  Just letting teachers teach!  Supporting, esteeming, respecting the professional knowledge, judgment, and wisdom of the teachers is what works.  Making sure the students know that if they try to cause disruption in any classroom that the teachers have full backing from the administration in dealing with these disruptive students, including removing them from the regular classrooms.  How refreshing it would be to see some of these educational numbskulls actually learn and implement what school administrators forty years ago instinctively knew worked.  Again, you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  (c) MACE, August 30, 2010.

Click Here To View Dr. Trotter's Channel 11 Interview!

 

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

    

     CRCT, TPAI, NCLB, QBE, GTOI, GTDRI, APEG, Minimum Foundation, A+ Program, RTTT, and on and on.  None have or will significantly improve education here in Georgia.  What we need is Discipline In The Classrooms (DITC), Motivation From The Students (MFTS), and Decent Parents At Home (DPAH).  But, how do you fund these essential components?  Harping on these essential components will not secure politicians any votes, so they think.  But, I think that they will secure votes!  Nonetheless, President Obama and Arne Duncan, like most politicians (George W. Bush and the late Ted Kennedy included), continue to adhere to Blame The Teachers First (BTTF).  Added to this is the destructive program called Let Administrators Run Roughshod Over Teachers (LARROT).   Educational Rot.  This educational stench is so strong to every fair-minded and intelligent nostril.  But, the masses will continue to eat the slop until someone points out that this slop is really for educational swine.  RTTT?  Race To The Top?  No, Race To The Trough.  Teachers "teach" the students, not "learn" the students.  Physicians "treat" the patients, not "heal" the patients.  Lawyers "defend" the accused, not "acquit" the accused.  Until our politicians and policymakers start holding the students and their parents responsible for the learning facet of the educational equation, then improving education is like spitting into a tsunami.  Other countries and cultures understand this simple concept, but in our "wisdom," we have become educational "fools."  (c) MACE, August 27, 2010.

    

     A student will not learn unless that student is MOTIVATED TO LEARN.  The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon or social process.  Peer pressure, family history and appreciation for academia, family income, culture, etc., are many of the factors which bear upon a student's MOTIVATION TO LEARN.  What is wrong with so many of our schools today is that students simply do not bring the proper motivation to the table of learning.  It is not that the student is incapable of learning; the problem is that the student does not want to learn.  I have always said that 90% of our students could master (not just have a grade given to them, as is often the case today) 90% of what we dish out to them in way of academics if they truly were motivated to do so.  After my youngest son attended a Lead America program at Georgetown University this Summer and studied about the Central Intelligence Agency (and perhaps the F. B. I. too) and met a friend from Missouri who makes straight As, he announced to his mother and to me that he intended to make all As this school year.  I hope that he does.  He is capable.  And, what if he falls a bit short of his goals?  What if he makes a few Bs?  At least he has cranked up his motivation-to-learn level.  (By the way, his high school has the third or fourth highest test scores of Georgia's public schools.  It's probably tougher than many private schools.)  The key to learning is the motivation to learn.

    

     This is nothing that I just stumbled upon.  I begin to observe this phenomenon in the 1970s when I was student teaching.  In fact, my thesis for my Master of Arts degree at UGA was conducted on peer pressure perceptions (which is a major determinant to a student's  motivation to learn) and later published the results of my study in a major referee journal.   As I began to work on my doctorate and was a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Educational Administration and Bureau of Field Studies at the University of Georgia in 1980-1981 (graduated in 1984 after working two years on a huge dissertation), I begin to learn from the keen observations of a professor named Dr. Eugene Boyce.  I had an office in the department, and I really appreciated Dr. Boyce's acumen.  He was a little eccentric, but highly intelligent folk often are.  Dr. Boyce served on my dissertation committee.  He had served as an educational expert in West Africa, East Africa, the old U. S. S. R., and in the People's Republic of China.  He would ask, "Do you know how they teach students English in the Soviet Union?"  He would hold up a glass and say, "This is a glass," and the response from the students in the Soviet Union would be, "This is a glass."  They did not get into any of the supercilious methods of teaching that are espoused today by our so-called Staff Development experts (my father always called these people "the Insultants").  They did not have to.  The students were already motivated to learn.  Perhaps this is why nearly every student who graduates from the high school level in Europe or China knows how to speak English.  Is it because these European or Chinese students are smarter than my children or your children in the United States?  No, it is because a student from China brings a higher level of motivation to learn to the equation.

