I posted the diary entitled "$8300. That's what the charter school says my teaching license is worth." a while back.
The judge handed down the decision today. Teaching license suspended for one year. Basically, I'm a liar and an offer letter is the same as a contract. My lawyer was surprised by the decision. He said the judge went out of her way to hurt me.
47 years old. No one is going to hire a teacher who has been suspended, not in this climate. No skills. No idea what to do with my life. Washed up.
Just fuck everything, especially American education. It's a cesspool of corruption and politics. It seems to have little to do with children any more.
Almost every teaching job I had sucked.
Archbishop Stepinac High School. Formerly a great high school fallen on hard times. Got very little direction from administration on how to teach. I ended up enjoying it quite a lot.
New York City. Taught for six months in Washington Heights. The assistant principal made it his goal in life to have me fired in the first six weeks. Told other teachers I was a bum and didn't know how to teach. Principal fired me in the middle of class, in front of my students. Kids were awful. I was punched and kicked and cursed out on a regular basis.
South Orange, NJ. Had a good first year, no idea what happened the second. All of a sudden, my supervisor thought I couldn't do anything right. Told me I was the most insubordinate teacher she'd ever had. Because I didn't use the textbook enough. My job was posted in the paper before I was told that I wasn't being asked back. The supervisor couldn't even be bothered to tell me herself and had the principal do the dirty work. Parents were requesting that their children be put in my classes. Test scores went up 13% in my second year. Not good enough, I guess.
Central Jersey College Prep. A shithole. See link.
Now we hand this system over to people who have no idea what they are doing. Good luck with that. Maybe it's better this way. Maybe.