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NC Teacher: “I Quit”

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2012 //
893

A letter from a disgusted teacher:

I QUIT

Kris L. Nielsen
Monroe, NC 28110

Union County Public Schools
Human Resources Department
400 North Church Street
Monroe, NC 28112

October 25, 2012

To All it May Concern:

I’m doing something I thought I would never do—something that will make me a statistic and a caricature of the times. Some will support me, some will shake their heads and smirk condescendingly—and others will try to convince me that I’m part of the problem. Perhaps they’re right, but I don’t think so. All I know is that I’ve hit a wall, and in order to preserve my sanity, my family, and the forward movement of our lives, I have no other choice.

Before I go too much into my choice, I must say that I have the advantages and disadvantages of differentiated experience under my belt. I have seen the other side, where the grass was greener, and I unknowingly jumped the fence to where the foliage is either so tangled and dense that I can’t make sense of it, or the grass is wilted and dying (with no true custodian of its health). Are you lost? I’m talking about public K-12 education in North Carolina. I’m talking about my history as a successful teacher and leader in two states before moving here out of desperation.

In New Mexico, I led a team of underpaid teachers who were passionate about their jobs and who did amazing things. We were happy because our students were well-behaved, our community was supportive, and our jobs afforded us the luxuries of time, respect, and visionary leadership. Our district was huge, but we got things done because we were a team. I moved to Oregon because I was offered a fantastic job with a higher salary, a great math program, and superior benefits for my family. Again, I was given the autonomy I dreamed of, and I used it to find new and risky ways to introduce technology into the math curriculum. My peers looked forward to learning from me, the community gave me a lot of money to get my projects off the ground, and my students were amazing.

Then, the bottom fell out. I don’t know who to blame for the budget crisis in Oregon, but I know it decimated the educational coffers. I lost my job only due to my lack of seniority. I was devastated. My students and their parents were angry and sad. I told myself I would hang in there, find a temporary job, and wait for the recall. Neither the temporary job nor the recall happened. I tried very hard to keep my family in Oregon—applying for jobs in every district, college, private school, and even Toys R Us. Nothing happened after over 300 applications and 2 interviews.

The Internet told me that the West Coast was not hiring teachers anymore, but the East Coast was the go-to place. Charlotte, North Carolina couldn’t keep up with the demand! I applied with three schools, got three phone interviews, and was even hired over the phone. My very supportive and adventurous family and I packed quickly and moved across the country, just so I could keep teaching.

I had come from two very successful and fun teaching jobs to a new state where everything was different. During my orientation, I noticed immediately that these people weren’t happy to see us; they were much more interested in making sure we knew their rules. It was a one-hour lecture about what happens when teachers mess up. I had a bad feeling about teaching here from the start; but, we were here and we had to make the best of it.

Union County seemed to be the answer to all of my problems. The rumors and the press made it sound like UCPS was the place to be progressive, risky, and happy. So I transferred from CMS to UCPS. They made me feel more welcome, but it was still a mistake to come here.

Let me cut to the chase: I quit. I am resigning my position as a teacher in the state of North Carolina—permanently. I am quitting without notice (taking advantage of the “at will” employment policies of this state). I am quitting without remorse and without second thoughts. I quit. I quit. I quit!

Why?

Because…

I refuse to be led by a top-down hierarchy that is completely detached from the classrooms for which it is supposed to be responsible.

I will not spend another day under the expectations that I prepare every student for the increasing numbers of meaningless tests.

I refuse to be an unpaid administrator of field tests that take advantage of children for the sake of profit.

I will not spend another day wishing I had some time to plan my fantastic lessons because administration comes up with new and inventive ways to steal that time, under the guise of PLC meetings or whatever. I’ve seen successful PLC development. It doesn’t look like this.

I will not spend another day wondering what menial, administrative task I will hear that I forgot to do next. I’m far enough behind in my own work.

