This is what you have done to the teaching profession.
You have made teaching a denigrated “job” that will now attract only people who cannot get a job doing anything else, really.
You wanted mindless automatons? Well, that’s what you and I and our children will be getting.
You want to compare yourselves to Finland?! At least there the teaching profession is admired and a position as a teacher is sought after.
From “Teacher Magazine”:
Dora
Teachers Wonder: How Much More Can We Take?
By John Norton
During a recent chat in the Teacher Leaders Network daily online discussion group, it became apparent that many established, expert teachers who once planned to teach well into their 60s are now rethinking that decision. While some of these frustrated teachers work in challenging urban environments, others teach in suburban and rural schools, in many subjects and grades.
As one teacher after another described working conditions they say are taking the joy out of a profession they care about deeply, a kind of virtual gloom descended on the conversation. “I can hardly stand to read this thread,” wrote one high school English teacher. “It sounds so familiar. And I am only 55. Wondering how much more I can take.” Other teachers noted that some younger colleagues are also expressing career doubts amid budget cuts, growing class sizes, and increasingly oppressive directives from above.
One theme that recurred again and again is expressed in this comment by an award-winning National Board certified teacher working in an urban middle school:
“I believe a lot of teachers have had enough and are ready to retire, and many will. There aren’t enough young people willing to come into teaching, and those who do are statistically unlikely to stay. I fear for the future of our profession and for our children for generations to come. Who will teach them?”
Here are some other brief excerpts from this lengthy, still-continuing dialogue.
Linda launched the discussion:
I came to teaching as a second profession when I was in my 30s. I knew right away it was where I was supposed to be, and I don’t regret it for a moment. Even last year, I said I would teach until I was 65 or until they had to remind me where my classroom was as I toddled along with my walker. Retirement was the furthest thing from my mind.
But around the end of last school year, things started to look different. I work in an urban school system in the Southeast. In nearly every district teacher gathering I’ve been part of this fall, I have heard many highly accomplished, experienced teachers saying the same thing: They were checking into the state retirement website to see if/when they are eligible to retire (in spite of their long-standing plan to work for years longer).
My district has had massive teacher layoffs the past two years, with resulting increased class sizes. Layoffs were not based on seniority, degrees or accomplishments, but solely on student test scores and teacher evaluations. Furthermore, the district is proceeding with a pay-for-performance plan, which will go into effect at the latest in 2014. It is not following any kind of best practices research in its structure. Pay would be dependent solely on teacher “effectiveness,” which every indication suggests will be based primarily on test scores.
I know that all of this is causing our most experienced, most accomplished, most prepared teachers to rethink their plans for work versus retirement. I also know that absenteeism among teachers is on the rise. At my high-needs schools, most of our teachers are very young, and I am the only nationally certified teacher. We have already had seven teachers resign since school started in August.
I’ve never before questioned my commitment to teaching the way I am now, and I have never felt so discouraged about the profession in general or the future of my school district or the welfare of and opportunities for our students. I’m not really ready to stop working, but I’m starting to think I’ve lost heart for teaching. I don’t know if I can get it back.
A teacher in California replied:
There are two issues this raises. One is very personal and has to do with your own life path. The other is bigger, which is about why it is that so many experienced teachers are getting ready to throw in the towel much earlier than planned. This will have a lot of repercussions down the line, and I think it could be generations before our schools recover what they are about to lose.
I am getting ready to “retire” from my school district as well, although I will only be 53 years old next June. I have had enough, and I am ready for a change. I am not really sure what will come. But I am ready for a new chapter in my life.
A Michigan teacher offered her bottom line:
I’ve never thought about retiring. It is so far off my radar, I have never even looked at how much money my plan will give me or the requirements to set the process in place. I’ve always said I would teach until it isn’t fun anymore. To me, that’s the bottom line. Each of us has to decide in our own heart whether we still love being there or not.
Linda replied:
That’s what I said, too. That I would teach until it was no longer fun. I think what I am feeling is somewhat beyond just being tired because it’s November (or name whatever month you’d like). This is a more serious discontent, exhaustion and frustration than I usually feel. And I’m just not alone in this feeling.
