School House Crock
Have you heard about this, students walk out to protest teacher lay-offs?
Well, the same thing almost happened yesterday in St.Paul. My wife is a teacher in Saint Paul, at what’s known as a ‘high needs school’, and has been for the last two years. We found out a few weeks ago that due to decreased funding her position was cut.
Her students found out yesterday and they almost walked.
With my wife’s teaching skills and education she’ll most likely get a position at another school. Also, with a baby coming along I’m of the opinion she might want to take the next school year off. Though, I doubt she will. She really wants to teach.
So here’s my beef. My wife has a masters degree in Education, she also finished a second masters program in ELL (English Language Learners), she’s had great work reviews, currently is teacher of the month, if one of the few teachers I’ve heard of that actually want to work in a high needs school, and yet she’s being cut.
This just doesn’t seem like a smart move by the St.Paul school system.
Here we have a highly qualified teacher that is making a difference and yet she’s being let go.
So for you, dear readers, I have a loaded question.
What do you think is wrong with our Metro school systems?
Kudos to your wife for being a great teacher!!
What is wrong with our metro schools? Hmm, where do I start:
Adequate funding, more community support for schools, increased communication between schools and families, teaching all children to respect and work with various types of authority, teaching a sense of personal accountability. I think we also need more stringent standards, and kids need to spend more time in school than they currently do.
But really, the lasting change happens when we address our values as a society: knowledge instead of possessions, more community less self, generosity instead of ego.
What’s wrong with the school systems? This isn’t just a MN metro thing. Schools across the country aren’t able to keep up with expenses. Add to that the fact that extracurricular programs in some locations are demanded with little to no financial support from the parents involved. Where’s the money going to come from? Ask the community for a new tax/levy and roll the dice. I find it absurd that schools in MN are batting around the idea of a 4 day week.
4 days! Sure, you can have your Class AA championship hockey team and your band. We just need to cut 20 extra staff members to keep it running smoothly. I’m scared to see what our graduates are going to be like in 10 years. Way to compete in the global marketplace. The sad fact is that we need to pony up money as a community or drop some serious coin on an individual basis.
Throwing money at the problem only goes so far. I think awarding seniority over competence is a big problem. Especially in Minneapolis. New teachers are the first to get cut which does not lend itself to new teachers sticking to teaching and not switching fields.
Halfbaked – It seems to me like a lot of money already goes into the system and I have a ton of anecdotal stories where the certain metro school districts spend like there’s an oil well pumping in their gym.
Commandline – I spent a good part of the weekend away from the Internet gardening and thinking about this 4 day school week. I kind of like the idea if the school year was longer and summer vacation was only one month, but I know the costs of making a longer school year would be huge.
Yoshi – I totally agree on the money issue and I think I’ve heard the average length of teachering career in this state is something like 3 years; which I’d guess has something to do with changing careers.
I agree that the seniority system is messed up, but how can it be fixed? If we were to totally get rid of it,I get the feeling, then they’d start cutting teachers with seniority based on their salary alone.
When was the last time anyone has heard about big administration cuts?