This is the End

I have come to the conclusion that it is now time to lay this blog to rest. I have not run out of potential topics, nor out of passion for the subject, but I think it is already time to move on. I spend my time on this blog reading articles and posting personal opinions and I feel it is time to do more. Instead of posting my opinions I will now dedicate my time to doing actual research into these problems and thinking of a way to fix them.
At the end of my previous blog I hit a brick wall. As I looked above my last sentence to my comment about everyone blaming someone else, I realized I was doing the same thing. I will be a teacher soon. I will be influencing our future through the young and moldable minds of our high school students and my time could definitely be spent in a more productive manner. As a teacher it is most certainly my responsibility to address these issues, and I feel like now is the time to start. I feel that this blog has accomplished what I set out for it to accomplish, but it is time o move on.
So I leave you now, with a question and a quote.
I began this blog, not to educate you about these issues, I am not expert, but to share my passion for the resolution of these issues with you. I do not expect you to go out and solve these problems on your own, I don't even expect to do that myself. But I encourage you, as well as myself, to not abandon these problems as someone else's shortcoming or mistakes but as a national problem that effects everyone. And I ask you to continue your search for a solution, in any way you can. Be it through your local school, your voting rights, your voice or your children. If we all stop waiting for someone else to solve the problem then maybe we can make a difference.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats

Cynical Schooling

I have been doing a lot of research on the difference between European schools and American schools, as well as Charter schools, Public schools and Private schools. Through this research I have come to a very obvious conclusion. The performance of each student and each school is directly related to both how the students and public view education and how difficult the school is to get in to.
Take higher education for example. You really don't see a lot of failure coming out of Harvard. Sure they may be the wealthy kids or the kids with the most advantages, but they have also had to work like mad to get into that school. They are more likely to outperform students attending community colleges because they worked harder to get there and know what is at stake. The same applies for their teachers. They have to be the authority on their subject to earn a spot teaching at an IVY league school. They aren't likely to go easy on their students because they know how hard their students have had to work to get where they are. I think the same applies to secondary schools. Education is compulsory, which means whether you want to go to school or not, you have to, and there are a lot of students in the public education system that do not want to go. When they do show up to school they often put in little effort and are not motivated. Teachers and school administrators have even resorted to bribing their students to come to school. These students don't see school as a privilege, as do some of our foreign counterparts. They see it as a chore to be suffered and escaped from as soon as possible. This is not a healthy view of education for anyone involved. If students don't appreciate their education than they are likely to get out of it exactly what they put in to it, which isn't much. The public's view of education is no better. In the news lately all you see about public school is how the system is failing our students. There isn't enough funding, the teachers are incompetent... it is always someone else's fault. You don't often see a flock of parents showing up to a failing school to help tutor failing students because they don't view it as their problem. It is their problem when the schools are not up to par, but it is not their problem to do something about it.
So I propose a change. A change in the way the public views education and the way students feel about school. I think maybe we should give up on compulsory education. If a student wants to drop out after the 8th grade, let them. Let them go out into the real world with no high school diploma and little in the way of life skills and have them fend for themselves. I am willing to bet that our test score will improve! Maybe we don't need to make it that extreme, maybe we just need to wake them up by creating a more competitive environment, again much the same as our foreign counterparts. Instead of funneling students into the same schools whether they want to be there or not, open vocational schools for students who simply wish to learn a trade, allow them to learn what they want and get out. So what if they lack experience all humanities and can't think critically and independently, at least our test scores will go up! And who cares if our democratic society is driven into the ground by an elitist model of education that only promotes free and independent thinking in the well educated of our society? It doesn't matter if students drop out because we will just be able to tell them how to think when election time rolls around, theres no need for them to develop their own opinions. Who needs equality in education when its only bringing us down? Right?

I thought so.

Publicly Private

In the news lately, one of the hottest education related topics has been the School Voucher program. This program gives students in Florida who are attending failing public schools the ability and monetary support needed to transfer schools. The schools that they are transferring into are not only other public schools, as you may expect, but to private and charter schools that are unregulated and unsupported by our public school education budget. This budget is explicitly outlined in our state constitution and it specifically states that these tax dollars are required to go to public school education, not private schools. Private schools are unregulated by anyone but those people in charge of them, which has created some unique problems in the education system. One of these problems is a school known as InterAmerican Christian Academy. This academy hands out diplomas after just 8 days of enrollment, for only $399. The transcripts from these easy-to-come-by diplomas are actually legitimate and are earning some students admittance into local colleges. While $399 may seem like a steal compared to the average $7,000 per pupil expense of public school, we have no way of monitoring what, if anything, the students receiving these bogus degrees are learning. As a private school, it is free from government control, but is it still free from government funding?