I am concerned about what comes after us, and I would like to help the next generation of teachers. I just don’t know who that generation will be if things continue as they are now.
A rural teacher in the Deep South wrote:
I am dismayed that so many great veteran teachers are feeling the need to either retire altogether or leave the classroom. I can’t remember when teacher morale has been as low as it is now around our state. Teachers are not just November-tired; they are tired of being harassed and unsupported. They are tired of watching their students suffer and having their hands tied when it comes to teaching ethically.
A teacher at a large suburban high school wrote:
Linda, I’m sad that teachers are being treated so poorly in your district. It’s probably not comforting to hear that what you’re experiencing is happening all over the country, but please know that you are not alone. Morale in my district is lower than a frog’s belly on mowing day, and I teach in what’s considered to be a really good system. Like you and others here, I do wonder what is going to happen to public education in this country. I feel that there is a storm building. I just hope that when it breaks, someone will FINALLY listen and “get it.”
A teacher in Los Angeles wrote:
Unfortunately, Linda, I think a lot of what has you discouraged to this point is happening all around the country. Today we got yet another letter from our union asking us to support our classified employees, as the district is apparently ready to cut even deeper. Our classrooms are filthy, and there’s been a huge upswing in fights on campus; I’m sure it’s because supervision is now almost non-existent. Education truly seems on the edge of disaster.
A 30-year veteran with Teacher of the Year honors wrote to Linda:
I’m feeling so very sad for you and for your school because it’s such a loss of energy and commitment when teachers such as yourself are worn down and boxed in until they lose their joy in their work.
Like you, I am beginning to wonder how long I will last. I’d planned on teaching at least until I was 65. Now I’m wondering if I’ll make it two more years. It’s not the kids. The demographics of our neighborhood have become more challenging, but that’s okay. Kids are kids; And these kids need someone to care about them, invest in them, and challenge them. But it’s the micromanagement, the factory-laborer mindset, the constant push to do one more duty, attend one more meeting, and follow one more prescriptive plan that is weighing me down and wearing me out.
And at the risk of sounding egotistical and maybe paranoid, I sense that rather than viewing my above-average amount of experience as a teacher leader as an asset to be utilized, my district level administrators seem to perceive it as a problem to be contained. As I watch gifted warhorse educators that I’ve worked with for over 20 years begin to buckle and the five-to ten-year teachers declare “Not for another 20 years, no way!” and walk out the door, I am deeply concerned about the fate of our profession, our kids, and therefore, the fate of our nation.
A high school science teacher, who retired reluctantly last year, wrote:
I’ve found a part-time teaching job at a small university that allows me to still work with students. As I talk with my friends working now in the public schools, they echo what many here are saying: new directives daily, the expectation that teachers will cover classes during their “planning periods,” more duties, larger classes, lack of respect and appreciation from administrators, and more. Realizing that they are coming to hate what they’re experiencing and seeing the stress on their faces makes me far more content with not being there.
Linda concluded:
I’m going back and forth between being relieved that I am not alone and being disheartened that so many other teacher leaders in my age range are experiencing the nearly identical feelings and questionings that I am.
I never wanted to leave this profession feeling so beat down and so concerned about the future of public schools. I believe we are facing a crisis in public education, but not the one the media or the national policymakers are claiming. In a short time, there will be very few experienced teachers, and new teachers will leave at an even higher rate than they currently are. Talk about low teacher effectiveness.
Isn’t it ironic and sad that the most effective teachers (and I am not talking test scores here, I am talking about teachers who foster a love of learning and a joy in discovery and being curious) are the ones being pushed out? I’m worn out, and that is the bottom line.
And while on the subject of teachers and teaching, here is a poignant post from a devoted teacher.
180 Days A Year
In a recent online discussion about the teaching profession, a blogger I respect made what I thought to be a snide comment about the easy life of teachers, and how “they only work 180 days a year, after all,” amidst concerns over teacher pay and standards.
