If You can read this, thank a teacher!

[Diva]

For the past couple of days, I've been hearing some mighty scary news reports about the laying off of our teachers.

Having just lived through that extravaganza, this hits really close to home, but my main concern is the WHY is this happening.

Here are the things I know after watching the Anderson Cooper 360 report early this morning....

There is a possibility that between 100,000 ~ 300,000 teachers will be laid off at the end of this school year.


Let that sink in.


Cities and states mentioned (um, hellz yeah, I took notes!) were Cleveland (I didn't get the number there, but it was too high), CA (23,000), IL (20,000), New York (20,000) and even here in Austin, several hundred jobs are on the chopping block!

Where is the TEACHER BAILOUT? Or the Districts bailout? AND........isn't one of the big 'arguments' FOR the legalization of the Lottery is to beef up our education funding?

Right.

So enter former Superintendent of Chicago Schools, now the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.....and he is "pressing" for the passing of an Emergency Jobs Legislation for school districts.

Pressing.

Why isn't he ~ and HASN'T he been kicking and screaming.

Now don't get me wrong...I don't believe that tossing money in the main direction of any superintendent's offices are the cure. I taught for over 30 years and have seen & heard it all. There are bad teachers in our schools who are only there because they have seniority or tenure. Principals sometimes look the other way and plug up their ears.

But why is this issue JUST NOW coming to light? Like the market, this has been going on for a while.

I'm venting of course. I don't have a solution. But I am distressed about it. Distressed enough to start a thread to see if this is of concern to anyone else......

Thanks!

~Diva

[rockybcn]

It is scarey! My sister is a teacher for the Indiana schools. She told me that the Superintendent is campaigning to eliminate the unions. He wants to keep who he wants and to hell with tenure!

[Diva]

Yes, but herein lies the problem (just my opinion, of course)....just because a teacher has tenure, doesn't mean he/she can teach...and just because a teacher has a Masters degree or a PhD after their name doesn't mean they can either....

All I know is that it appears that many things have been swept under the educational rug for far too long.

And I agree with You.....it IS scary!

[Linus]

Is it all about $$$; a lack of students as parents send their kids to private schools; a lack of faith in the public education system; a decrease in enrollment; or all of the above that is causing administrations to do this kind of drastic result? I do agree with you, Diva, in that unions often protect those that really shouldn't be teaching. I wish (and as a former member of a professors' union in Ontario) that there could be performance evaluations taken into consideration as to whether the union will protect your job or not.

[Diva]

Originally Posted by Linus

Is it all about $$$; a lack of students as parents send their kids to private schools; a lack of faith in the public education system; a decrease in enrollment; or all of the above that is causing administrations to do this kind of drastic result? I do agree with you, Diva, in that unions often protect those that really shouldn't be teaching. I wish (and as a former member of a professors' union in Ontario) that there could be performance evaluations taken into consideration as to whether the union will protect your job or not.

I totally agree with that 'performance evaluation' thing. Teachers are observed, of course (or should be), but in the schools in which I taught I was given notice. So any teacher could put on their A+ lesson. I think the way it OUGHT to be ~ if a teacher is doing their job as they should ~ is that the principal (or asst. principal) SHOULD be able to drop in. My principals always knew they could. (I've had principals come in and I would hand them the music and 'made' them sit with the choir!)

Public schools go downhill in some area and the parents yank their kids out and take them to private schools. ALso, parents sometimes expect the teachers to raise their children, the kids are discipline problems and they're taken out of public and taken to private. But that's another thread.

I'm just thinking that our priorities are SOoooooooo out of whack here!

[Apocalipstic]

With less money being spent there is less tax money to pay the teachers, I get that.

But when I think of the things we do spend money on like the 2 wars we are fighting for NOTHING and how much that money could do to help kids with their education and their health care it makes me want to scream.

Art and music programs being canceled/cut back way before sports makes me want to scream too.

I do wonder about the ups and down in numbers of students based on population booms, how some years we have a shortage of teachers and another a surplus...and I also question the media's love of stirring the pot and freaking us out. CNN has zero idea where Hawaii and Estonia are...grrrrrr and I wonder how anyone gets out of elementary school not knowing at least where the states are...and ends up as a newscaster.

I could go on....

Great thread Diva! I hold a special place in my heart for some of the great teachers I had who shaped my life more than they will ever know. Many of them music teachers.

[Martina]

i get dropped in on all the time. I know that formal observations require you to be notified, and in some places, the informal ones can't go in your record. i don't know. We definitely have some bad teachers in our school.

The firings this year have nothing to do with changes in enrollment. They are to do with decreasing state budgets. Some places are anticipating class sizes of fifty students. No teacher can educate fifty students the way we are taught. General education teachers are expected to differentiate instruction, to have profiles of each student, to keep assessment data, to do creative lessons -- which take materials and space. Who can teach fifty students unless all you do is packet them. You can't even do direct instruction and reach fifty students unless you have the classroom management skills of a drill instructor. That makes for a wonderful teacher-student relationship.

So they give us standards for the teaching profession and then they make it impossible for us to meet them for many reasons.

i am appalled that teacher evaluation is so large a part of the national debate.

ADMINISTRATOR evaluation is what is needed. Or a real paradigm shift in what they do. You ask for the teacher's edition of the text book for your class, and the response is "Good luck getting THAT!" What boss in the private sector is not responsible for making sure his employees have the resources they need to function?

People criticize teachers for not doing the four or five things it takes to be an effective teacher, but no one trains them to do it. Gifted teachers can still be ineffective teachers. CARING teachers can be ineffective teachers. It's hard work, but it's not rocket science. Why aren't administrators helping teachers who need it? That's what happens in the real world? Why does education just take the sickest elements in the market -- fire half of the teachers in failing schools (a new California law) and none of the efficiency or accountability at the top?

Anyway, i gotta do work so i can continue to teach. Rant just begun, but i have to stop.