Kris Neilsen is the teacher who wrote the post explaining why he quit in North Carolina. His post went viral.
He has posted several comments on the blog. Here is one of them:
Victims are the ones who stay, play by the crushing rules, and churn out students who are good at passing tests.
I am not that. I am an activist. I got the attention of the leadership in my state, and I plan to engage them over and over, with the support of parents and teachers, until they start to listen.
Considering the outpouring of support and stories I’ve received, NC has been lying dormant under bad policies for years. People are looking for a better way, but don’t know how to get there.
I’m not their savior, but I hope my choice opens up the dialogue to move us out of this mess.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I teach here in NC, and it is a disaster. I taught here in the 70s and 80s full time. I took some time off to stay home with my own children for a while. Taught part-time here and there, taught in a private school for six years, and then returned to full-time teaching in NC. The demands of the job are a nightmare compared to 25 years ago. NC will never have to worry about funding retirement for the next generation of teachers because only a tiny fraction will ever be able to stay or want to tough it out until they are 60. People are leaving right and left to become administrators to get out of the classroom, which creates another huge set of problems because admins are coming to the job with less than ten years teaching experience. They don’t have a clue about how to run a school. Moreover, we have an entire generation of students who have been raised to have no sense of curiosity, no ability to think or reason, and who only want to know “the right answer.” They want high grades but don’t want to earn them and will cheat at the drop of a hat. They can’t discuss ideas because they haven’t been exposed to any of them–it’s like they live their lives in a bubble. We also now have a generation of young teachers who don’t know their subject matter, who plagiarize ideas from colleagues, and don’t know how to develop their own lesson plans. Public education in NC is the Titanic. It’s sinking, and I don’t think it can be saved. However, more money will be thrown at it, which will keep the bureaucrats busy and plenty of administrative positions funded, a self-perpetuating system that will never actually reform where it counts.
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This is not exclusive to one geographic location. It is universal and at best is only an emergent issue in some places, but it bubbling and will become more obvious as we move forward. I am leaving at the end of this year, because there is little support from the employer and from the teacher’s association. What was joyful and creative aspect of my life has changed and I need to leave.
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Reality is there are many of us including me who’d walk away tomorrow if we could pick up the slack financially. The machinations in play now are so well funded and have so many aces up their sleeves when it comes to politicians who want in on the fun of ruining public schools and trashing teacher unions that I would not hesitate. It’s going to be important too to keep track of them when their school of cards comes crashing down and the public wants accountability. Sadly though it will be just like the Wall St fiasco, the public will get a bill and the Rhees and Johnsons, Canadas and Kleins and Moskowitlesses will all recede into the shadows with the millions they’ve stolen. No charges will be filed and nobody will go to jail except a lot of the kids who got screwed out of a fair chance of an education.
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Last two sentences so, so true! Well stated!
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Sean,
Wise words.
There is a sunk cost bias that will be very difficult to counter.
We need parents to boycott high stakes tests. The politicians will follow the wisdom of the moment.
Good luck Sean,
G
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Some people don’t have the option to just quit and risk having their licenses suspended or revoked because they didn’t give notice. Some people actually have to earn a living and don’t have the luxury of a second income stream.
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Can you believe how this field of women has abdicated its responsibility to so many children, handed over its profession to so many ‘renta-a-principals’ with no vision.
Initially,I thought letter was from one of the few alpha women is this passive field… Sure enough, written by a man. As an ex-female-marine, I am sickened daily! I should quit myself, but as u know, the kids need us, especially those of us who shut our doors and teach….
You should start your own “share your horror story” blog…
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Dee, I feel angry about the passivity too. This sort of thing never happens to police and fire. Teaching is always a gender issue–always. Here in Rhode Island, we took a beating on our pension. Quess who didn’t? Judges, State police, correctional officers. Gender inequality all the way. The GA was afraid of them. Whose afraid of women who won’t say boo, and are perpetually making nice.
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I quit my first teaching job over 30 years ago. I hated where I worked and was too young and naive to know better.
After a recession and ten years doing other things, including going back to school a couple times, I got back into teaching.
Then, another recession hit, and I lost my job.
My next teaching job started out well, then went sour. At first, I thought, “I need to stay here for the kids.” Then, I realized I wasn’t doing them any good since my administrator was hostile.
I took another teaching job in the same district. It was a night and day difference and things went very well, until an administrator came along who thought she was God and didn’t like it when I told her she wasn’t.
That brought me to a new district. After trying a couple things, I landed in an awesome position.
It’s hard. It takes a lot of work, but the support is great and the rewards are awesome.
The lesson from this story: rather than “quit,” it is better to leave. Leave a place that does not value you. Find a place that does. If teaching is your calling, you will return to it. Perhaps you are in educational hell. This is not a permanent state. Other places exist. Find one that works for you.
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Kris, there are a lot of us behind you. The only way to change the attack against public schools and their teachers and staff is to take a stand. We must support a revolt against collusive unions and the privatization of public education. Strike—nationwide. Or get out of your current position and do something else and stop the pity parties and the he said, she said, look at this, or look at that. It’s happening, this takeover of public education, so teachers, staff, and parents must all lend a hand. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that, like most group think situations, most teachers will go along holding onto some delusion that it will get better somehow. It’s not going to get better without standing up to our attackers. Not without a fight. Is the disappearance of bargaining rights, the freedom to teach without teaching to unreliable tests, the flood of value added measures due to the destruction of public education by profiteers not enough to get teachers up in arms? Don’t wait for your unions to fight for you. For those who remain within the tsunami of harm coming to our children in public eduction, I wish you well. But please, no complaints. I applaud you, Kris.