Here’s what I spent most of a sunny fall Sunday doing:
- Created a Powerpoint introducing the idea of the pastoral in literature, to begin my seniors’ unit on Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, which involved fresh research on my part.
- Created a Powerpoint on the eight techniques of characterization, for use in same unit.
- Wrote up three documents describing the major assignments of the unit, which have percolated in my mind for a few weeks until I could shape them more carefully on paper, and uploading these documents to my website.
- Mapped out my senior class until the beginning of December, including uploading information to my course website calendar.
- Reread a Pushkin story, Queen of Spades that I’ll be assigning next in that elective.
- Emailed with a colleague about best teaching practices for Beloved, which she is about to teach for the first time. I met this colleague during a workshop I attended last summer.
- Emailed with ninth-grade students about homework, grades, and organization questions while I checked their online notebooks.
- Graded fifteen creative pieces for my seniors.
- Graded forty analytical paragraphs on themes of envy and revenge in the Bible for my ninth-graders.
- Finished final drafts for three college recommendations, with three left to finish this week.
Do I spend every Sunday this way? No, but I have spent untold weekend days this way since I started this job, and untold evening hours doing similar work. My school days are chock full with parent conferences, teaching classes, faculty meetings, department meetings, student conferences, my club responsibilities, and other school obligations, so I often need to spend a full day or block of evening hours attending to important business I can’t get done during the day.
And I consider myself, in many ways, lucky to have done so. Lucky that I have a smaller teaching load and class sizes with more free periods than many of my peers, lucky that I don’t need to work a second job on the weekends, as many teachers do, lucky to have a supportive spouse who can take my kids to lunch and pick them up from a sleepover while I work. I’m lucky to have found my vocation, and lucky to be in a workplace that values me as a person and professional colleague and gives me safe working conditions, with dedicated students who have access to technology and other resources and privileges. Many of my colleagues in the teaching profession don’t have what I have, and are still doing fantastic jobs against high odds.
If we really wonder why the best and brightest don’t go into teaching, one of my many answers would have to be because most of the country doesn’t seem to understand or value what my colleagues and I do, or just how many hours and days a year we spend trying to do it better.
And one more from Gates. Videotaping teachers while they work. 1984 anyone?
From the New York Times
Teacher Ratings Get New Look, Pushed by a Rich Watcher
Update: December 7, 2010
From Schools Matter by Stephen Krashen
I Vote No on VOTE (Videotaped Observations for Teacher Evaluation)
The New York Times recently ran two articles on videotaped observations for
teacher evaluation. One of the articles reported that Bill Gates has invested
$335 million on research to evaluate this approach (“Teacher Ratings Get New
Look, Pushed by a Rich Watcher,” Dec. 3).
Research uses a bogus measure
The goal of the Gates-funded research is to find correlations between teaching
practices observed on the videotapes and achievement. Achievement will be
measured by the use of value-added scores, gains on standardized tests. The use
of value-added scores has already been thoroughly criticized as being unstable
and invalid as a measure of teaching effectiveness. The Times did not mention
the controversy surrounding the use of value-added ratings, sending the
incorrect message that the use of this method is perfectly fine.
The expense: If they are “validated,” the use of videotaped observations by
school districts promises to be extremely expensive. The estimated cost,
according to a private company quoted in the Times, is about one million dollars
per year ($1.5 million start-up, $800,000 per year) for a district with 140
schools and 7000 teachers. Extrapolated to the entire country, using a
conservative estimate of 10,000 districts in the US, this amounts to about ten
billion dollars. (Assuming $150 per teacher, and about 40 million teachers in
the US, the estimate is six billion dollars per year.) Paying this much money
to private companies for cameras, software, etc, makes no sense at a time when
school districts are suffering huge financial problems.
Unnecessary: Despite constant claims in the media, there is no evidence that
there is a serious crisis in teacher quality in the United States. When we
control for poverty, American students score at the top of the world on
international tests. This means there is no serious problem in teacher quality,
teacher education or teacher evaluation.
