Tech Advantages in a Private School

There are some nice things about teaching in a private school, and then there are some less than nice things. One nice thing about teaching at Thomas More is the relative level of academic freedom that teachers have. What I mean is that if a teacher wants to try something, they try it. Of course this can be a dangerous thing. Teachers need to be held accountable for what they do in the classroom. But for the most part, our administration and executive board trust the teachers in their endeavors. That is one reason why our engineering and laptop programs were able to get off the ground so quickly and successfully. We don't have taxpayers to be accountable to, but we do have tuition-paying parents.

I hear the frustration that many teachers have with trying to get ideas approved, and I am thankful that we have less of that. If Wayne wanted to do Ning at TM, he could do Ning. If someone has a great idea, and we can afford it, we buy it. Flip-side: Unfortunately, we don't quite have the resources for a lot of the things that we would like to do. A silver lining, however: no technology goes wasted.

Perhaps privately funded charter schools lie somewhere in the middle? Just a thought.