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I’ve seen successful PLC development. It doesn’t look like this.
Does Iredell-Statesville get it right? Are Union and Mecklenberg Counties paying attention to the success story to their north? How does NCEA promote sharing good examples?
From Iredell Statesville: “Professional Learning Communities provide classroom teachers with face-to-face and virtual opportunities to improve student learning and share best practices across grade levels and departments. Instructional Facilitators support these communities by providing ongoing professional development through coaching, modeling, and mentoring.”
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That sounds good. PLCs should not be micromanaged by mandate. When teachers feel forced to do certain things on the watch of overzealous administrators, that’s when we feel used. PLCs are a great idea, I just don’t think the DuFours had overbearing mandates in mind when they designed the concept.
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Actually, if I remember correctly the DuFours wrote in the first book to not use the PLC time as they are currently being used, micromanaged, for attempting to raise test scores, etc. . . . It was supposed to be totally teacher driven with each individual group determining what they wanted to focus on. I believe they changed their tune in later books (helps sell more books to the powers that be).
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While it’s tough for many to take the stand Kris did due to financial reasons, he should not be criticized for doing so. But the teachers that do stay should be activists. The sad reality is they are not. Instead they are turning into lambs headed for the slaughter. And the thing is, with all these artificial evaluations, they may well be fired at a time they need the money most. The enemy is silence.
I really had hoped after Chicago, teachers would rally. Instead they retreated. Look what’s happening in Newark. Will they turn down that hideous new contract that has nothing to do with “professionalism” and everything to do with turning them into test prep facilitators? There is really no “peer” review despite the union’s effort to sell it as such. There are times you just cannot vote your pocketbook and give in to reformers.
So to all the teachers, and I know plenty of them, who remain silent….SHAME ON YOU!!!
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Agree. Some of us have been challenging this crap for many years, enough so that we have been forced out of jobs with all the ensuing headaches that entails. Still beat my head against the wall though-I’ve learned to like the headaches.
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This blog seems to have attracted many negative people over the past few days. Where did all these “Suck it up, get a real job” people come from?
Michelle: is that you?
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Kris, your letter was so compelling, so complete. I am sure you could had gone on and on with stories and details to support your decision, and I wanted to hear more. The background you gave and statements you made moved me. I hope you will push forward with your story because it is not unique to NC. This “reform” has infiltrated to the point I don’t think you can escape it anywhere (except maybe private school, homeschool). I am a mother of three, and I want my kids to attend their neighborhood schools. We haven’t bailed, but I wonder at what cost. My middle school son said recently that “the school board just needs to start over on education.” He knows we have gone far off track. The pervasiveness makes it hard to fight…thank you for contributing your voice to the voices of reason. We first have to speak for a chance to be heard. Continue to be a voice for teachers.
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I really found Kris’s letter to be compelling and damning. I am so tired of the rhetoric I’m hearing at endless Common Core meetings. One minute, I’m told that I’m doing a great job and was basically already using CC anyway…the next minute I’m told to re-examine why I even got into teaching…then I’m told that I have a moral imperative to do what I’m doing. Really? So what’s the answer here? I teach in NC and I have a supportive and flexible administration. I’m lucky. But it doesn’t save me from all the pointless conversations about NOTHING that happen at each district meeting, and the resulting feelings of demoralization afterwards. So many times I feel that I cannot win, cannot be successful and cannot educate my students in a way that is ethical and authentic. I feel that the system has already ruined them before they get to me. I am underpaid, overworked and not respected by society. Teachers get lip service–that’s all. Kris had the guts and ability to not only follow his own authentic path and get out of teaching, but to blow the lid off of WHY he left teaching. I think that takes real courage. It is very easy for some (and they have already started it) to criticize, accuse a person of giving up etc. There comes a time when you have to decide whether you are more a part of the problem or the solution. That time came for Kris and my time will come too.
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You have my support. As a mother of a middle schooler, high schooler and college student I can tell you that this whole “teach to test” just does not work. I have a right out of high school kid who is being told his ‘scores’ aren’t good enough to get him into college level math classes. He just left High School…how is that possible? He passed all his courses with good grades. Now we get the privilege of paying for him to take remedial math classes that won’t count toward his GPA and put him behind in his plan to graduate. What happened to TEACHING …not the memorization and teaching standardized test strategies.
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Thank you for your support and kind words. I have a lot of fight in me, and I am taking it to the leadership. My next step is a request: please get involved. Not just teachers, but parents! As one supporter recently told me, governments and administrators don’t listen to teachers–they see them as whiners. But governments and administrators do listen to parents–especially when they speak en masse!
Please read my latest http://mgmfocus.com/2012/10/30/parents-you-are-the-power/ and spread the word!
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When people ask me what I want to be when I grow up; I tell them, “I’d like to be to the education industry what Ralph Nader was to safety in the automotive industry. I would be happy just to be able to meet that type of person who could do that task. I have been a teacher off and on since 1977. I do not think that any school system that is based on Administrators and Teachers working on different levels will ever work. We must work together and not against one another. Our job seems to be even tougher today because so many parents are like children raising children. Perhaps we need to start parenting classes to teach parents how to be on the same page as teachers. There is such great potential for us to educate our children. The problem seems to be that we are unable to solve the problems and provide appropriate accommodations for every child who requires additional help.
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Horray for Kris! Please ask Kris to join saveourschoolsmarch.org North Carolina needs an information coordinator
Jane Watson WA State Information Coordinator SOS1evergreen@hotmail.com “Not everything that can be counted, counts; and not everything that counts, can be counted.” Albert Einstein
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:19:09 +0000 To: sos1evergreen@hotmail.com
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