Conclusion: Videotaped observations for teacher evaluation (VOTE?) is another red herring, a distraction from the real problem. The real problem is poverty, and the real solution is protecting children from the effects of poverty.
Spending an extra six to ten billion per year on nutrition, health care, and
school libraries makes more sense than spending it on video-taping teachers.
I vote no on VOTE.
Sources:
Value-added measures: Sass, T. 2008. The stability of value-added measures of
teacher quality and implications for teacher compensation policy. Washington
DC: CALDER. (National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Educational
Research.); Kane, T. and Staiger, D. 2009. Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student
Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation. NBER Working Paper No. 14607
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14607;Papay, J. 2010. Different tests, different
answers: The stability of teacher value-added estimates across outcome measures.
American Educational Research Journal 47,2.
When we control for poverty:Bracey, G. (2009). Education Hell: Rhetoric versus
reality. Alexandria, VA: Educational Research Service; Payne, K. and Biddle, B.
1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement.
Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13.
Nutrition, health care:Berliner, D. 2006. Our impoverished view of research.
Teachers College Review 108 (6): 949-995; Coles, G. 2008/2009. Hunger, academic
success, and the hard bigotry of indifference. Rethinking Schools 23, 2.
School libraries: Krashen, S. 2004. The Power of Reading. Heinemann Publishers
and Libraries Unlimited.
Ryan,
Also check out a post on Schools Matter about VOTE.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/i-vote-no-on-vote-videotaped.html
Dora
Ryan,
What is it about the evaluation process that you are a part of that doesn’t work for you?
Is it the principal? Is it on what a teachers is judged on?
Gates, by the way, only puts his money into something that he thinks will have the outcome that he desires.
His money has always come with strings attached, at least in education.
His thing right now are charter schools staffed by non-union teachers who are not educated in the field of child development or education, teaching a standardized curriculum where the success of the teacher is measured by multiple choice questions. The answers can be read by a computer and then a new plan developed, by the computer, based on those test results that the “teacher” can then follow.
Does this sound like something that you would want to do? And then on top of that, they get videotaped to make sure that they are doing everything according to the plan?!
And how can I say this? Because our Broad trained supe has developed this “curriculum alignment” for all of the schools and programs, no matter what they are, and we have now spent a lot of money on “coaches” who go around the schools to make sure that all of the teachers in all of the schools are on the same page.
Sound like 1984 to you? It sure does to me.
But then, why spend the money on “human capitol”, as the ed reformers like to describe teachers and staff, when a cheap-o video camera can do the work instead?
That’s where I see this whole thing going.
I teach children also. Would I feel comfortable turning on a camera to “watch” my every move? No. I would prefer that someone come in, sit down, even participate if they want to, then let’s have a chat about how things went. I would feel quite comfortable with this observer talking to the students and parents to get a real sense of how I am doing. And actually on an informal basis that is what happens. I am not a full time teacher within SPS but teach through various schools’ enrichment programs and have a studio where I offer classes.
I don’t need and no one else feels a desire to videotape me. It is all informal but I am constantly being evaluated by parents and that’s fine with me.
Check out yet another “innovative idea” on teaching.
Dora
Thank you for your clarification Ryan, it’s okay to disagree.
It is not okay to dominate school boards and shut down discussion and discourse, which is what is happening in Seattle.
It is becoming a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of place that is being directed by non-educators.
And it’s a bummer.
Well I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m trying to make a specific point about how the idea of reforming teacher evaluation isn’t the worst idea in the world and that videotaping has the potential to be an effective tool in this process. I say this as someone who a.) has found little value in the system that my district has in place and b.) knows teachers who have been unfairly targeted and evaluated by a principal.
A few points:
Worried Teacher: You write that “the premise for all that you mention here is based on slippery sloped assumptions (that the main problem in public education is bad teachers and a broken evaluation system)”. I strongly disagree: for one, that isn’t the assumption I’m basing my argument on. It is certainly a problem with the education reform movement in general. However, I am speaking from the perspective I mention above of an evaluation system that doesn’t work for those of us currently in it. I don’t see reforming the evaluation system as a panacea for anything – simply one way to improve the experience of being a teacher (especially if teachers have a hand in creating the system and we throw reforming administrator evaluation into the mix).
