Peter Greene was reading a sports column and saw a reference to the coach’s staff. This reference sent him on a flight of fancy: what if every teacher had a staff?
What if every teacher had a secretary, an assistant, her own copying machine?
He knows it’s a fantasy, but what if?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Jeez, I’d be happy with my own classroom.
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When I worked at the International School of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, there were three music teachers. We had an aide who worked full time. Her job was to assist us in any way that we needed.
The class sizes were 16 students. When over that, it was considered an overload.
Each music teacher had her own classroom. So did the art teachers, who also had an aide.
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I just spent 4 full days setting up my classroom. It is no less than moving an entire house. Books, supplies, desks, chairs, easels and other furniture all get moved around, re-organized, moved out, donated, or thrown out if they’re worn out. I have one container filled with science equipment that is too heavy to move and is staying put. Everything else I moved by myself. My feet are soaking in epsom salt as I type this.
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I had to do the same multiple times during my career. It is not an easy job, and I feel your pain. I sorted and boxed and unboxed everything myself. I also had to hunt for boxes from liquor stores as they were the sturdiest ones. At least the custodian actually moved the boxes and furniture to the new space on a dolly. Everything else was left to me during summer “vacation.”
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I bought a copy machine and kept it at home to copy material used in lessons in my classroom. I don’t remember when I bought my first copy machine but it had to be back in the 1980s or early 1990s.
The schools where I taught (1975-2005) had copy machines for teachers to use in a central location in the main office. But if you wanted to use one, you had to bring your own paper and arrive very early so you didn’t have to stand in line.
Then there’s the fact that they were always breaking down.
At the high school where I taught for the last 16 years of my teaching career, it was the school secretary who became a copy machine expert to help keep them running. I don’t know how she did it, but she was always sitting at her desk when I arrived even if I arrived at six in the morning and she was still there when I left sometimes as late as six in the afternoon. Every teacher knew who to go to for help if they had any problems in the copy machine room.
That school sectary and the one that replaced her after she retired had to be the most popular staff member on campus.
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There is no replacement for school support staff who keep the place running. From secretaries to custodians they made my life so much easier. That includes TAs as well, who were invaluable to the special ed teachers like me. Technology frequently just made it easier to transfer administrative tasks to the classroom teacher. Support personnel actually supported teaching staff.
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If teachers had staff, they could do their jobs better and more efficiently. They could just plan, teach and hand off prepared materials to staff to reproduce, collate and distribute. They could assess student work and return it after the staff tabulated those assessments. They could chat with parents after calls or emails were screened by staff and contact was established: Ms Ayala, Julia’s mother is on line one for you.
It would be a recognition of just how complex is life in a classroom. It would be revolutionary.
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I teach HS in an urban setting. I’ve had over 260 students come through my classroom. It’s 3 weeks into school and my rosters still change daily. I can’t even learn my kids’ names. Right now, I have 221 students….no assistant.
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Horrendous. Close to my own experience as well.
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For me, having come back to teaching from the corporate world, this was the major thing about it: it was overwhelming. There was NEVER REMOTELY ENOUGH TIME to do the job as it needed to be done. The demands on K-12 teachers are INSANE, much greater than were the demands upon me as an Executive VP of a large corporation where, yes, I had a secretary and a staff.
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