AJC series on teacher quality: Blame for low student achievement misplaced.

I am really tired of people blaming teachers for all educational woes. I am a teacher, and let me educate ALL of you on something. The educational system is DESIGNED TO FAIL. It’s designed to create failure on all fronts, from the students to the teachers, from the schools to the school systems, from local all the way to federal. America’s politicians have created a school system of unrealistic goals, untested implementations of everything from procedures to assessments, unsupported expectations, cookie-cutter practices that don’t work for all schools, an inability to realize the need for change and respond to it, not taking school-level input into consideration when decision-making, political jockeying and game-playing, misappropriating and cutting educational funds, purchasing money-cow curricula such as Handwriting Without Tears (when did we cry while learning to write?), posturing and gesturing and passing the buck but never focusing on outcries for EFFECTIVE reform—the list goes on and on. There are SO many components that make up the educational system that the average citizen will NEVER SEE and doesn’t even realize EXIST. So those of you who start from the premise of teacher blame are already looking at the whole thing with the WRONG FOCUS.

For those who still want to blame the teacher, fine. Just make sure you take this equation into consideration: Overcrowded classrooms + NO in-classroom teacher support + ill-equipped/unprepared/misbehaved students + parents who pretend to do SOOOO much with kids at home but really don’t (believe me, we can tell—-a lot of the parents LIE about what they do to support learning so they can place blame and win lawsuits) + low pay + micromanagement + hearing daily we don’t do our jobs by people who haven’t darkened the door of a classroom for more than 30 minutes since THEY left school + stress + lack of professional treatment + deliberate undermining of confidence in teachers by the media + spending $ out of pocket with NO raises and NO step pay + students smirking about how they can take our jobs away + administrators who NEVER have ANYTHING POSITIVE to say about our work + contracting illness and disease through the expenditure of blood, sweat and tears, just to be told that if we’re not DEAD YET we’re not WORKING HARD ENOUGH + NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY ADVOCATING FOR US +, and +, and +…

All I have to say is if any of you critics, you haters, you naysayers, you mud-slingers think you can do better, come hang your shingle outside a classroom and get to work. You don’t come volunteer, you don’t help in classrooms, you don’t buy your kids supplies, you don’t respond to phone calls, you get upset when we ask you to intervene in disciplining your OWN child (if they cut up at your friend’s house or at the mall, you wouldn’t curse them out and hang up—why do you treat us like we get paid to put up with your child’s disruptive crap??? We are teachers, not wardens, and if we act like wardens we REALLY get raked over the coals), you don’t make your kids do their homework, and you don’t help them with it. You lie and say you’re doing all this and that to support your child but really your life is screwed up. You have no job, your husband/wife/lover cheats on you, the gas company just cut your lights off, your child doesn’t eat outside of school, you work two jobs and make your older kids raise the younger ones, you gossip, fight, curse, drink, smoke, do drugs in front of kids, you don’t join PTA, you won’t bring them to extra-curricular events or watch them participate in them, you scream and yell at them until that’s all they listen to but get mad when the teacher is forced to raise her voice—you are the ones who taught them to only respond to yelling.

You’re looking for lawsuits because you’re broke, you’re teaching your kids to lie about teacher faults to support that lawsuit, you’re showing up at conferences with your lawyers, you take pills just to make it through the day, you let your kids sit in front of video games/TV/Facebook all day, you don’t check their homework, you don’t make them study, you don’t try to know what their assignments are, you got too many kids, you got too many people in your house, your child gets little or no attention, you allow them to disrespect adults and each other and act like it’s cute, and you seek revenge for the negative memories from your own school experiences as a child by supporting your child’s bad behavior in school, blaming the teacher for the fact that your child acts like a little monster. And the comment that schools blame the “customer” for its problems is ridiculous. The only ones they charge is the teacher, the teacher, the teacher. Oh, and did I mention that most of you AREN’T customers? You are simply RECIPIENTS of a FREE service, because with all the foreclosures, you don’t own homes so you’re NOT paying property taxes so you DON’T contribute to funding schools.

So if you want to see improvements in schools, IMPROVE YOUR SORRY LIVES. Improve who you vote for (if you vote) for school system leadership. Show up to meetings and ask what they have done for YOUR child’s classroom lately, and I don’t mean harrassing the teacher (which substitutes for real work these days by MOST school system leaders on COUNTY, STATE AND FEDERAL levels). Realize that most teachers are dedicated professionals who want to make a difference, but you tend to glorify the ones that substitute dog-and-pony shows for solid instruction and classroom management, so I don’t even trust the public’s ability to know who “bad” teachers are. Educate yourselves about what makes good, sound educational and instructional practices and ask your SCHOOL SYSTEM how they support that. If their answer doesn’t include hiring and training extra personnel to meet the growing needs of a booming school population, sending instructional coaches, school psychologists and other “out-of-classroom” personnel to actually perform instruction and testing ALONG WITH the teachers, who have their hands full, then ask them how they expect one person to do the job of two or even three and reasonably expect success. You go on the Internet to do everything else—learn what your schools REALLY need and hold these POLITICIANS accountable. Please believe they really don’t want to spend taxes on public education anyway. They would rather spend it on other, more lucrative interests. Don’t believe me? Check this out.