    

     Dr. Boyce noticed that in Africa the students who attended those schools which were preparing the students to work in the diplomatic field (whether as interpreters or whatever) had much higher motivational levels to learn than students who attended what Dr. Boyce called the "Village-Tribal Schools."  The latter students did not appreciate the world of academia and did not see how this "book-learning" would be relevant to their lives as physical laborers.  These students had no hope for rising above physical laborers.  They had no hope for a working life different from hard, physical labor.  Therefore, their motivation to learn academic subjects was very low.

    

     I remember teaching one year in Greene County (about half the faculty car-pooled from Athens to Greensboro).  I had several young girls in my classes (I think two in my ninth grade homeroom) who were pregnant during the school year.  There was no stigma whatsoever.  In fact, either in this school system or another system (I just can't remember now), there was an unofficial "Baby Day" where the students would bring their babies to school.  People would ooh and aah over the cute little ones (as we all should praise and stand in wonderment of God's little creatures).  But, the point that I am making is that this was the time that our school systems (including Greene County at the time) were trying to prevent teenage pregnancy by teaching the teenagers to put condoms on cucumbers (literal cucumbers).  Our educrats had concluded that teenage pregnancy was happening because of a lack of information, not a lack of motivation.  The educrats were treating teenage pregnancy as a technical breakdown, not a motivational breakdown.  These young girls actually wanted to get pregnant.  In fact, I'll never forget one of the older gentlemen who car-pooled with us announcing when he got in the car that afternoon:  "Well, Carrie told the class today that she was going out to the Hill this afternoon to get pregnant."  Carrie was a student in his Special Education class.  Motivation is the key, baby!  No pun intended! (c) MACE, August 27, 2010.

By John R. Alston Trotter and Norreese Haynes

     Not all teachers are the same.  Granted.  Some are better than others.  Some are more skilled than others.  Some have better personalities than others.  Some have more life experiences and teaching experiences than others.  Some are more educated than others.  Some are more motivated than others.

     With all this granted, the number one influence in whether or not a student becomes well-educated is his or her set of parents (or, in many cases, single parent).  I hate to say this, but it sometimes boils down to "the Lucky Sperm Club," as one of my political friends so bluntly states it.

          1.  The teacher's authority is paramount in the classroom.  When the educrats undermine this authority, they only hurt the children, not help them.  As a previous poster noted, the great success of the Ron Clark experience is first establishing the unquestioned authority of the teacher.  The emphasis should be teacher-focused, not this cockamamie student-focused crap.  How can ignorant kids teach each other anything?  Yet, our teachers are written up today because their classrooms are not student-focused enough.  Oh, so we divide up into "centers" or groups and allow the children to teach each other Latin, heh?  Is this how they do it at Westminster, Marist, Lovett, Woodward?  No.

  

    Dennie (“Dink”) Trotter was born on April 21, 1925 in Madison, Georgia to Robert Alston (“Doc”) Trotter, Sr., and Nellie Jane Clemons Trotter (both interred in Columbus).  Dink is the youngest child in his family, and he is the grandson of Dr. Robert Walter Trotter and Elizabeth Howard Alston Trotter (both interred in Madison) and the great grandson of Col. Robert Augustus Alston, Esq., and Mary Charlotte MaGill Alston (both interred in Decatur).