I will not spend another day wondering how I can have classes that are full inclusion, and where 50% of my students have IEPs, yet I’m given no support.

I will not spend another day in a district where my coworkers are both on autopilot and in survival mode. Misery loves company, but I will not be that company.

I refuse to subject students to every ridiculous standardized test that the state and/or district thinks is important. I refuse to have my higher-level and deep thinking lessons disrupted by meaningless assessments (like the EXPLORE test) that do little more than increase stress among children and teachers, and attempt to guide young adolescents into narrow choices.

I totally object and refuse to have my performance as an educator rely on “Standard 6.” It is unfair, biased, and does not reflect anything about the teaching practices of proven educators.

I refuse to hear again that it’s more important that I serve as a test administrator than a leader of my peers.

I refuse to watch my students being treated like prisoners. There are other ways. It’s a shame that we don’t have the vision to seek out those alternatives.

I refuse to watch my coworkers being treated like untrustworthy slackers through the overbearing policies of this state, although they are the hardest working and most overloaded people I know.

I refuse to watch my family struggle financially as I work in a job to which I have invested 6 long years of my life in preparation. I have a graduate degree and a track record of strong success, yet I’m paid less than many two-year degree holders. And forget benefits—they are effectively nonexistent for teachers in North Carolina.

I refuse to watch my district’s leadership tell us about the bad news and horrific changes coming towards us, then watch them shrug incompetently, and then tell us to work harder.

I refuse to listen to our highly regarded superintendent telling us that the charter school movement is at our doorstep (with a soon-to-be-elected governor in full support) and tell us not to worry about it, because we are applying for a grant from Race to the Top. There is no consistency here; there is no leadership here.

I refuse to watch my students slouch under the weight of a system that expects them to perform well on EOG tests, which do not measure their abilities other than memorization and application and therefore do not measure their readiness for the next grade level—much less life, career, or college.

I’m tired of watching my students produce amazing things, which show their true understanding of 21st century skills, only to see their looks of disappointment when they don’t meet the arbitrary expectations of low-level state and district tests that do not assess their skills.

I refuse to hear any more about how important it is to differentiate our instruction as we prepare our kids for tests that are anything but differentiated. This negates our hard work and makes us look bad.

I am tired of hearing about the miracles my peers are expected to perform, and watching the districts do next to nothing to support or develop them. I haven’t seen real professional development in either district since I got here. The development sessions I have seen are sloppy, shallow, and have no real means of evaluation or accountability.

I’m tired of my increasing and troublesome physical symptoms that come from all this frustration, stress, and sadness.

Finally, I’m tired of watching parents being tricked into believing that their children are being prepared for the complex world ahead, especially since their children’s teachers are being cowed into meeting expectations and standards that are not conducive to their children’s futures.

I’m truly angry that parents put so much stress, fear, and anticipation into their kids’ heads in preparation for the EOG tests and the new MSLs—neither of which are consequential to their future needs. As a parent of a high school student in Union County, I’m dismayed at the education that my child receives, as her teachers frantically prepare her for more tests. My toddler will not attend a North Carolina public school. I will do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.

I quit because I’m tired being part of the problem. It’s killing me and it’s not doing anyone else any good. Farewell.

CC: Dr. Mary Ellis

Dr. June Atkinson

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Teacher: How the DC Public Schools Ruined My Career

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2012 //
12

As a former DCPS teacher from 2008-2012, this system stressed me out so much so that now I’m on 6 different medications. Teaching is the least respected profession in this country, which is sad considering teachers go to college to earn a degree to teach, pay this high price tuition, get a teaching position, deal with the day to day issues with students, raise other peoples children, pull money out of our pockets for supplies, trips, food, absorb their problems, deal with an administration that says things like “you teachers ain’t s#%t”, and the likes of all I just stated. And yes, someone of position told me and another teacher to our face that “you teachers ain’t !@#$. The way I see it, the school system overall is doomed to fail….is that what the people up top want? I think so. Some things are set up to fail and unfortunately teachers are too. I was set up.

Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Is Tom Luna the Worst State Superintendent? CORRECTION!

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2012 //
37

If we had a race for the worst state superintendent in the nation, there would be many contenders. One thinks immediately, for example, of Tony Bennett in Indiana or John White in Louisiana.

By worst, I mean someone who has done his best to destroy public education–which is a sacred trust in the hands of the chief state school officer–and to demoralize the teachers who do the daily work of teaching the kids.

One of the top contenders for that odious distinction is Tom Luna of Idaho. Idaho is a small state and it doesn’t usually get a lot of national attention, but Luna has thrust it into the forefront of the national movement to privatize public education.

He was elected with the help of contributions from technology companies. A brilliant investigative report in the Idaho-Stateman last year documented how he raised campaign contributions from the education technology industry and became their darling.

Not being an original thinker, he called his program “Students Come First,” like Joel Klein’s “Children First” and Michelle Rhee’s “Students First.”

Despite a shrinking budget, he bought a laptop for every student and mandated that every student had to take two online courses in order to graduate. A token of appreciation to all those corporations that helped pay for Mr. Luna’s election.

He led a campaign to eliminate collective bargaining and often refers to union members as “thugs.” His reforms, known as the Luna laws, impose merit pay, which has never worked anywhere. He does whatever he can think of to demoralize the teachers of Idaho.

Is he the worst in the nation? There are many other contenders. It’s a close call.

His proposals are up for a vote this year. We will see if the people of Idaho are ready to outsource their children and public schools to for-profit corporations.

[CORRECTION: LUNA IS NOT UP FOR RE-ELECTION UNTIL 2014; HIS PROPOSALS–KNOWN AS THE “STUDENTS COME FIRST” LAWS or PROPS 1, 2, 3–ARE ON THE BALLOT NOVEMBER 6].

A reader in Idaho sent the following information:

An interesting development in Idaho politics is that not a single Democrat supports the “Students Come First” bills, or Props 1,2,3 as they are now commonly referred to, but nearly every Republican does support them, even though many Republican voters don’t. A recent poll was taken that shows props 1,2,3 losing support among voters, the real question is whether that will lead to more Democratic legislators (85/105 Idaho legislators are Republicans). Another interesting development is that the “Vote yes” folks only raised less than half of what the “Vote no” folks did ($500,000 vs $1.3 million), and I’m not really sure why. I think part of it might be that the state is trying to pay very little for the laptops (I think we’re looking for laptops and maintenance for $309/unit) and no company has taken that, and I also think the state is trying to pay half the normal rate for online courses, so for-profit education has held off on contributions.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, For-Profit, Idaho, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers

Why Won’t the Reformers Let Us Teach?

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2012 //
20

An English teacher in Rhode Island writes:

I’m a great teacher. I’m waiting for the opportunity, at the ripe old age of 49, to switch careers. My heart is broken. I am deluged with PLC’s, SLO’s, dog and pony lesson plans that go nowhere, and impossible observations that require me to make my students lie through their teeth. I’m tired of the “idiocracy” that states things like “the SAT is an achievement test” and that “all children can learn” without providing qualifiers and quantifiers. I am waiting for the hammer to fall when I get caught not teaching the new Common Core Curriculum because I’m ignoring it and teaching to the curriculum I created that works VERY well. If I have to learn one new acronym I’m going to eat a bullet. Rhode Island is being run into the ground by a Broad Academy robot. Teachers in my district are running scared, the administrators are capos, the union has been neutered, and the school board couldn’t find it’s hiney with a flashlight. All of this “educational reform” is just making us chase our tails; it’s not letting us teach.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

What “Reform” Is Doing to Teachers

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2012 //
11

A teacher reflects on how teachers are perceived, how little support they get, and how teaching has changed:

Being in the teaching profession, most of the public generally hates you because they ‘see’ you with the summer off and a pension, which most of us hope will be intact by the time we get there. If summers off were only true. During the summer is when most of your planning and professional growth goes on…’behind the scenes.’