Second, I don’t see how that (“the main problem in public education is bad teachers and a broken evaluation system”) is a slippery slope assumption. It is wrong, but it isn’t a slippery slope – at least not from what I can see. Perhaps if you can explain how it fits into a slippery slope argument on the part of the reformers I’ll better understand your point.
And I’m pretty up-to-date on the Seattle situation even though I work in a neighboring district. I work with several colleagues from Seattle through the Teacher Leaders Network, read these blogs on a daily basis, and do things like watch the video of the latest Seattle School Board meeting regarding TFA. So I understand the frustration. However, I would argue that much of what you mention isn’t actually relevant to this discussion of whether or not video taping can be a part of teacher evaluation.
Kristina:
Much as I mention with Worried Teacher, above, you seem to be bringing up a lot of issues – almost all of which I agree with you on. Teachers are not the problem. I’m not talking about eliminating the middle class. I’m an active member in my union and have no desire to destroy it. I do, however, have a desire to reform our evaluation system so that it works better for teachers AND builds confidence in teachers as a profession. I think that is doable, and I believe there are some smart people involved with the MET Project working on the issue. On these points you may disagree with me, but I wanted to make it clear I’m not speaking up for broader education reform movement as you describe it.
Sincerely,
Ryan
I am with Dora and worried teacher on this Ryan.
Whoever came out and said that we (teachers) are the problem??
This is a myth that is becoming epic.
Check surveys of parents– at least ALL of the ones from my area show parents are saying that the school system needs improving, but they LOVE their own school and believe their own children’s teachers are doing a good job.
If all you ever hear in the media and from our president (?!?) that schools are bad, then that is what you know– BUT you perceive it as someone else’s problem– because your personal experience is good.
This doesn’t mean that all teachers are perfect. NO ONE is!
There are lawyers, bankers (many who have been bailed out imho) and doctors that also aren’t that good. And I have yet to see such a witch hunt for their heads on a platter, like I perceive that there has been for teachers.
In my opinion this isn’t about teachers, this is about unions, and eliminating the middle class.
I find it very interesting that all of these big money donors are just recently getting involved in education. And so few of them have had any experience with public schools at any point in their life. Until any of these people come work with what I have and walk in my shoes they can pontificate all they want, but with no experience to back it up I won’t be listening.
Ryan, I agree that it’s good to “avoid over-generalizations and slippery slope arguments and engage the fight with facts, reasons, and counter-proposals. ” However,the premise for all that you mention here is based on slippery sloped assumptions (that the main problem in public education is bad teachers and a broken evaluation system).
I speak as a parent who has raised 4 kids and all of them went k-12 to Seattle Public Schools, giving me opportunity to witness hundreds of Seattle classrooms from a parent’s perspective. I have also been a teacher in Seattle for these last 10 years.
Listening to the double speak that Gates and other ed reformers use to bash teachers, has created a morale issue among teachers. The morale is the lowest I have seen in the 24 years that I have been part of public ed in Seattle. I don’t know how familiar you are with the Seattle district, but we have witnessed some serious breaches of integrity by our district administrators and by members of the school board as they attempt to put a few Gates funded ed reform feathers in their caps.
I am not defending something that is “flawed” and in fact, I would recommend looking at successful programs and schools throughout the United States that work and there are plenty of those. And when I refer to these schools and programs, I am not suggesting charter schools.
At the moment I am working on a series of articles for the Huffington Post describing educational systems that do work and have been successful for at least a decade so they have withstood the test of time unlike many of these charter schools and franchises that open and close within a blink of an eye.
Part of a principal’s responsibility is to understand where a teacher is on the spectrum of performance and time should be allowed for that in a principal’s schedule. If a principal is too busy with “other things”, then that is what needs to be looked at. Maybe these principals need support in other areas so that they can focus on their primary responsibilities.
