Teachers Are Not Kryptonite!

Then they came for me, and there was no one left....

As a history teacher, I always try to tie in current news and/or specific historical events in relation to Rhode Island throughout my curriculum. Therefore, it is no surprise that in Stan Karp’s December 2010 presentation entitled Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What Can We Do About It?, my attention was initially drawn to his section referencing Central Falls:

A good example of how federal education policy has gone off the rails is last February. when the President and his Education Sec. Duncan hailed the firing of an entire staff of a high school in Central Falls, RI because it had low test scores. They said it was a “courageous” act that was “right for kids.” A model of “accountability” that the Administration wants to repeat in the thousands of schools over the next few years. (4)

Walking into the Teacher Rally- February 2010

Now, the Central Fall teachers rally occurred in February 2010- my first year as a public school teacher. I decided to go to the rally after receiving a notice in my school mailbox describing how teachers should be in support of one another. North Providence provided two school buses to transport us to and from the rally, due to the fact that there would simply not be enough room for private transportation. As I was gazing out the window of the bus, I noticed a small child running around with his small child friends in the streets of Central Falls. The young boy tripped and fell, scraping his knees. His small friends, about five total, circled around him to console and wipe away his tears. The first thought that popped into my head was, “Where are these children’s parents? Why are they playing in the streets? They can’t be any older than seven or eight and it’s 5:00pm in the middle of winter!” Upon arrival at Jenks Park, I noticed the hundreds of teachers, speakers, and news staff present. There were students who eloquently (and not so eloquently) provided testimony that their teachers pushed to help students succeed. The President, as Karp explained, forget to mention that “parents, students, and alumni loudly protested the plans to fire the whole staff.”(4)  Overall, it was a pretty powerful protest, and I am glad I attended. I have since been to one more rally (to support Providence teachers last year), and I intend on going to more. This is a brief 23 second clip of those who came to support teachers in Central Falls:

So, I found Karp to be absolutely right that the media solely focused on dropout rate and test scores. No one seemed to mention that “the school was the only high school in the poorest city in the state.” (4) This statement is even more profound to Rhode Islanders today due to the fact that Central Falls just recently declared bankruptcy. Besides Central Falls and its financial issues, look at the demographics of the city. As Karp stated, “65% of the students were English Language Learners” (4) which can also explain the gap in state testing scores. There is a great debate amongst professionals that these so-called “standardized tests” are created with a cultural bias. Think about it. If you live in Manhattan and there is a story that involves life on a farm, more than likely that child will have no frame of reference for the comprehension questions that follow. What if a six year old from Miami had to answer questions relating to the feelings in a blizzard, even though that child had never seen snow? (Let’s put it this way- my junior year of college, a transfer student from California told me the only thing he brought for the New England winter was a windbreaker! Here’s an interesting article from USA Today that focuses on how states try to tailor their tests to be culturally sensitive: Standardized Tests Take on Shades of Gray

Now Everyone's an Expert...

I also enjoyed how Karp presented the “now familiar buzzwords” like “charter schools, merit pay, and test-based accountability” (3) to express how every single person (except apparently teachers) are now an expert on public education. It’s kind of like how my students think that because they are awesome at the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops that they’ll make excellent military personnel. It’s absolutely frustrating hearing from the common public that teachers are overpaid babysitters who only work five days a week for six hours in a day (technically four if you include prep and duty) and enjoy the luxury of holidays and a summer vacation. What the public doesn’t understand is all the take home work (both mental and physical) that is a part of teaching. As I try to explain to my corporate friends, your job stays at your job. I take home papers, call parents, prepare lessons, research topics, and buy supplies for my in class activities. I use the book about ten times in a school year, which means the vast majority of my lessons are coming from supplementary resources. So, for those people who think teachers read the newspaper while the kids work out of a textbook are completely misinformed.

I found Karp’s presentation to be frustrating. I agreed with a lot of his points, which is probably why I was so agitated by everything. I hate the idea that the general public seems to believe that “public education is failing because of bad teachers and their unions and that charter schools are the solution.” (3) Are there bad public schools? Absolutely. Are there bad teachers? Of course. But I really enjoyed how Karp referred to the charter schools featured in the documentary as “highly selective, privately subsidized schools that have very little relevance for the public school system.” (10) He even further demonstrates his point by stating “it’s like looking for models of public housing by studying luxury condo developments.” (10) Obviously, when a school is able to hand pick students through a lottery system, require that parents have a committed involvement with their children, and class sizes average about 18 students per class, there is a very high chance that school would be successful. Something that I learned from Karp was that “only 17% of charter schools had better test scores than comparable public schools and more than twice as many did worse” (10) and “as many as one in four charter school teachers leave every year, about double the turnover rate in traditional public schools.” (11)

Another piece that also frustrated me was how Karp points out that people like Bill Gates are going around the country “proposing that schools save money by increasing class sizes, ending the practice of paying teachers for advanced degrees, closing and consolidating schools, and replacing live teachers with online computer programs.” (7) Hmmm… now, why on earth would a person like Bill Gates want to promote computer programs as educators?? Geeze… I bet it has nothing to do with personal gain and self-interest to benefit Microsoft Corporation…. It MUST be because this is what’s best for our children….

I Don't Mean to Be a Debbie Downer...

I apologize for my blog to sound so cynical and negative. Here is what you have to understand. I am in my third year teaching. I have NEVER seen the positive affection towards teachers. I am not able to reminisce with older colleagues who talk about teaching “back in the day” and how this used to be a respected profession. Thank goodness my administration and co-workers are supportive of each other because all I have witnessed is the general public bashing, berating, and blaming teachers for every problem in today’s society. Thank goodness for comic relief, right? Comedian Jon Stewart provides an amazing news segment called “Crisis in Dairyland” that focuses on teaching in America and how the general public is ignorant about life as a teacher. It’s definitely worth the watch!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-3-2011/crisis-in-the-dairyland---for-richer-and-poorer---teachers-and-wall-street?xrs=share_copy

I also wanted to look around the notwaitingforsuperman.org website for something positive about teachers. On the main page, I stumbled across this NY Times article: In Honor of Teachers which actually circulated through my school’s e-mail system. In summary, the author Charles Blow provides a personal account of how people should be “forever indebted” to the hard work and effort teachers provide. He discusses how he lived in tough areas with not a lot of family support and suffered from depression. However, it was his fourth-grade teacher named Mrs. Thomas who inspired and nurtured him to become the person he is today. This article is an example of what we need more of. We need more people to promote education, not vilify it. Sorry Waiting for Superman, but teachers are not Lex Luther. Teachers are not kryptonite.