I went into this profession because of kids and making an impact in their lives. Believe me it wasn’t for the money and it wasn’t for the summers off. If money was my primary motivator, I certainly wouldn’t have went into education. I would have went into the private sector with a car and expense account.

I have been in education now for thirteen years. When I look back over my career, I am saddened by how much it has changed. It has gone from keeping kids after school for projects, helping kids during lunch, talking with kids through problems and challenges they are facing. Basically, genuinely caring about the child as ‘whole’ person. It has gone from parents standing behind the teacher and enforcing what the teacher taught at home. To teachers having to answer and explain their every move – grading, discipline, etc.

How things have changed. Society has changed, and I am afraid to say, not for the better. I had the pleasure of working with a man for a few years before the end of his career. I looked up to him and had great respect for him for who he was, who he is, how he taught, and what he stood for. My last year working with him I remember discussing a tough school issue. Our discussion ended in him telling me that I will be saying ‘these were the good old days.’ I never thought that that statement would ring true, but it does.

Our greatest resource is our children. It doesn’t take being in education to know that. New York State is no longer holding children as our primary focus. New York State is holding greed as the number one goal. It is insulting and degrading what they are attempting to do to the public school systems. It is tragic. This state can not blame everything on education, but that is exactly what the media is doing. If we had to play the blame game, I would blame state testing. Kids hate the tests, and so do the teachers. It has taken the ‘real’ learning out of school and made learning into a ‘teach to the test nightmare.’

I am good at what I do. I love what I teach. I have motivated and inspired many students and parents. I have battled my share too, for the child. My job’s dynamics have changed drastically over the years. To say I work hard would be a gross understatement. I work hard every single day. I take work home nightly and work extensively on weekends to catch up and work ahead. My ‘growth score’ from the 2012 NYS ELA is ‘developing.’ It is insulting to say the least for many different reasons. One thing is for sure, I will not apologize for how my students perform on a three day exam. My students work hard and do their best.

In China, the people respect doctors, lawyers and teachers. The parents stand behind the school and enforce education at home. Take a close look at how their society runs. In America, the people respect rock stars and professional athletes. The parents fight the teachers tooth and nail. The system fights the teacher tooth and nail.
Take a close look at how our society is currently functioning?

Public education is not to blame for the budget issues this country faces. It never was and never will be. However, public education is the scapegoat.

I suggest all of the ‘professionals’ designing this APPR for our country come on into the classrooms and teach for a year to see what it is like.

Also, I would like some facts from NYS: how much did testing cost NYS last year – isn’t it to the tune of $385 million dollars? If we follow the money of Pearson, policy makers, and charter schools, what would we find at the end of the road? I would like to see the policy makers salary too. I know it is greater than mine at $57,000. I know it is greater than my brother in law’s who has been education for close to 26 years making $90,000. People in the private sector after 26 years are making well above $90,000 a year. Believe me.

Public education and school taxes are an easy target to get people fired up about because school taxes are one of the only things they have the control to vote on. So what a great way to get people enraged.

I wonder what validity is this APPR? What is the purpose? I wonder, if I ran my classroom the way the state is running the schools what that would look like?

“Thank you for coming to your child’s conference Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Your child’s average is a 73% in ELA. Why? Well, I can’t really tell you that. I do not grade papers for parents to see. I have my own formula that is a secret. You will just have to trust me. Your child is below average. What can you do to help? Oh, I can’t really tell you that because it is a moving target.”

As Troy Aikman said at last week’s tragic football game due to poor referee calling, “This is a joke.” I agree, this APPR scam is a complete joke. Even though APPR is out to destroy the unions and the public school system, the true tragedy at the end of the day is the children and our society loses at the end.

