The blogger known as Students Last usually writes parodies.
But the last Presidential debate made him turn serious.
Both candidates said they “love teachers.”
Yes, everyone really, really loves teachers.
Students Last couldn’t stand the fake love and wrote this:
We know you come to this site for a laugh but some things are just NOT funny. Here’s a non-satirical editorial from Students Last.
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How nice to be told by the presidential candidates, during their last debate, that they “love teachers.” Too bad it’s bullshit, like the flowers a woman gets the day after her abuser gives her a black eye. And it’s not just the candidates who are “loving” teachers to death. America itself has, at least as of late, quite the abusive relationship with teachers – claiming to love teachers but repeatedly disrespecting them in a myriad of ways. What teachers need is fewer meaningless words and a helluva a lot more deeds of respect.
When teachers tell you that standardized testing is robbing instructional time, narrowing curriculum and encouraging cheating but you act like their concerns are a ploy to avoid accountability, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When you hold education conferences and there are no public school teachers on the panel but there are five CEO’s, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When the solution to turning around a failing school is to fire half the staff, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When you accuse teacher unions of protecting child molesters, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When teachers tell you that generational poverty hangs over the lives of their students like an impenetrable fog dampening desire, fostering anger, distracting young minds and you think they are making excuses, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When you refer to teachers as “professionals” but then dilute their ranks with those who have ten-watts of enthusiasm and five-weeks of training, shoving them into the neediest schools where they cut their teaching teeth on defenseless children, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When the most well-known names in education today are people who taught for three years or….never, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When, despite teachers’ knowledgeable objections, your idea of measuring teaching and learning is to administer more and more flawed bubble exams to younger and younger students, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When you laud the test results of charter schools that cherry pick their students, receive extraordinary private funding, create an aura of fear with high suspension rates coupled with the expulsion of under-performing students, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
When those who make policy send their children to private schools while shoveling mounds of unvetted nonsense onto the overburdened shoulders of public schools, you are NOT showing love to teachers.
Perpetrators of domestic abuse tell their victims they love them and moments later clench their fists, preparing to strike another blow. So candidates, so America, hold onto your amorous bouquets and stop mouthing words you clearly do not mean or understand.
“Love” us less. Respect us a helluva a lot more.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
right on! respect us more…and pay us more too… i am tired of my kids going without so i can help other people’s kids… i believe a mass exodus of teachers is coming… no money, no respect, no future we can’t hold on much longer
a blogger called Exasperated Educator wrote about spending money on her students at the expense of her child
http://exasperatededucator.blogspot.com/2012/08/later-today-i-will-retrieve-cranky.html
Sadly, the teachers I hear from most that are seriously considering leaving teaching are those teachers who have hit their stride: 5 – 10 years of experience, smart, dedicated, and broke and demoralized.
Unfortunately they’ve learned the sad moral of the story: Don’t be a teacher…
This is exactly what is happening- these are really incredible teachers who are getting their ducks in a row and looking to get out. I have shared this with other parents as well that the replacements will be a constant stream of young, unseasoned teachers a la TFA. The parents are getting the word out but the system down here makes political hay out of not listening to parents wishes so the teachers know there is no one to advocate for them. This is a right work state and no collective bargaining. The brain drain will come first but for the first time the parents are beginning to realize that this southern metropolis will eventually go the way of Detroit with out a really strong public school system. Sad but the writing is on the wall now and who could blame the teachers for NEEDING to get out now. Parents are so demoralized as well since advocacy is blatantly ignored and the political money stream speak so much louder than what the truly invested people can ever yell.
The superintendent here who is up for a contract renewal is on record saying how much he loves Value Added for teachers. Not much more can be said other than he also allowed political pressure to sway him in dismantling a highly functional urban high school for no clearly stated by veiled by lies reasons. Teachers have no faith in the leadership and parents have no voice in fighting this travesty. The educrats and charter loving philanthrocapitalists are salivating at the money to be made by chomping into the education money. The southern metropolis has been the national model of what not to do with testing and our superintendent thinks brining more testing in is just a swell idea. Who could blame the outstanding teachers to move into different careers?
