Just received in the email an interesting commentary:
If you’ve been trying to talk politics with teachers lately, you know that many seemingly neutral statements have become political land mines.
In spite of a few divisive issues, however, teachers still share a lot of common ground that can lead to productive discussions.
Below you will find five statements almost all teachers agree with. They are also addressed in this 11-minute, TED-style talk about “The Myth of the Super Teacher.”
1. Teachers are human. Teacher time and energy are limited resources. We should act accordingly and make sure these resources are spent in the right places.
2. Teaching conditions matter. Teachers want to work under the conditions that allow us to give kids the best possible education.
3. New prescriptions introduce the risk of new side effects. There is lots of talk about problems with the “status quo” in education. For teachers, however, constant and sometimes chaotic change *is* part of the status quo. Teachers are wary of people claiming guaranteed fixes for hard-to-solve problems.
4. Teacher movies are less inspiring when the non-Hollywood, unscripted version is playing live in your classroom. This has always been true. Now, a new wave of education-related movies aims to purposely sway public opinion about complex education issues. This can explain why an innocent comment about a movie you enjoyed inspires a 40-minute rant from your teacher friends.
5. Being a teacher is hard. Being a new teacher is harder. Beginners have to lay the tracks as they drive the train, and they spend much of the year feeling like they’re about to crash. Unlike movie teachers, the real-world great teachers of the future know they’re not great yet. Unfortunately, many won’t stick around long enough to become great. Half of all teachers leave the profession by the end of their fifth year. Half of all inner-city teachers leave by the end of year three. Students at low-income schools are twice as likely to have a beginning teacher at the front of the classroom, which means our support of new teachers must be as practical and honest as possible.
Feel free to pass this along. For more information on teacher support and retention, visit www.seemeafterclass.net or contact me at the email address below.
Roxanna Elden, NBCT
Author
“See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
It’s official. We now know that school choice as a solution to our educational challenge is a complete failure.
We start with a school district with the twin circumstances of poverty and segregation, the main ingredients that create the breakdown of educational success. Then, rather than find an effective solution to resolve the education challenges, we give parents the opportunity to pull their children out of that school district. The end result, as we have seen, is that some of the students leave, those whose parents have the necessary resources. And when those students leave, the foundation allowance leaves with them. Funding declines.
Of course many students remain in the original school. But now those schools have lost the necessary finances to operate their schools effectively, let alone resolve the issue of educating students who live in the most difficult situation to succeed educationally. The students with the most resources are now gone; those with the least resources, the students facing the greatest challenges, remain. The money to lower class sizes, provide art, music, libraries and P.E. classes is now greatly diminished.
Now, instead of resolving the initial issues, the downhill trajectory steepens. More students leave. Test scores decline further. The cycle of failure steps up.
That is what using schools of choice as a solution has brought us.
It is a failure
Studies show us clearly the effective solutions: lower the class sizes, provide longer school days, longer school years, after school programs, and summer programs. Provide effective and comprehensive mentorship programs.
These are proven effective solutions. They are expensive, but our young people are worth it. Let’s use them.
And then, with “school choice,” and the funding challenges associated with it, make the conditions in the original school that much more difficult. In my school, a charter school has opened this year. My school didn’t lose nearly as many students as the district predicted, but we still are funded as if it did. The result? Cut programs and horrendous class sizes, which will just encourage more people to leave for the charter school.
But that’s the point. When enough students leave and the funding for the few remaining (and very likely the most needy of the original population) is so small that everyone agrees that the school needs to be closed, all you have left is the charters. If even half of the charters are for-profits, ALEC is half-way to its goal!
Finally, finally, finally a network/cable news show discussing the real issues in Chicago Public Schools, and education reform.
How Republicans are using the crisis of poverty… against Obama
Check out this show:
http://leanforward.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/16/13894420-how-republicans-are-using-the-crisis-of-poverty-against-obama?chromedomain=UpwithChrisHayes&lite
I made these into a photopost for easy sharing, here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=444555758920471&set=a.132992836743433.12039.132987906743926&type=1&theater
“Teachers are human” – clearly that is one of the problems. Teacherbots may be the solution http://goo.gl/0s9TQ #satire
Teacherbots are on the agenda already in virtual schools
Diane Ravitch
No one that I know of ever thought back and thanked the IBM computer for all their help adn guidance.
I so enjoyed the recommended video, Diane. I’ll never forget my first year. No, I’ll never forget Michael. I must have talked about Michael so much that when my cousin and his wife adopted a little boy they asked my mom, “Do you think Kathy will love him? We’ve named him Michael.”
That first year was something. But, with the support of my colleagues, I made it. However, there were a few times after that that I wondered if I would make it. Good support along the way sure did help. And so did the addition of humor! Made it all the way to retirement! I’ll never forget that first year of eager, busy little first graders and Michael!
Loved the video – honest and to the point and funny!!
Just started my 27th year, and every year may as well be a new year. I have the same fears and worried and problems. What I have figured out is that my life should have more time for the children I gave birth than the children I teach. I care deeply about my students, but in the end – it’s family first!