     Dink joined the U. S. Navy during the height of World War II and saw horrific action as a teenager.  He married the love of his life, Jo Ann Frazier, toward the end of World War II when he returned Stateside on a mandatory leave because his ship was blown up by a Japanese Kamikaze plane.  After the war, Dink matriculated at Auburn University, graduating in 1948.  Patti had been born in 1947.   In 1948, the young Trotter family moved to Nashville where Dink entered Peabody College (now a part of Vanderbilt University).   Upon earning his Master’s degree at Peabody, Dink and family moved to Dasher, Georgia, a little community outside of Valdosta where he taught and coached at Dasher Bible School (now Georgia Christian School), making many long-life friends at Dasher.  In 1950, the young Trotter family returned to Dink’s hometown of Columbus, Georgia where Dr. William Henry Shaw, Superintendent of Muscogee County School District, immediately offered Dink a principal job.  Dink wisely turned it down to accept a teaching/coaching job at Columbus Jr. High School/Jordan Vocational High School.  Dan was born in 1950 and youngest child Johnny was born on New Year’s Eve, 1953.  (Dink named “Johnny” after his best friend, Johnny Rhodes, who was killed in January of 1945 while fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.)  Dink later became Assistant Principal at Jordan and Principal at Daniel Jr. High School.   He retired from the school system in 1981, after having been blessed with thousands of cherished friendships and associations of colleagues and former students throughout his career as an educator.  After retiring from the school system, Dink accepted a job as the Executive Director of the Columbus Area YMCAs.  (He had earlier turned down a highly publicized offer from Columbus Mayor Jack Mickle to be the Director of Public Safety for Columbus, Georgia.)        

   Not only is Dink a great “School Man,” he most essentially is a Christian, a  Man of Faith.  Many a person, especially in a time of need, has turned to Dink for help, and their needs are met and without fanfare.  He is the essence of the benevolent man.  He served his church for about 50 years as both a Deacon and an Elder.  If Dennie Trotter is your friend, you have a friend indeed!  Since the inception of MACE in 1995, Daniel D. Trotter, Sr., (aka “D. D. T.”) has been one of MACE’s most reliable supporters.  Through the years, he financially supported the young teacher’s union (now a veritable force to be reckoned with) in a quiet and steady manner, knowing that he too has always been a “teacher advocate.”  For over a dozen years, D. D. T.  served on the MACE Board of Directors, and the existence of MACE today is attributed greatly to the support and wisdom provided by Mr. Trotter and by the example that he set in empowering teachers through the years to do their jobs.  This MACE Conference Room will be known  henceforward as the “Daniel D. Trotter Conference Room.”

Click Here To See More Dedication Photos!

     

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD

    Sonny Perdue and some of his henchmen have totally disrespected teachers with this Merit Pay Mirage.  Do they really think that this will improve education in Georgia? (I have written several articles on Merit Pay on www.theteachersadvocate.com.) What our schools in Georgia need is a better class of students.  Do you think that anyone at GAE or PAGE will say this?  Ha!  It is true, and in your hearts, you guys know that I am speaking the truth.  You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  This is our constant mantra at MACE, and no one can logically dispute this.  No one.  Another statement prominently displayed on MACE literature (and even on our envelopes) is this:  "MACE Devours Administrators Who Abuse Teachers."  Administrative abuse?  Of course.  Every day.  It is rampant.  In the Spring of 1996, the headline for the lead article in The Teacher's Advocate! magazine was "Teacher Abuse Is Epidemic!"  It's been epidemic for years, but everyone wants bury his or her head in the proverbial sand.  Darn it!  When are governors, legislators, school board members, and other policy-makers (including Arne Duncan in Washington, D. C.) going to take their heads out of the sand and listen?  They are operating like they still believe that the Earth is flat.  They need to sail West (discipline in the classrooms) to reach the East Indies (academic achievement).  They apparently think that they will fall off the Earth if they insist on classroom discipline.  But, there will never be any significant changes in academic achievement without first establishing classroom discipline, and teachers cannot establish good classroom discipline when a handful (or a whole classroom full) of miscreants and thugs substantially disrupt the classes, knowing that the weasel, booger-eating, and kiss-up administrators are either too afraid or too lazy to do anything to the thugs who are running some of our schools.  Abject administrative cowardice, laziness, apathy and/or callousness!

    Any legislator who goes along with Sonny's maniacal Merit Pay plan should be voted out of office!  Vote all of the   suckers out of office!  (c) MACE, April 28, 2010.

Again, Merit Pay Is Incurably Flawed!

Teachers Teach Students; They Don't Learn Them!

Merit Pay Again, Jackasses, and Same Histrionic Insults at Teachers (SH_T)!

Merit Pay In Public Education Does Not Work!

Merit Pay, Race, Culture, & Public Schooling!

