"As a strong supporter of labor unions who has belonged to the MTA and the AFT, I am disappointed that the union protects so many stale teachers and administrators rather than the dedicated professionals who are willing to donate their time to create schools that will "set the hearts of youth on fire" and inspire in them a lifelong love of learning." Laurie Robertson-Lorant
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120811/OPINION/208110311
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=756515
16 comments:
Laurie Robertson-Laurant obviously doesn't know what she is talking about. First of all, unions do not protect "stale" teachers and administrators, heck, in New Bedford, administrators don't even have a union at all! And, again, if an administrator wants to get rid of a teacher who is not performing well, all they have to do is follow the protocol to have that teacher removed. I'm so tired of hearing that it is the teacher's fault as to why the school systems are failing, and that these "wonderful" charter and innovation schools (same thing) are the solution to all of our ills. NO THEY ARE NOT! First off, they don't serve ALL students (especially SPED and ELL students), have a high teacher AND administrator turn-over rate, and generally co-locate in existing public school buildings, sucking the lifeblood out of the already low resources the public schools have to offer. A real fix would be to support the unions, who give a voice to every teacher advocating for their students, and who know what's best in the classrooms. Corporate nobody's need to find another hobby, or at least get the facts straight and create real reform in the public school system. Children are NOT material objects that are manufactured and sold to the highest bidder. They are human beings with souls, who are creative, interesting, and most of all, the future of our country.
Any discussion that includes untruths abut "stale" staff is not going anywhere.
Ms. Robertson,
It seems that your students are not at all impressed by your delivery in the classroom. Perhaps, you are the one who is stale and needs to be fired.
Laurie, apparently you live a glass house? Should people who live in glass houses throw stones?
It is absolutely amazing the coordinated attack on a system that was led down a path of self destruction by those advocating to be concerned with students. Much of what is wrong with New Bedford Public Schools begins with those who advocate change. yet much of the problem exists with the politics and not those who work in the system. This goes as far back as the hiring process that resulted in the hiring of Mr. Longo, as it was stated to me by an administrative leader from another district, "With the fiasco that is going on in New Bedford how do you continue moving forward with your job?
This was a simple indication that the shell game of New Bedford politics that has transpired in the last 20 years has had little to improve the enviroment that our teachers have to work in, not to say how students are being left behind. These same individuals who did not do due diligence in hiring Dr. ######; appeared to be a Jeckyl and Hyde committe in first evaluating the former superintendant with an outstanding performance to only eject her the following year questions the competency of those at the helm on the school committee. In the last two years we have had to struggle with the education round table led by people like former Mayor John Bullard who admitted at a public forum how he admired the present mayor for holding meetings that reach out to the community and how he did not do as an effective job as a school leader. We have a meeting whereby maybe 200 people; media, public officials, and concerned citizens in a city of over 95 thousand people show up at a meeting and this is a show of dramatic support?
Everyone is talking about working together and too many people are trash talking, back biting and manipulating the system for their own interests and as many times as they have failed, fumbled, and utilized students as pawns either with their cooperation or via manipulation and these are the people we are to trust our city with, I always back to that question that was once asked of me, "With the fiasco that is going on in New Bedford how do you continue moving forward with your job?" Are we the laughing stalk of the state?
Dr. Laurie Robertson-Lorant should get herself a mirror or at least she should listen to her students.
Her comment, "The high school that SCEP envisions will be a school students want to attend because ALL students will be given some responsibility and treated with respect.", implies that only some students are treated with respect. That's absolute nonsense!
Not only did Lorant slap the teachers in the face with her comments but she also could not resist slapping the mayor and the superintendent. The very arrogant Marlene Pollock wanted Mr. Shea to commit to a proposal that he had not had time to study. That would have been stupid. Mr. Shea made the right decision but Pollock kept insisting that he endorse something he had not read.
The following comment she made clearly illustrates the fact that Lorant drank the Uia kool aid, "Next on the School Committee's agenda was the bilingual program designed by Dr. Danielle Carrigo and a group of teachers who worked without pay to design a bilingual program that will benefit native and non-native speakers equally. After hearing their presentation, committee member Marlene Pollock introduced a motion urging interim Superintendent Mike Shea to accept the recommendation, but some members of the committee thought this put "too much pressure" on Mr. Shea and voted to table it. Despite Ms. Pollock's strong defense of the bilingual program, the committee voted 4-3 to table it, which was a slap in the face of hard-working, committed professionals."
What was this woman thinking when she made these statements?
I would recommend that Dr. Lorant stick to what she knows but now that I've read what her students had to say about her, I won't say anything.
