The Red Cross is abandoning the building it owns in Plainfield and moving its operation into Westfield's. Another sad commentary on how low this town has fallen. Although at both the national and local levels the Red Cross had seemed to have lost focus in recent years this is a loss for the city.
One of my most memorable recollections of Red Cross past was during WWII. Our battalion in convoy was wandering almost aimlessly in Westphalia when we came to a fork in the road. At that intersection was a Red Cross Canteen truck serving coffee and donuts. No we did not stop, we were supposedly chasing Germans.
The news that Amtack is going to build the tunnels that should have been the project from get go. This was part of the original plan before for political reasons it was deemed impractical and the tunnel to the deep cavern under Macy was the alternate. Since the ARC plan had needed environmental studies and the new plan will us the now abandoned New Jersey portion, I would hope that funds are not wasted on a new environmental study that would duplicate what has already been done.
Did anyone notice that among the school ratings which mandated reorganization of Maxson School that Cook School was among the ones that had made the greatest advances in testing?
There is a radical educators group in NYC that is advocating changing the tenure system and basing retaining teachers and principles on merit not longevity. Radical, but gaining adherents.
I believe that school principles should be given more freedom in their school's curriculum as long as definitive objectives are met. They should be free to chose what teachers they would retain. The teacher must have the ability and freedom to be initiative in meeting their goals. The principle and teachers should mesh into a cohesive unit.The principles like teachers must be judged on merit gained by results.
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Dear Dr. Yood,
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have only lived in Plainfield less than six years I too see the move of the Red Cross as a loss to the community. I can understand the economics and the rationale, but I still don't like the fact that Plainfield looses one more recognized entity.
As for the schools, I'll be doing a post on test scores sometime this week and will make sure to dissect Cook's scores! Regarding curriculum and the freedom to chose one, while the idea is a good one, the district has a high number of students that transfer from school to school on annual basis, sometimes within the same school year, then there is the fact that the district saw its highest test scores gains on Language Arts when Larry Leverett and the then school principals embraced a single curriculum for all schools, and last, many of the district's principals are fairly new principals and while some of them can be agents of change with their new ideas, some of them might still be learning the trades of the job. I am sure this topic of having principals in charge of schools will be coming to surface soon since there are board members that are advocating for such. Hopefully decisions will be made with a balanced view of what is best for the children, not just what is best for the leaders. Hopefully. As always, best regards.