The haves and the have nots are going to further split the racial and socioeconomic divide and there the parents and the teachers are at a loss for what to do to stem the hemorrhaging of great teachers,
Mitt misspoke, he really meant that he loves to fire us. Remember we contribute nothing to the economy. We dare to dream of being able to retire with dignity. We dream of actually being able to teach. I remember my thoughts as I began my career. I was ecstatic thinking I would have a job as long as I do my job. I was dreaming then.
I understand this frustration, and I sympathize with teachers out there, including the much abused teachers in my own school district. Teachers get fake respect from the administration, which claims to love them yet which typically blames them (and parents and the students themselves) for everything that goes wrong in education. When have you ever heard anyone in the Obama administration take the education leadership to task?
There is a national “blame the teacher” movement going on, fostered by Obama and Arne Duncan. Although Secretary Duncan has pretty much seized control of education, he has not adequately explained to the public how the nation’s current approach to K-12 math instruction, for example, has been failing students and teachers since the 1980s. Have you ever heard him talk about reform math? We are staring at a national debacle in math, and his response is not to explain it, but to take control of it.
There has been no national calling out of The Thing That Is Wrong in K-12 math instruction.
Duncan’s Common Core initiatives give administration and their weak programs a blank check and a free pass, allowing ignorant or incompetent administration to use the CCSS to continue to adopt more reform math and more counterproductive policies. Meanwhile, the “accountability” piece of the federal plan is to assess teachers on student outcomes over which they have insufficient control.
Why teachers would ever support the current administration after this is perplexing, but that’s politics for you.
On the other hand … turnabout is fair play.
When teachers watch absolute crap in curriculum, modes of instruction, and district policy being shoveled at the children, day after day after day after day … and those teachers remain silent so as to keep their job … all the while knowing that children are being failed, left behind, harmed, limited, and blamed … then they are not doing the right thing for the children.
Adults should not remain silent when harm is being done to children, and they should not close their eyes to the children’s suffering. Yet, for decades, many teachers have done exactly that.
Teachers have been treated unfairly, it’s true. But think of what’s been done to the children.
Laurie H. Rogers
“Betrayed: How the Education Establishment Has Betrayed America and What You Can Do about it”
“Betrayed” – a blog on education: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com
wlroge@comcast.net
Could not have said it any better. Wish I could.
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
Thank you “Students Last” for putting this so beautifully!!! PLEASE: Can we all copy this and send it in another ton of identical letters to the President, elected officials, newspapers etc???? Maybe keep sending it over and over till someone actually reads them? Make copies, actually sign them(we don’t need to Robo-pen) and mail them by snail mail to the White House? I remember the old letter writing campaigns in the 70’s. Nothing more effective the mail bags full of letters, filling up offices and no space to ignore them. Maybe I am older but the delete key is way to convenient for ignoring stuff. If they don’t want to read it then they will have to carry it all out, shred it or dump it but still, they will have to acknowledge the amount. Sometimes old school works I think.
I have never been a bumper sticker person but:
America’s Teachers: “Love Us Less/Respect Us More”
would be worth some space on my truck, meeting binder, Work room “bull”-etin board, etc…
It is like I feel when teachers say they love their students. In my previous careers I never would have said I love my patients or I love my troops or I love my officers and NCOs. That’s just me. For some teachers that is truly how they feel and that’s fine for them but for me I would say I had responsibility for them. I was accountable for my actions for them. I respected them.
That’s how I feel about my students.
I would say I had responsibility … I was accountable
No doubt you were also dutiful and respected:
“… I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.”