Here's another Dartmouth resident weighing in on New Bedford schools. Shouldn't she be addressing the contoversy at Quinn?
Hey Craig Dutra, you live in the utopia of Westport where all the schools are perfect, why are you silent? Surely you can put the glass down for a little while and share the scripted Uia propaganda.
Saturday Extra…..
Welcome to a rare extra edition of Whaling City Watch.
As I was placing today’s copy of the blab sheet from Elm Street underneath the litter box, I noticed a letter from Dr. Laurie Robertson-Lorant. She is the third so-called educational “expert” that has written to the “paper” in support of the autonomous schools proposals. Gee, THREE letters in six days. It sounds like they have a well-coordinated campaign going on.
By the way, the first two authors had no credentials in education.
Dr. Robertson-Lorant is different. She claims to be “a longtime teacher who has visited K-12 classrooms in New Bedford and environs for 12 semesters over the past seven years while supervising student teachers for UMass Dartmouth and Bridgewater State University.” We’ll take her at her word.
What do the good doctor’s students have to say about her? These are apparently the words of her students. They are published at a site that rates college professors. You can read the comments here:
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=756515
Some of the more interesting posts:
“to start off i want to advise anyone interested in taking this class to not do so. if you are required to take this class to go towards your major then take it with another professor because she is absolutely useless. she is unorganized, and has a tendency to go off topic while lecturing. she lost both a paper and my end of the year portfolio..”
“Yet another poor UMD EDU teacher! Firstly, she is essentially incapable of staying on topic; in a 2.5 hour class, we spend 2 hours at least listening to lectures on everything except the course material. Even many of the in-service teachers walk out of class muttering “what a waste of time.” Stay Away!”
“I cannot stress it enough, she is disorganized and unhelpful. Her workload is high for a 200 class. As a person she is nice, but she should not teach. I am sad to be writing this about her, but steer clear! Take a course with Rock, I didn’t listen to a friend about her and now am regretting it. I am an edu major and her course has dissuaded me.”
There you have it. Those students paid to be in her class and they apparently believe there are some serious issues with the quality of instruction. Yet, she is attempting to influence educational policy in our city.
From what I read on the link, it sounds to me like Laurie is an incompentent "Professor." Perhaps she will be able to get a teaching job at the newly proposed innovation school if it is accepted by the "powers to be"!
I had this woman as a professor and supervisor for my student teaching. She is a nice lady but if it was not for the mentoring teacher whose classes I took over, I would have been sorely ill prepared for my career as a teacher. She is very flighty, disorganized and never really seems to be quite sure of what she is doing. She gives you the impression that she is making the whole thing up as she goes along. She couldn't keep meeting times straight and was always late. The assignments she gave were not challenging and felt like a waste of time and resources. She was NOT familiar with NBPS as I thought she would be for someone who supervised so many would be teachers in this system. As a matter of fact, I found her actual experience in public school teaching to be disappointingly lacking. It was rather useless to have her supervising me when she really had no idea what I was dealing with. Dr. Lorant was one of those teachers that you could completely b.s. your assignments with an get an A. I did it all semester. Aside from signing the necessary paperwork, her instruction was completely insignificant. There is a very good reason why UMD's education program is under scrutiny.
Ms. Lorant states that the people who would be working in and running these innovation schools are "dedicated professionals who are willing to donate their time to create schools that will "set the hearts of youth on fire" and inspire in them a lifelong love of learning." And the teachers who work in the New Bedford Public Schools are not??? Every teacher I know works hard at trying to motivate even the most unmotivated students to learn and to become the best that they can be. They are caring individuals who go home at night worrying about students who may not have proper food, clothing, or even a proper home to live in. They donate their time and money to keep kids out of trouble and off the streets after hours, while purchasing supplies for their classrooms. Now, with the possibility that these innovation schools will be taking over their buildings and pushing out students who actually live in and should be able to attend their neighborhood schools, some of these teachers who have given their all may even be pushed out themselves and lose their jobs...and for what? For doing their job to the best of their ability, and with the little resources they have been given. Wow...this is a really messed up society we live in. Sell out our kids for a fly-by-night school that just happens to be the latest fad in town.
I work with several of these former student teachers that Dr. Lorant "supervises"... they all complain that she is useless... they are so thankful to the menotring teachers they are assigned-the REAL reason they make it in education. I know of several people who dropped our of UMD's education program and have turned to BSU and AIC. Maybe Dr. Lorant got her degree the same way the directore of the Global learning Charter School did....
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