A Chilling Story of Coaching Gone Wrong

Have you read this tale of horrors published in Edushyster? Amy Berard's post "I Am Not Tom Brady", published on July 22, tells of how her school and school district contracted with a group of consultants to improve student engagement and teacher performance. Make that, mostly "improve" teacher performance.Picture an experienced teacher being "coached" by 3 experts huddled around a walkie talkie in the back of the classroom. That's right, this is coaching, school improvement style.  Because if your school or district is targeted for improvements, there must be money for consultants - you know, consultants who have never taught, or are trying out their latest graduate school theory or something they heard from the TV experts filling afternoon airwaves.The group Ms. Berard posts about is from the Center for Transformational Teacher Training and the program - get this - is "No Nonsense Nurturing".I don't know, nor do I care, what the qualifications of the three people "coaching" Ms. Berard might have been, but I know this. Lawrence, like Lowell, has a very high population of students for whom English is not their native language. A teacher  speaking in phrases and incomplete sentences with robotic monotone is poor practice and modeling for English acquisition. And what can "no nonsense nurturing" offer? Nurturing without nonsense? What can that possibly mean?Because of high poverty levels, which, by the way, will not be fixed by employing teachers who speak like robots, urban school districts often are targets of these types of programs. Peter Greene writes of the dangers of using canned programs such as the  one described in Amy Berard's post in the Human-Proof Classroom. (You may need to register with Education Week - free - to see the whole text). Is this the education that our urban students need or deserve? Since when is a teacher making an emotional connection with students, especially impoverished and difficult-to-reach kids, an undesired outcome?There are so many wrongs here. The simple fact that private, money-scavaging "consultants" are empowered to find cash flow in urban districts by offering outrageous programs such as this one, should alarm everyone.And if you think it can't happen in your own school or district, think again. Amy Berard's tale of coaching gone wrong hits pretty close to home - literally. Lawrence, MA, a school district under state receivership, is a quick 15 miles from where I live and where I taught in Lowell, MA. Be vigilant.