That is where the problem arises. Even if private schools are better in the long run for our students, can we really ignore our constitution and allow students to transfer to a non-regulated private school at the expense of our tax payers? Even if that expense is roughly half what it costs to educate them through our public schools? I am on the fence, as I suspect most people are. If it is what is best for my child I am likely going to be in support of this idea, regardless of the constitution. It is, however, a valid argument to say that it is not our responsibility, as tax payers, to support the education of students who do not wish to attend public schools. The problem with this argument and with our constitution is that this creates a loose monopoly on education. Not in the sense that there are no other options, because there clearly are, but because as a tax payer you are forced to pay property taxes that support local government funded public schools, regardless of your child’s attendance. This is how our public education system gets funded, if not for these property taxes, we would not have the ability to fund these public schools.

So the question remains, can we, the state of Florida, afford to support those students who do not wish to attend our public schools at the expense of those public schools? I think the answer is no. I am in full support of private schools, and have often considered the idea that maybe all schools should be privatized, but this voucher program is hurting more than it is helping. It strips funding from our already struggling public schools and hands that money to private schools that may or may not be for profit. As I stated above, I am open to the idea of privatizing education (which I will explain in a later post), but at the expense of the tax payers, it just can’t happen.

Apples Aren't Everything

Teacher. This word gets thrown around a lot, especially when it comes to the government budget. Students, parents, fellow employees, everyone has an idea about what it means to be a teacher, what they should teach and how they should act, but what about teachers? Where do they feel that they fit in the grand scheme of life? The answer varies. There is no one correct answer to these questions because they are first and foremost, imperfect, diverse, opinionated humans. 

In the news lately teachers have been a hot topic. Their budget, their skill, their responsibilities, their behavior, everything about them is up for discussion, but those who matter most are not invited to speak. No one asks the teachers how they think we could improve the school system. They ask politicians, the public and 'professionals'. But who could possibly understand school better than those who teach it? 

A recent article from TBO shows just how these teachers feel about the changes being made to their career. They are angry, depressed and lost. Some teachers are being forced into retirement while others are being forced to switch schools, grade levels and even careers due to layoffs and district shuffling. These teachers are fighting these changes because they have grown attached to their schools and to their students. For a teacher, being moved to a new school is like being moved to a new family. Its as if they are a foster child being shipped to another foster parent because there just wasn't room for them at home. And the students don't like it any more than the teachers do. They too grow attached and long for that connection to remain the same. For instance, when I was in kindergarten my teacher got pregnant and had to go on maternity leave half way through the school year. We had another teacher, just as qualified and just as nice, come into our classroom as soon as she was gone, but the students, including myself, were never comfortable with the change. I cried and moped and my friends talked throughout the new lessons and learning took a back seat to discussions of our former teacher. We missed her and there was no replacing her. This same thing happens to students every year when teachers get shuffled from school to school. It may be difficult to understand from the perspective of a parent or governor, but a teacher remaining where they are comfortable really makes a difference in the classroom. They work more with other teachers in the school, which has been shown to aid in student learning, they are more social, which makes them more likable to the students, and they are happier. All of these things come in to play during the school year and when teachers are constantly being uprooted due to budget issues, everyone suffers. 

Teacher is not an easy word to define, because teachers are humans. They have emotions and opinions whether that is convenient or not. They like being rooted in their preferred school and having at least some job security. They may not all deserve it, they aren't perfect, but I think teacher preferences should be taken into account when it comes to transfers. I may not be an expert but having spent time on both sides of the desk, I can safely say that this really matters and will make a difference in the classroom and in education. 

Pointing to the Problem

This blog originally started as a place to address problems in the school system in Florida, but this particular post is going to be much more broad in it's scope. I read an article this week about public school education in America, and it wasn't a glowing review. It ripped everything from the funding to the teachers, unions were targeted and so were government policies. Everything was fair game. But there was nothing fair about the way it pointed fingers. In my personal opinion, the problem with our education system is that no one knows what the problem is! Everyone has their opinion and everyone loves to conduct research but what  purpose does it really serve? With all of the 'too much funding/lack of funding' arguments and nail biting decisions about how many teachers we need, no one really looks at what is wrong. We look at Europe and see that we are falling behind but everyone is so busy accusing others of failing that the problem never gets solved. 

There are so many weak links in this chain. Teachers, for example, aren't as highly trained as they could be, likely do to low standards and high college tuition costs. Students are also not spending as much time studying as they could, again due to low standards, mediocre teachers, lack of school choice and a host of other problems. The government monopoly on schools is also a problem. They control what and how our students learn, but who is to say that they are the experts? Most of the people making decisions have never taught a day in their lives and likely attended private school, which is not government run. Parents also present a problem. They don't spend time teaching their children morals, which then need to be covered in schools, which they complain about and blame the teachers for their children's shortcomings. If a student rips off his shirt in class and dances around I would be more likely to blame his parents than his teacher. Parents also have no choice as to which public school their child attends, which circles back to the monopoly issue.