The state’s agenda is to conquer and divide the unions and public education for nothing more than their own greed. Bring it. Get the attorneys in place. When it is uncovered and exposed to the true agenda, and it will be, these policy makers may need to leave this country.

Widen your lense to see the big picture. We will not let our children and this country suffer. Game on.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

“I Am a Teacher. Let Me Teach.”

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2012 //
46

Matthew Swope has been teaching physics for ten years. He is a STEM teacher, the kind that every district wants. Before becoming a teacher, he was a Marine, then a police officer. He took a big pay cut to become a teacher. He loves teaching.

Read his words of wisdom:

I am a teacher. Year 10. High school physics. I am a professional educator in a field that demands professional credentials, continuing education, skill and knowledge based licensing exams and background checks including fingerprints so I am deemed responsible enough and safe enough to work with children. I’m a mandated reporter of physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse.

There, now I’ve established my bona fides and authority to speak knowledgeably on the subject.

Oh, wait, I have to knock out the ones who claim I’ve only ever taught. I served in and was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps. I then spent six years carrying a badge and a gun and worked a beat as a police officer in a city of 180+ thousand people. I’ve done other things than teach.

When I was a cop, if crime went up on my beat they didn’t blame me for not working hard enough. They brought in additional officers to beef up the presence and manpower. They did dispassionate studies of data to identify problems, communicated the results to me, and let me help decide how to address them. They swarmed identified problems with social assistance and community programs, assigned undercover officers to work from the inside, provided more funding for Women’s Protective Services and Children’s Protective Services, brought in the narcotics and gang task forces to assist, assigned volunteers from the DA’s office and City Council to spend weeks riding around with me as observers so they could see what I was up against, and provided me with medical aid and psychological care (mandated after certain stressful incidents like shootings) and never, ever, accused me of not working hard enough or being a good enough cop. Instead, they identified poverty, drugs, poor or absent parenting, and legitimate mental illnesses and disabilities as the root of the problem.

I was provided the proper equipment to do my job and it was regularly serviced and updated. I was provided continuing training in the mental and physical duties of my job.

I got tired of seeing kids as victims or criminals and went back to a school to try and help them from the other side of life. I became a teacher. I took a $24k per year pay cut for this privilege. I saddled myself with 20 years of student loans. I spend in excess of $1000 a year of my own money to provide equipment and student supplies so I can do my job effectively. I take every student in my class, whether it was the year I am doing inclusion teaching or the year I have the AP kids. I turn none away nor should I. As an American citizen, It’s my task and privilege to educate everyone who comes through my school’s door. I make progress with every student but that progress cannot always be measured by a standardized test. I feed some of my kids. I’ve bought them clothing. I’ve visited them in juvie, hospitals, hospices and at the graveside. I’ve been praised, cussed, disrespected, honored and ignored by parents and administration.

I lead my department, my campus academic competition team and my students. I follow my principal and superintendent. I’m responsive to parents.

I love kids and teaching.

I’m tired. I am not respected. I am underpaid.

I am not responsible for what happens outside of my 45 minutes a day with your child. I only accept that responsibility for my own two children.

Please help me do my job for your child and community. Stop demonizing me, my profession, and my fellow teachers. See through the deceptive manipulation of the reform movement and high stakes standardized testing. Don’t buy into the propaganda about teachers unions and how evil they are. Don’t listen to political hacks like Rhee who are only in it for the opportunities to gut the profession and privatize it for the wealthy to plunder profits from.

Let me teach. Allow fellow professionals and administrators to evaluate me fairly and help me if I don’t meet expectations. Listen to me when I speak for I am a professional and I am in it to do the best job possible with the kids I am given.

Help me. I want to help you.

Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

A Powerful, Important Letter to President Obama

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2012 //
25

This letter was written by an early childhood educator. It expresses succinctly what many readers of this blog believe to be true:

Dear President Obama,

Please wake up and see that the education policies your administration is promoting are decimating our public schools, harming our children, demoralizing our teachers, and threatening the future of our democracy. Worst of all, your policies are promoting inequities in our education system and diminishing the opportunity every child in the nation should have for an excellent education

Your mandate for more charter schools is fast creating a three-tiered education system in our country. Children of the wealthy and privileged such as your daughters attend elite private or public schools. Children of less affluent families who are relatively able students with better informed parents increasingly find their way to charter schools, many of which have access to private funding and greater resources. But the third tier is left for the majority of poor or working-class children who must attend underfunded, under resourced, mostly inner-city public schools.

I am an early childhood educator and I can say with certainty that your policies are impacting the early childhood field in many negative ways, but that the greatest harm is falling on our nation’s poorest children. They are getting the worst of test-based, restrictive, standardized, rote instruction, while children in more affluent communities continue to benefit from more play and activity-based curriculum. More often the teachers in lower income communities have less training and are therefore more dependent on the standardized tests and scripted curricula that are a result of your misguided policies.

Standardized tests of any type don’t have a place in early childhood. Children develop at individual rates, learn in unique ways, and come from a wide variety of cultural and language backgrounds. It’s not possible to mandate what any young child will understand at any particular time.

Early childhood teachers are leaving the field in great numbers. They can’t teach using their professional expertise and many detest having to follow prescribed curriculum that they don’t agree with. As one teacher said recently, “I see kids with eyes glazed who are simply overwhelmed by being constantly asked to perform tasks they are not yet ready to do. I finally had to leave my classroom and retire early.” (www.deyproject.org).

Please look closely at how your education policies are impacting children, especially our youngest and poorest children. Your focus on competition and market-driven reforms is resulting in greater inequities in our education system and an undermining of our public schools. A vibrant, flourishing public education system is the cornerstone of our democracy. Please be willing to re-examine and reverse the direction of your approach to education. Please don’t be the President who abandoned our nation’s children and our public education system.

Respectfully,

Nancy Carlsson-Paige

Professor Emerita
Lesley University
Cambridge, MA

Categories Charter Schools, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Obama, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

How to Widen the Achievement Gaps

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2012 //
8

A teacher knows how the achievement gap grows:

My wife and I are both elementary teachers in the same district but at completely different schools. She teaches at a school with over 80% free and reduced lunch whereas my school has 7%. When I ask her about the policies in her school versus the policies we have in my school IN THE SAME SCHOOL DISTRICT, it led me to this conclusion: rich kids get taught, poor kids get tested.

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Corporatization of Public Education?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
26

An interesting article at open.salon.com speculates about the current drive to privatize American public education.

Inevitably, the author makes the US/Finland comparison. What is missing? He or she never mentions that Finland does not have any standardized testing. Not until students apply to college (which is tuition-free, by the way).

Teachers are respected not only because it is tough to become a teacher–the selection process is rigorous–but because they have wide discretion to exercise their professional judgment once they become a teacher. No one gives them a script. They write their own tests.

There is no value-added assessment, no merit pay, no charters, no vouchers.

And very few children or families are poor.

What can we learn from Finland?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, International, Poverty, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Should Students Rate Teachers?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
36

Larry Ferlazzo reports on an interesting exchange about student ratings of teachers. Amanda Ripley, who is a cheerleader for corporate reform, loves the idea of trusting students to tell us which teachers are great and which stink.

Felix Salmon points out where she is wrong.

The Gates Foundation loves the idea of student surveys, of course, and several districts are already using them.

I personally have a lot of trouble with the idea of asking students to rate their teachers. It’s bad enough that teachers’ careers now hinge on their students’ test scores, but now they will be asked to win popularity contests. I don’t see this as a way to improve teaching but as a way to compel teachers to pander to students, to assign less homework, to inflate grades, and to seek student approval.

Why are so many people messing up teachers’ ability to teach?

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Students, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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