The GA Lottery was sold to voters as the key to support education. With the billions spent on lottery tickets each year, only a SMALL FRACTION goes to schools, and then only in specialized areas. WHERE’S THE REST OF THAT MONEY? Do you even know or care? Well, I can tell you where it’s not—in the schools. Otherwise, hundreds of teachers in excelling school systems like Cobb wouldn’t have lost their jobs because they would’ve had the money to pay for it. I’m going to close by telling you what I tell the kids: DO YOUR HOMEWORK. And I can tell that most of you have not.

Now, the gloves are off. Swing back if you want to.

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@ Irate Teacher. Lots of support for what you say in your corner of the ring. And I can tell you that the end-result of what you’re writing about quite often shows up in University Freshman classes, too. Pretty unpleasant for the rest of the class until the lazy, disrespectful, texting students learn that the teacher sets the rules, not the parents/administration. These students are usually out by their Sophomore year.

I’m so glad that you wrote what you did here. I get enough of this in my own students who come from Atlanta schools to know you’re telling the truth.

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[...] AJC collection on teacher top quality: Blame for reduced pupil achievement misplaced. Education and learning is not the “IT” significant and the college students who choose will only get worse as a lot of who occur from families with long lines of top quality educators pick other paths with much more cash or less disrespect. Correct now, you arrive from a place of animosity as … Go through more on Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) [...]

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@ D.A. Ward. I was not complaining, merely corroborating the points that “Irate Teacher” made about his/her students. As I read these Get Schooled blogs, I am coming to understand where some of the more obnoxious undergraduate student behavior comes from–it has been tolerated in their K-12 schools–and also to really sympathize with their K-12 teachers.

I learned a great deal about this recently when I had an undergraduate student who said that she taught in 9th grade and had come back to school while teaching during the day. (A paraprofessional?) My students were assigned a 5-page paper to write, but she handed in a 3-page one. I refused to grade it until she wrote it to the assigned length. And she was so furious that she complained to my chair! He just laughed and told her to complete my assignment. And I realized that SHE was used to parents doing that…and the teacher caving in.

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@ D.A.Ward. She stayed, probably because it was already 3 weeks into the term and either she dropped (and lost her tuition) or stayed. She watched me like a hawk to be sure I required the same of the other students (I did), and gradually unbent in class…expected me to zap her with a low grade in revenge (for I let her know that my chair had spoken with me) but did well and got a B+ in the class. And her other papers were all about a page longer than required.

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Thank you, D.A. Ward. I’m an English teacher too. You never know who you’re going to reach, do you?

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Nuthin’s easy, Gal…never was…never will be. I certainly don’t have all the answers. All I know is…I see a professional labor group which, over the years, has been treated like crap. What’s worse…this particular group seems to feel, as a group, that there is no avail to be gained in “fighting city hall”. For a labor group which, by it’s very nature, consists of educated folks, this, somehow, doesn’t seem to make sense. In reading complaint after complaint (ostensibly authored by members of this labor group), and no one appearing to “step up to the firing line”, as it were, it becomes quite easy to see why, deservedly or not, teachers become the target of non other than…teacher bashing.

My “labor group” also, has had it’s share of difficulty. While these difficulties, to this day, prevail…albiet in more subtle manner, we have representation, in Washington, which has, over the years, “tamped out” some of these concerns…not completely eliminated them, but certainly left, in the minds of our leadership, that we are not a force to be taken lightly, nor to be _ _ cked with (sorry, Gal…there is sometimes no delicate way in which to express the very core of these issues). The key is…we wish to see things, in the future, get better, both for those who follow in our footsteps, and most-certainly, for those we serve.

This is why I…and I am quite certain, many others…become somewhat irate when we see these impassioned complaints punctuated with the “it’s for the children” arguement. When these impassioned complaints are made with, what appears to be, the “human shield” of this arguement, the/certainly MY perception of the teacher corps becomes somewhat diminished…AND I KNOW THIS IS NOT SO!

I realize, Gal, that many things have changed over the years, but to simply bow to the irregularities borne of political expediency and the gods of political correctness seems almost…well, UNAMERICAN. To simply accept the current situation, untested, is to relagate the future of this great Country to the black void of uncertainty. Are the powers that be to remain emboldened to the notion that teachers are to, forever, bear the burdens of responsibility with absolutely nothing to add in terms of “how their boat is to be run”? Are these burdens to be borne with absolutely no backing from those who pretend to know how to do their job better than they? More importantly, are future generations going to see opportunities; be prepared to accept and defeat the problems and issues which will surely arise? (from the perspective of my simple corner of the world, when are kids going to be able to pass a simple military “smart test” without having to rely on a battery of “prep courses? When are kids, who, ostensibly, have a A/B high school average, going to overcome the challenges of year one in college without becoming obliged to take remedials?)

All this, Gal, harkens back to the quality of pre-college education; that, Gal, is completely dependent on quality teachers. Judging from the treatments to which teachers have been subjected, over the years, I honestly do not believe quality teachers can be developed…but, hey, that’s just me.

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