My point is, there is no one solution to our problem. There is a series of issues that are keeping everyone tied up in a vicious cycle of failure and finger pointing. I am not saying that I have all the answers, but I would very much appreciate it if everyone would just take a look at what they could do better, rather than what someone else is not doing for them.qwerki-tm.blogspot.com

Juicing the Turnips

It has been a hot topic in my household as of late, with both my fiancee and I becoming teachers in just one short year, we've been paying close attention to the educational budget cuts going on in the state. I've been hearing about it from all sorts of different media, the television, news papers and even the radio, and as bad as they make it seem, I still wasn't prepared for the numbers crunch when I checked out the facts for myself. 

One of Rick Scott's campaign strategies, like most politicians, was to express the desire to protect education while still managing to cut the state wide spending budget. In this respect I say that as our governor, he has failed miserably. His plans for cutting back our budget fall largely on those employees and our students.

One of his recent propositions, another of his campaign strategies, was to reduce property taxes. This reduction in property taxes will equate to approximately $44.72 per average homeowner according to an article by Dara Kam in the Palm Beach Post. This sounds like a decent plan, a small help but  help nonetheless to those paying taxes on their homes, but consider where this cut will come from when the new school year begins. This $44.72 per household cut will be made up by cutting $2,335 per year from the average teacher's salary. A beginning teacher makes roughly $40,000 a year as it is.

But the fun doesn't stop there. 

Another solution, applicable to county employees and school district personnel as well as teachers, would be for them to start contributing to their retirement. This would be another 5% pay cut in teacher salary each year, bringing it down a whopping 10%.

Also take into consideration that our teachers, our school systems, are ranked 7th in the nation, an A-, on the 2008 Quality Counts report from EdWeek Magazine. This same report, from 2008, also gave us an F on our school spending. Teachers are doing their jobs, they just aren't being recognized for it.

This is a bleak outlook from where I stand as a future teacher. Most teachers have not received a pay raise in over 3 years and they have been stripped of their tenure, which was the only job security they had; their pay is now going to be based on how well their students perform, though as you read in my previous blog there seems to be no funding for that endeavor, and now they must take a 10% pay cut to support a homeowners tax cut, which will be of largest benefit to the wealthy. 

Desperation is eking into our school system. In some counties schools are pooling their resources to support ESE students, which also means they are pooling their ESE students which works against inclusion. For most schools it is now cheaper to pay the fine for being over the class size limit than to try to fit inside it's strict boundaries, not for lack of trying, but for lack of funding. THey have discussed cutting arts and sports from schools as well to make up the deficit, which would further promote the dropout rate in my opinion because we already know that compulsory education isn't all that popular with struggling students, so taking away their one enjoyment from school would only seal the deal. 

There are a multitude of other places that the government could be cutting from, their spending for one, is ludicrous. We've all seen what they eat for lunch on our tax dollars. Prisons will soon be receiving more funding than our school system, which gives you an idea as to where they think we're headed. 

As I said in my very first post, I am not a politician, nor do I pretend to be an expert in this area, but as a future teacher and a future parent, I think I would choose the future of our children and the support of our teachers over cheesecake and inmates.

Apology Dejected

I've spent a few days mulling over my previous post about how and why I decided to become a teacher and I am becoming more and more convinced that I have made a horrible mistake. So I would like to apologize in advance to my children and my future husband. From before the beginning of my first year of teaching they will become my unwilling guinea pigs and my moving assistants. They will be roped into moving desks and decorating classrooms, sharing their mother with hundreds of other children and spending an absurd amount of time with me during the summer. They will also likely spend those summers assisting me in the development of my tests and their weeknights grading papers. They will have to quickly come to terms with my habit of using classroom management strategies to handle family arguments, which may or may not lead to me developing a bathroom pass system to hunt down the member responsible for leaving the toilet seat up. 

gonzalolira.blogspot.com

And it will be a stressful time in our family when FCAT rolls around and my children have to go shopping for wigs with me, as I will likely have pulled out all of my hair. I haven't even graduated or thought of children yet and I already feel the need to begin sending apologies to my un-conceived fetuses. I am sure I will drag home germs and stories of awful children whose parents were less than invested and take out my frustrations on my children by trying to make them everything my students are not. I will need to apologize for seeking reports of their behavior from my teacher friends and motoring their grades like they're valuable stocks. I'll be able to stalk them in the hallway and practice my lesson plans on them at home. We can play all of my clever jeopardy test reviews at home during family game night, to make sure they're in proper working order and eat lunch together in the cafeteria. My husband can practice Shakespeare with me while the children do their homework and help me develop discussion questions during Monday Night Football. There are so many possibilities and opportunities for family/career crossover! So maybe they won't always fully appreciate tripping over term papers stacked by the door or my constant correction of their grammar, but I think I've really got something. I thought this was a horrible mistake but on second thought, I think I've stumbled on the perfect career for a family woman, even if its not so perfect for the woman's family.