Lee Tidball: City Schools admininstrators disrespectful to teachers

How discouraging for the K-1 teachers who expressed their concerns (backed by painstaking research) about the egregious amount of testing they are now required to do, only to see these grievances flippantly dismissed and even lampooned by the Modesto City Schools’ administration (“Enough testing, teachers protest,” Page A1, March 6). I, for one, was infuriated.

Condescending comments made by Associate Superintendent Ginger Johnson insinuated that these teachers lack the experience of teachers in other local districts, do not understand the “greater sophistication” required to teach today’s MCS students, and are just flat wrong objecting to the “data-driven” direction for guiding instruction the District now embraces rather than the more teacher-driven direction they propose. Her derisive dismissal of teacher Jennifer Hayner’s research as “crazy” was simply insulting.

I know Jennifer Hayner. She was one of the most outstanding student teachers I ever supervised. She’s neither “crazy” nor given to embellishment, as Johnson implies. She, like the others, is a consummate professional giving credence to serious problems that need resolution. But problems cannot be resolved when one side lectures the other in the newspaper as if they are whiny children rather than respectfully considering their concerns.

This story was originally published March 9, 2015 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Lee Tidball: City Schools admininstrators disrespectful to teachers."