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD, www.theteachersadvocate.com

     I wish that the Governor and the General Assembly would balance the budget by chopping away at the administrative bloat in public education in Georgia.  We could get rid of one-half of the useless administrators in the State, and the school systems would get along just fine because so many of these administrators are worthless and counter-productive.  They hinder learning, not facilitate it.  Hey, I like this slogan on a good picket sign:  "Teachers Teach.  Administrators Cheat."  Or, "Teachers Teacher.  Administrators Snoop."  Or, "Next Election: Teachers With Pitchforks!" Finally, "Let Teachers Evaluate Administrators."  Right now, bad and evil (yes, evil!) administrators can do a lot a damage in the educational process, including destroying and getting rid of good, dedicated, and effective teachers, but a good teacher has no recourse against an angry and abusive administrator.  The Georgia Code permits the teacher evaluation of administrators but school boards and superintendents don't want to know about the terrible administrators; they choose not to exercise this option.  This "option" ought to be mandated by the State.  You would see many administrators "get religion," and the teachers would at least appreciate this small effort to mollify their situation in these very tough economic times. 

     If I were running for Governor, I think that I would tap into this huge frustration and try to actually do some things for teachers that cost the State virtually no money...mandate that school systems allow the teachers to evaluate the administrators and that the compilation of the scores be presented to the school board.  Also, the State should just simply chop in half the administrative bloat so that teachers would not have to be furloughed.  We have way too many useless, ineffective, and abusive administrators in Georgia.  (c) MACE, February 17, 2010.

Meet The People of MACE!

   You don't attract better candidates into the field of education by consistently treating them like dog crap.  Is this simple enough?  Also, your problem today in public education is not the teachers; it's the defiant, unmotivated, and disruptive students and their irate and irresponsible parents.  A loose net will always catch any weak teacher; a tight net will only suffocate the entire profession, driving off those who refuse to be treated like dog crap by the angry, incompetent, and abusive administrators.  We try to make it plain. © MACE, November 4, 2009.

Click Here To See Article in Marietta Daily Journal.

Click Here To See WSB-TV's Story.

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Click Here To View Book

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     If you are tired of the I gotcha approach to supervision; if you are tired of being snoopervised by petty and myopic administrators who seem to enjoy any contrived opportunity to "write you up"; if you are tired of having your teaching micro-managed and having your professional knowledge, wisdom, and judgment ignored; if you are tired of being treated like a "day laborer" and dealt with in a heavy-handed fashion; if you are tired of having little or no input into your teaching environment; if you are tired of having to put up with an inept top-down management style that's been proven to be ineffective in business, industry, and education; and, if you are just plain tired of all this mess, then join the Metro Association of Classroom Educators (MACE).

N. Haynes (L) and A. Ramay (R)

MACE's Legal Department Continues To Flourish!

Click Here To Read 11Alive.com Article And See Video!

Click Here To See Video...WSBTV.COM

Click Here To See DeKalb Grade Changing Scandal Video...WSBTV.COM

Click Here To See Video... FOX 5 NEWS!

Crawford Lewis: 

DeKalb County's

Superintendent Clown!

This Joke-of-a-Superintendent Must Go!

Click Here To For Full Article

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"Candy Ass" Picket Three Days In A Row!

Click Here To Read Article On 11Alive.com!

Superintendent "Candy Ass " Crawford Lewis Must Go!

Trotter. Doesn't Suffer Administrative Fools.

Haynes. MACE's Executive Director.

Making'em an offer they can't refuse...

...and if they refuse the offer...

Stop The Standardized Testing Mania!

War Zone Schools!

DeKalb's Crawford Lewis, Dummy Explanation, and Gasolinegate!

Confront The Real Problems In Public Education!

MACE Told You So!

A Double Standard In Georgia! Administrators At Fault, Not Teachers

Motivation To Learn Is A Cultural Process Part I

Cookie-Cutter Approaches To Curriculum And Pedagogy Do Not Work!

Hey Governor, Balance The Budget By Slashing The Administration!

Georgia Needs More Vocational Education

View A Recent MACE Newsletter!

Jeff Cox...A Man Of Patience & Integrity.

MACE Is Not For Everyone!

Meeting with a few MACE members at Douglas County High School.

Keith Murwin was MACE's first member in Douglas County in 1996.