or
” … I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
The pay was the least of the surprises for me when entering this business. I volunteered to take a cut in pay to leave industry to take my first assignment as a high school teacher and I would do it again in a heart beat. I am a retired,4th generation teacher in my 41st year and I substituted for Life Skills ( severely handicapped) last week. Everyone should spend time with these young learners. I truely love the work. The most surprizing thing about teaching is the lack of respect by the students (“Do you know who my dad is”) citizens (“Do you know who my husband is”) and administrators (“Do you know who my friend is?”) or school board members (Do you know who I am?”). Being raised in a teacher’s family we only heard good things and my parents did not believe the extraordinary stories we brought home. I will be subbing in an elementary school next month where the principal never taught in a classroom anywhere, ever. She called me becasue she wants discipline. It will be interesting. Education is the only business that I have been in (and I have been in several) that does not take itself seriously. We are the only business that does not stand up for itself. Where is the NEA when it comes to information about charter schools? Most citizens believe the misinformation because there is usually no response to the contrary. I remember how the NEA rallied behind Jimmie Carter and how nuch money the organization put into that election but why not spend some moey to defend ourselves? We are all preaching to the choir in this format. Who, with any power, even knows this site exists? We will loose this fight because the monied want us to loose it so they can garner more money and power and our society will suffer because we did not stand up for right. Thanks.
Confused,
I was just going to ask if we could do this too? Could we all copy and paste this post in a letter to the White House? Dr. Ravitch, do you know who Student’s Last is so we could ask him/her if we could do this? Let me know and I’ll post it on facebook pages. Thanks,
I am sure Students Last would be happy to grant you permission to repost his blog.
Alright,
I’m going to request that people copy and past the words, with credit to Student Last, and send it to the White House. Does anyone know the best White House e-mail address to send it to? I’ll check too, but just wanted to see
You have our permission to copy and send it where you will. We do ask that you give us credit for our efforts. Thanks for taking this to the next level.
You have our permission to copy and send it where you will. We do ask that you give us credit for our efforts. Thanks for taking this to the next level.
Thank you StudentLast,
I’m going to go on facebook now and ask that people copy and past your blog to this White House address. This is what I’ll say.
StudentLast has given us permission to send this excellent piece to President Obama. Please make sure you state that the words were written by studentlast. You can only do 2500 characters, so state if you’ve just included parts of their excellent post. I think posting the words would have more impact than just the link? Here’s the link. Let’s flood it!! http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
Cool! I’m going old school and hoping for full bags of letters clogging their offices and reminding them, in the words of the book, “Horton Hears a Who” by Dr. Seuss, described as “Horton the Elephant struggles to protect a microscopic community from his neighbors who refuse to believe it exists.” We just aren’t microscopic.
WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE!
The only way things are going to change is if all of the teachers (young and old) in this country is to start a revolution on education. We can sit here and complain or we can actually take action! We need to start electing officials who will progress education in the right direction and get rid of the ones who won’t. I also suggest that educators get together and storm their state capital buildings to demand a seat at the table when it comes to policy that affects their students and our ability to teach. We also need to march in Washington the way MLK did during the civil rights era. The time has come educators and parents. Lets make it happen!
That’s why there are unions. The unions organized the March on Washington in 1963, working with civil rights groups.
I understand that Dr.Ravitch, but a lot of the unions around the country are giving in to policies that are crippling our education system instead of saying “No, this is affecting teachers ability to teach”. The point I am trying to make is teachers needs to be more united if we are going to have any chance of preserving public education.
…and write, sing, listen to, and share protest songs created by teachers…
Like this one…
If the link doesn’t work do a youtube search for “Public School Fight Song (Indiana Version)”.
You can right click on it, copy the URL, and paste it in comments (such as this) emails, etc.
A national version is coming soon.
Not ONLY do they not love teachers, they have predicated their entire Privatization Agenda by urging adult resentment of school teachers whom they felt wronged them as children and who continue to view teachers as oppressing their children.
Imagine a teacher continuing to prod a student to do what they did not want to do; to try harder, to keep working; to behave; to understand what is best for the group is more important than what is best for the individual.
Unfortunately, parents have fallen for this and accept Charter schools strict behavior rules, which they sued public schools from enforcing. They do not question the fact that even though Charters get money from Public Schools AND Corporate Foundations, their children STILL do not have what any suburban public school child gets for Kindergarten on.
After a year and a half of dropping enrollment, my school is bursting at the seams from Charter rejects. Recently, a child from Nicaragua who lives on the same street as a Mastery Charter School was turned away because “they did not have room.” He was turned away from his neighborhood “public school” because he did not speak a word of English.
We get all the ELLs unless they put the Charter School on the map for outdoing the public school admits AFTER we teach them English.
