[ExI] education

[William Flynn Wallace]

Education:  no politician would say that it is anything but #1 on their
agenda.  But what are the facts?    For a long time teaching was done by
women, often single, and were underpaid by any standard.  Has that
changed?  Read the following, from Quora (I did not try to validate the
statistics - 100K, Spike?).

Right now, 65% of new teachers will quit the profession within their first
5 years. Five years ago that figure was 50%. Over the past 5 years at my
high school, we have had to replace 20% of the teachers each year. This is
due to new teachers quitting, older teachers retiring, and middle-aged
teachers taking early retirement and doing something else. A few teachers
were assaulted so badly by students they had to take medical retirement
because they suffered permanent injuries and can no longer carry out the
duties of a teacher.

If I am lucky, I get a 3 or 4 week summer break. I am expected to do all
sorts of training over summer that I do not get paid for. The district will
pay for me to attend the training but not pay my wages to go to the
training. I have to engage in continuing education to renew my credential
every 5 years. It is my district that signs off on the form that is
submitted to the state to renew my credential. So if I do not do enough of
these summer institutes, I do not get to renew my credential.

This past summer, I could not attend any training because I helped my son
move out of state to take a job and I was building on an addition to my
house. So I have to make up those hours taking night classes. I am doing 12
to 16 hour days and I still have to do all the lesson planning, grading,
and attend all the meetings I normally do. I have over 40 students with
IEPs and 504 plans so I have to attend those meetings and meet with those
parents when they wish. My district also requires I fill out paperwork on
all of those students to ensure we are following the legal requirements.

After school today, I was called to the office because one student in a
class is being bullied by two other students in the same class. I spent an
hour dealing with that. I get to spend another two hours tomorrow in a
conflict mediation meeting tomorrow with parents after school which means I
have to cancel a doctor’s appointment, I have no choice but to cancel this
appointment. The next slot is in two months for this specialist.

My son also has an advanced degree in science like I do and he earns more
than I do with his first job and he has much better health benefits than I
do. I have to pay $1,000 a month for my health insurance, the district only
pays $200 a month. If I were to quit my teaching job right now and go work
for the company my son works for as a lab tech, I would actually get a pay
raise and move to a part of the country where the cost of living is much
lower.

I could go back to the career I had before teaching and after brushing up I
would earn two to three times what I do now.

In CA, there is a shortage of over 100,000 science teachers. Graduates with
science degrees will earn more than twice the money in private industry
than teaching. Twenty or thirty years ago that was not the case.

Well over half of my students are failing because they will not even pick
up a pencil and try. They only play games on their cell phones. I am
discouraged from confiscating them because if I ask for them the students
refuse to hand them over. I then have to write a referral and security
removes them from class. An administrator then confiscates the phone and
sends the student to in-school suspension for that day and the next day.
Parents come in and blame the teacher or the school for the policy. So I
let the students have their phones and my policy is if your phone is out
and you do not finish the assignment by the end of the period, you get a 0
and no opportunity to make it up. The students that are failing are good
with it. They tell me they do not need school. They plan to live on welfare
like their parents or they can make more money selling drugs so they do not
need school.

The past few years, I have not been doing much teaching. That is why this
is my last year. I am tired of parents coming in and telling me they can do
a better job. I took a parent up on the offer and after 5 minutes the
parent left in tears. The students ran her out with their profanity and
complete lack of respect.

I am tired of being assaulted by parents. I am tired of administrators
telling me I have to do more to get students to pass. I am tired of every
time I turn my back being hit with things that are thrown at me. When I do
catch the person doing the throwing, the admin does absolutely nothing. I
am tired of having student fights in my room and having to wait 10 or more
minutes for admin to respond and then the students are returned the next
day because admin does not want to suspend them. We are being told by the
state we have to lower the number of suspensions and if we do not, we will
lose money.

I cannot be part of a dysfunctional education system. There are still parts
in this country where education still works. I have a friend that moved to
a place and teaches at a place that does not have these problems. I plan to
do the same next year. The upside is I will also get a pay raise because
there are still a few places left in this country that are willing to pay
teachers more. It is not much more but enough to make me feel that my
skills as a teacher are appreciated. I did not become a teacher to get
rich. I did it to help students but I need to earn a decent salary. Where I
am right now, I have not had a pay raise in over 10 years. Ten years ago we
took a 10% pay cut to help the district balance the budget. Now that the
economy is better and the state has provided them more money for COLA they
have raised the salaries of the administration by over 30% but they claim
they have no money to replace the money they took in the pay cut. I am
tired of the phrase it is for the children meaning that teachers are
supposed to work harder, longer, with less, and for less and do major
miracles with student success when we cannot even get students to pick up a
pencil and try. The ones that want to do school cannot because the ones
that do not want to do school make it impossible.
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