I bet there's some plugin where I can publish all of my Facebook status updates to this blog. Then I'd never have to think, "Wait, did I talk about that over here or over there?"
I'm going to do that thing where I use a bunch of asterisks and don't make links because I don't want journalists looking for an angle to find this site and point a big neon finger to it. (If you find it anyway, for heaven's sake, please just keep walking. A woman needs her vent-space.)
Our governor is putting forth, quite stridently and in lieu of taxes because "the children are our future" and "will not be left behind" and so on, a six-p*rcent pay cut to teach*rs.
I got used to the first $120 million cut to the educ*tion budg*t earlier this year. I got used to the second $120 million cut a couple of months ago, although it has meant not thinking too hard about next year, when class sizes will be even larger and some good programs will be gone. I've gotten the kids used to "innovative" lesson plans, like, "Hey guys? I'll let you make your own quiz, then take your own quiz, because the school needs to save paper and use yours." I even tried to look on the bright side: hey, this is why Mike is filling a vacancy and making an extra $20/day! Because it's cheaper to hire subs than teach*rs! Meanwhile, I tried to pretend the $30/mo deduction from my paycheck, new this year and implemented because the retirement system got all ballsed up, wasn't happening. It's just the cost of a meal out every five weeks, or seven oil changes, or the extra I pay in gas to work at an at-risk school on the other side of the city. Or, you know, food and shelter when I'm old.
And I continue ignoring (save in this space) all of the problems in the system already. The average grade on the semester final this week in my regular classes is 57%. Most kids finished 30-45 minutes early and declared it "easy." I thought it was. I was even embarrassed that it involved more "memorize your vocab" than "use your thinking skills." But, oh, you actually would've had to study regularly throughout the semester in order to parrot these things up. There is that catch. And since you laugh and tell me every day that you never study, that you have "a life," I guess the "easy" part was filling in the bubbles.
(And the hard part was getting a pencil to fill in those bubbles, I know. It was certainly hard for me to watch, as we delayed the exam for 10 minutes so a few people in the Honors class could work this out.)
It's not just a six-p*rcent c*t, either. No more annual step increases until the situation "improves," at which point he "pledges" to restore them. (How does a politician even use the word "pledge" with a straight face?)
All of this is really, really bad... but worse are the comments from the people who agree with all of these measures. It's not just a "Do it to Julia!" reaction ("Cut someone's else's salary instead of raising my taxes? Yeah!"). It's a genuine belief that teachers are making too much money for what they do and/or that our society spends too much on education.
As I've said here before, I know that's not completely crazy talk. What's CRAZY is that we have a new administrative building over on Sah*ra with Italian marble floors. It's loopy that, for awhile, teachers could get $30/hour paid training each year for a software program they were paid to learn the year before. (However, the first loopy part was requiring a retrain each year when the software didn't change.) It's unusual that for a few years we've all been given $200/year to spend on supplies, but it was easier to understand when marketed as a "this is our way of raising your pay a bit, just so long as you spend your extra pay on the kids" move.
It's questionable, yes, that our pay goes up just for surviving another year and sticking with it, but until merit pay is based on something the teacher can control (woe to the bad luck of drawing a room full of delinquents or students not at grade level), you have to hope that experience counts for something.
It's bizarre that things like sports teams aren't completely self-supporting... yes, I know saying that out loud will get me trounced by fellow teachers I respect... yes, I know the value of extra-curricular programs... yes, I believe in a society that promotes healthy bodies as well as healthy minds... but when I watch the math teacher down the hall spend most of the first semester trying to manage 45-55 unmotivated, disruptive teenagers in a room with 40 seats, I think our spending priorities might be elsewhere.
And that's another thing: Governor G*bbons supports No Child Left Behind, which from where I sit is all part of a terrible system of throwing a lot of money (and time, and energy) at kids who are working very hard to be left behind. It's stll so queer to see this as a Republican initiative, because I thought Republicans were all against negotiating with terrorists? Or giving criminals chance after chance? Or writing checks for handouts instead of promoting self-sufficiency?
But, like G*bbons said in his speech last night, he's not going to sacrifice a single child... other than stuff said child into an already crowded classroom with a teacher who is being directed to provide entertaining, multi-sensory, "student-centered" lessons while scrambling to find paper or working whiteboard markers.
At the start of this year, my principal talked about how much money we have to spend when kids are expelled and they're sent to an alternative school, and how we're working on programs to keep the kids on campus so the district can save money. Am I really so evil for thinking "expelled" means "now go get a job and pay for GED classes, you made your choice"? Because I sure feel like this attitude is viewed, even amongst my cynical peers, as being rather harsh. Yes, I want to keep gangbangers off the streets, too, but I think that's called prison.
It's not that I don't worry about or love the troubled youth... given the choice, though, my time, energy, and money is going towards the kids who, despite the odd moment of dorkiness, would like a bit of learnin', please.
So, I completely understand when people point out that we throw all of this money at education and things don't get better. I agree; our top problems aren't really a money issue. What's the first Google result for "school system problems"? A treatise on how, until teachers are restored to positions of authority in their classrooms, things aren't going to get better. Yeah.
And because teach*rs are such sad sacks and head cases, I bet a lot of us would swallow that six-p*rcent pay c*t if the trade-off was that we got to be the bosses again.
Someone's being a d*ckhead? Out you go. No phone call home, no "special needs" conference, no "have you tried moving his seat?", no stopping class to complete the paperwork, just get out of the room, and if you don't show up in an admin's office, then you're truant. BYE.
Other issues, like sacrificing thinking in order to teach to the test (oh, my heart is sad whenever I pretend I fully endorse our school's formula for writing paragraphs) and spending prep time on endless paperwork and similar wankery instead of grading or, you know, prepping, I can work around. But, as I'm now in my fifth year of saying, the biggest flaw in the system is asking teachers to include young people in their classrooms who aren't students.
They say we spend (around) $7000/year on each student. I have three kiddos in my first period alone who aren't shy about refusing to work. Kick them out, and it's a $21,000 savings! No pay c*t for any of the teachers these students have!
Okay, okay, I know they still end up costing society money. Juvenile detention services, court costs, welfare for the one girl's baby, and so on. Hmmm. I can't say I approve of how the Salem (and European) witches were made to pay for their own incarceration and trials, but maybe they were on to something...
Oh, it's all so endlessly stupid! And hopeless, because the minute your solution rests on asking people to change, you're done for. You can't buy work ethics - even the generic brand like I have - and hand them out. The best you can do is grab people at a young age and teach them to...
Oh, never mind. Everyone knows that teachers just sit around all day and get summers off and get paid no matter what.
(Maybe we should joke less about counting the days to summer break. But if we can't keep our gallows humor, then what is left?)
Having said alllll of this same old same old same old same old same old but NOW WITH SIX-P*RCENT LESS FUNDING (I guess I won't be stimulating the economy for the foreseeable future), I have big news. Well, it's day-old news if you've already friended me on Facebook, but still yummy enough to eat.
THEY ARE GIVING ME A STUDENT TEACHER!
Now you'll surely believe that things are desperate. :)
My journalist co-worker and I really love your blog. We found you by chance last year when we googled something to the effect of "Girl Scout cookie name changes." We love reading your stories and food reviews! So we're not going to point a big neon finger at you ... we really enjoy your interesting posts! Keep up the good work!
Posted by: JGGO | 16 February 2009 at 10:23 AM
LOL - thank you! Peanut Butter Patties forever! (But I suppose I would eat those rogue "Tagalongs" in the spirit of diplomacy... a whole box, if I had to.)
Posted by: Shari | 16 February 2009 at 09:05 PM