Time to get out!

I'm disillusioned with public education and it's not the teachers' fault. Most of the teachers that I've worked with are talented and try really hard.

I've come to see that all too often, administrators, counselors, and parents don't really cares about the students' intellectual growth. Too many parents want good grades, they don't care if the students actually learn anything along the way. I've seen really crappy teachers give out A's and B's like candy and the teachers are loved by parents. I've seen teachers that pushed students, expecting effort and work to earn a good grade, vilified by parents as "uncaring!" Give all your students A's and you never get a complaint. Expect performance, and you better duck and cover.

I've seen teachers that don't use textbooks anymore because, "students won't read them" or they justify it by saying, "ALL knowledge isn't locked up in a book." What happens when these kids get to college and suddenly have multiple books to complete in 1 quarter. Unfortunately, that attitude is one of the reasons that the testing organization ACT has declared that 75% of graduating seniors can't read or are not prepared for college. But don't worry, they got good grades and their parents weren't embarrased by their student's performance. And besides, colleges love to offer remedial classes for freshman.

But hey, the solution to this is to test the hell out of them until they actually do better. (Don't worry kids, no one will expect you to actually put in effort to learn something. We'll just test you until you, like a monkey, eventually accidently gets the answers correct.) If students don't do well, we'll cancel more class time and give them more tests. Figured out that during my last year teaching, my student missed 16 hours of MY classtime preparring for or taking standardized tests. When you mulitply that by the 8 classes the kids take, these kids missed a lot of facetime with their teachers.

Then there are administrators. Ever been to an inservice provided by administrators? Most of them couldn't teach or hold people's attention if their lives depended on it. it's been my observation that most administrators got out of the classroom so that they wouldn't lose their sanity. Got to laugh at the people who evaluate their teacher's ability to teach, when they can't teach themselves. But, heck, as long as parents are happy and no one at the district complains, who cares. If you're overworked as an administrator, dump more work on the teachers. If they complain, just move them on. Personally, I feel that education would improve drastically if all administrators and counselors were required to teach at least 1 class per day. Hell, that might even lower class size. What a novel idea.

Lastly, lets look at our counselors. These poor souls, many of whom haven't been in a classroom since they were in high school, try to defend, protect and disserve students by not holding them accountable, providing every excuse possible for their lack of performance, and making every effort imaginable to disrupt the classrooms. No one should be allowed to be a counselor unless they've spent at least 10 years in the classroom as a teacher. They allow themselves to be manipulated by students and parents and have a propensity for taking the word of the student and parent over that of the teacher, if they even bother to talk to the teacher, and move kids around trying to find the path of least resistance in their attempt to get them graduated, not educated. If that doesn't work, send them to an alternative school that has lower graduation requirements. And, if that doesn't work, find a packet factory so that they can "walk" with their classmates and further devalue the diploma that other students worked hard to get.

But, just so that you don't think I've totally given up on public education. I've had some really great students over the years. Students who I was really proud of, who worked hard, made no excuses and pushed themselves as far as they could. I have no doubt that those students have done, or will do, as well as any student in any school.

I've found that the difference is the expectation of the parents and students. When parents were motivated and expected results from their students, put the time into to monitor and followup, and hold their students accountable, the students did great. When parents wanted their student to get A's but was too busy to followup, monitor, and hold the kids accountable, they usually got lazy students who cheated or whined until they got a good grade. When parents were to busy to care, they usually got kids that dropped out or failed.

Teachers are a tool. They aren't miracle workers. They try to do their best. By far the majority of the teachers that I've worked with were fantastic people, good teachers, and loved their students. Unfortunately, Not many teachers last 30+ years because they get burned out trying to care more about their students than many of their parents.

Yep, guess it was time to retire! Unfortunately, my grandkids and yours are still going to go to those schools or others like them.

Oh, well, felt like venting for a while.