Speak Out!

The best thing the Federal Government could do for the public education system in this country is GET OUT of the education business altogether.

As a teacher, I must say AMEN to both Lisa and Zack. As we are in the midst of the recession near depression, I have not heard anybody talk about the real problem, which is education. Our education system is the pits and the first thing that President Obama should do is to get rid of "No Child Left Behind." No child left behind has to be the biggest joke since the “weapons of mass destruction.” In fact, I would argue that “No Child Left Behind” is in fact the primary weapon of mass destruction of our education system here in America. Why do I say that??? It is because “No Child Left Behind,” is designed to do just the opposite, leave children behind, particularly those who come from poor, lower middle and working class families and who more often than not are of African or Hispanic descent.

I pray that President Obama will appoint educators to the department of education. Much of the education legislation that is mandated at the state level is produced by people who have never stepped a foot in a school in the capacity of an educator, yet they are allowed to make decisions that are having adverse affects on what our kids are supposed to learn or not learn. The worst part about this is that they rarely seek input from those of us who are on the front line with the kids everyday and who know them often times better than their parents. Unfortunately the decisions and policies that are made about educated are based on politics and money. It rarely has anything to do with what is best for the kids, which is why we find our system of education in such shambles today. I believe that more accomplished, seasoned educators who have been proven to make a difference should start running for public offices so that the voice of the educators will start to be heard.

There also needs to be a reform among school administrators. In today's schools more often than not principals have very little experience. Most of them were only in the classroom for three years before they became principals, and had not yest mastered the art of teaching. The principal in school building should be the lead teacher in the building. Most of them don't know enough about the curriculum in every subject area to be able to be a lead teacher. Many of them were PE teachers and can tell you little about what the students should be learning in Math and Science. I believe that principals should be required to have taught for at least five - ten years before becoming a principal.

The last thing that I will comment on (because I could write a book) is the pay. I teach in Missouri and we are 41st on the list on the salary scale, and the salaries of those teachers who are in the top states, are not that much higher than those at the bottom. It is a sin and a shame that the powers that be do not think that teachers should be compensated for the work that we do. I personally spend att least 60 hours per week in my school building and that does not include the hours that I spend working on school stuff at home. I have a Master's degree in Education, have been in education for over 12 years and I am still $400 shy of making $50,000 per year. Yet I am required to not only teach the kids to the point where they past the standardized tests, manage their behavior in the classroom, document everything that I do, call and email parents of students who are not doing their homework, attend at least four meetings per week, keep my gradebook updated on a daily parents so that hopefully parents will go online to see how their kids are doing, and creating lesson plans. All of this on top of being a wife and mother of three for less than $50,000 per year, which ends up being about $35,000 per year after insurance and taxes. I don't know of any other profession as demanding as ours where the employees are not compensated for the amount of work that they do. Whenever a person tells me that the want to go into education, my advice to them is don't do it if they do not have a passion because they will not last long. Teachers get blamed for students who are not learning, but what the public needs to realize is that we are basically powerless when it comes to decision making. Don't get me wrong there are some teachers who should not be in front of anybody's child. They are there for the little bitty pay check, and to me that is simply not worth it and they are not benefiting the kids in any kind of way. I believe that anytime God allows us to handle children that he is going to hold us accountable for what we do and do not do with those children, so teaching is a job that I do not take lightly.

Amen, Sister Lisa! But here's the big argument that sports proponents make - the funding systems are different. People pay for tickets which fund the sports industry, while tax dollars are spent by the government to be appropriated for education.

Thus, it is much bigger than just paying teachers 6-7 figure salaries alone. Plus, a lot of teachers today aren't worth 5 figures. They tend to babysit and not nurture kids because of a lack of involvement by parents.

If parents could help regulate how standardized testing is done, then schools would operate with the childrens' interests at heart. Instead, everybody is under a lot of pressure to "teach the test" rather than "teach them how to behave before they learn". A lot of teaching is LEADING before READING. So, teachers need to become surrogate parents as part of their job description.

Thus, President Obama (I'm sick of the obligatory "elect" suffix and I'm ready for a new president now) must make the best choice for Education Secretary, in order to usher in this new wave of thought.