Teachers… quit bitching about your jobs. You don’t hear everyone else bitch about theirs. You know what you are getting into when you start your schooling process. There are others who get paid less, have less time off, work at night, never see their families and don’t get insurance. Quit listening to the teacher’s unions, they are the one who really don’t respect you. Oh….and my sister has been a teacher for over 20 years. She totally agrees with me. She is NOT part of the teacher’s union.
You are out of touch. Why don’t you try teaching for a year or two? The people under attack are not “listening to the teachers’ unions.” Many of them are writing from states where the unions have been eliminated. You really should learn more about what is happening before you demean other people’s lives.
I realize it sounds as though we are grousing about our jobs. However, if you read my post closely you would see that my beef is with the political interference in doing my job by those who are businessmen and not teachers.
Your response illustrates my point of resentment of teachers by adults fueling this reform movement in a way I never could. For that, I thank you.
Wow! Are you seriously comparing yourselves to abused, beaten women? Let me guess…same people screaming and joking about binders! Teachers need to get over themselves. You get paid well for working 9 months a year. Every other profession is held accountable, but you feel you are exempt. We all had good teachers and we all had bad teachers…I am all for relieving teachers of their duties if they aren’t getting the job done. Seems to me that all the time you all spend whining would be better spent grading papers or putting together a study plan. If you aren’t happy with your job, find another one. Just understand most employees aren’t going to be receptive to your CONSTANT belly aching! Do you know why you aren’t shown respect? Because people are tired of you shoving your warped sense of importance down their throats! Hopefully all the angry middle aged teachers will find other jobs before they poison the minds of the young, positive teachers lining up to replace them. Again, shame on you for comparing yourselves to abused women. I am truly, Disgusted!
That you, Disgusted.
Thank YOU Disgusted for yet again proving my point. The success of the school reform movement is predicated on hatred of teachers and the mythology of a nine-month work year. This tommyrot is shoveled at people who have not been in a public school for years, if ever.
My suggestion is if none of you who do not want to visit an inner-city public school to see what is at stake, the most realistic fictional media depiction is Season Four of HBO’s series, “The Wire.” Check it out.
Again, my main beef is the comparison of your “plight” to that of beaten, abused women. How you got I hate teachers from that is beyond me. And your comment, “… is shoveled at people who have not been in a public school for years, if ever…” is offensive. My experience is that many teachers, i.e. liberals, are of the mind if someone doesn’t agree with them, they are either ignorant or uneducated. Your complaints are in the guise of caring about the children but it is really about teachers wanting to get their own way. I am no less disgusted and not the least bit impressed. Thank YOU for proving MY point. 😉
Dear Disgusted,
I take no offensive from things you said in the reply from you about my post.
That is because you did not address ANY issues I raised in my post.
The point about comparing teach to abused women was not mine, but “Students Last” editorial.
MY point was corporate education reformers have gained momentum in their profiteering by preying upon resentment of teachers by adults and escalating it.
Your comments and the person to whom I replied earlier ere certainly replete with negative vituperation and hate for teachers, or particularly in your case any one you might consider to be liberal, which in your estimation MUST include ALL teachers.
For the record, my comments were about real-life examples of children being turned away from “public charters”, while charters get undue praise about bettering traditional public schools. My comments were about political and business interference in education from those who were never in a classroom as a teacher and egged on by those who have not been inside a public school for years if ever.
If you would visit these places you would see people are interested in children. If we wanted everything our own way, we would not teach in school buildings where we have to use the same dirty bathrooms as our students, eat lunch in a classroom while mice run at your feet. The school budget for facilities and personnel gets cut because the district gives charters monies from our coffers, which they readily accept in addition to corporate sponsorship. The funding allotted for each students stays with the charter; even after other child may be sent back to public school, CHARTERS STILL keep the money, we get the rejected kid and no extra funds to school them.
Those are my points explained a bit more clearly.
“… we have to use the same dirty bathrooms as our students…” Well, we wouldn’t want that now would we? Done here
STILL with the hate. You just learned something that has been going on for years and years of which you had no idea about and you use it to imply that we are too good to use those bathrooms. Students bathrooms should be clean and teachers should have a space of their own.