Saying that a principal doesn’t have enough time for one of their most important responsibilities is a weak excuse to start setting up video cameras in a classroom.
With all of this focus on teacher performance Gates and others are missing the point about successful schools and students. It’s not all about the teachers.
If this had come from the teachers, I wouldn’t have a problem with it but it is coming from someone who first, thinks that everything can be solved through technology and data and secondly doesn’t know anything about teaching or education in general.
If this was about teachers sharing information amongst themselves, that would be great but that’s not what this is about. This is about, I should say will be about, a camera in every classroom down the road. I can see it now. The principal just sits at their desk and can, like a security guard, watch all the screens to see who is doing what.
Now that’s something that only a Bill Gates would think is pretty cool.
I will be following this as it unfolds and let you know what I think as the process is put into place.
In the meantime, be careful what you wish for.
Dora
Dora,
I’m entirely with you through the first five paragraphs, and can see where you’re coming from with the sixth (quickly, I would argue that it is problematic to equate one person with the experience and goals of an entire organization – even when it is Bill Gates and the organization that bears his name and I do think that technology can have a hand in solving some of our issues – including aspects of teacher evaluation).
The seventh paragraph is where you start to lose me: “This is about, I should say will be about, a camera in every classroom down the road. I can see it now. The principal just sits at their desk and can, like a security guard, watch all the screens to see who is doing what.” This is a slippery slope argument of the worst kind. It can’t be disproven (since it is about the future and implies knowledge of others’ motivations which we just can’t know) and in fact may end up being correct. However, based on all available evidence at this time it is clearly a huge leap to make: What evidence is there that this is anyone’s motivation? What charter school model does this? Where has Broad, Duncan, Gates, or any other individual or group suggested this would be a good idea?
I will, of course, be careful what I wish for and ever vigilant as things proceed. But I also suggest we all try to avoid over-generalizations and slippery slope arguments and engage the fight with facts, reasons, and counter-proposals.
There are a lot of important issues here. But calling the MET Project “the ultimate in dehumanizing a profession or even just a person” is absurd. I suggest you start by reading the materials about what the MET Project actually is: http://www.metproject.org/reading. While the MET Project might not be perfect, it does deal with a few realities:
1. That our current one-observation-per-year model of teacher evaluation is broken.
2. That simply basing teacher evaluation on student test scores and/or progress is NOT the measure of a teacher.
3. However, to truly create a teaching profession so that teachers are respected as they should be, the system of 1. needs to be improved.
To do this, the MET Project is working with teachers (thousands of them) to create an evaluation system that is fair and equitable.
Now, if you think that there methods of going about creating this system are flawed or you don’t like their findings or final products I’d be happy to hear your critiques and suggestions for improvement. However, just because videotaping is involved doesn’t mean this is 1984.
What makes video taping an important part of the National Board process is that the teacher gets to choose when to videotape and which video to submit. If the videotaping of the MET Project is similar to this then I see no problem. In fact, it would take away many of the problems of the principal observation as it is commonly used now: the concern that the principal might see an ‘off’ lesson that doesn’t reflect your actual abilities or an average day in the class.
And if you and the principal see things differently, it becomes a case of one person’s word versus another. I’ve seen meetings where a group of principals are all shown the same piece of teaching footage. Some principals grade the teacher an ‘A’ while others will give the same teacher a ‘D’ or ‘F’. The use of videotape as used in the MET Project has the potential to be much fairer and much more helpful to the teacher.
I speak as a teacher involved with the Teacher Leaders Network who has been active in researching and working on issues of teacher evaluation. I am not, however, associated with the MET Project or Gates Foundation. What I am, however, is a teacher that is indeed deeply concerned about the direction of education reform and the often bizarre expectations placed on teachers. But ultimately, digging in our heels to defend something that was flawed to begin with is a sure way of losing both the battle and the war and ensuring that our voices aren’t heard in the future.
I understand.
My father was a teacher who received the Golden Apple Award in Los Angeles during his time and I have a proud tradition of teachers in my family starting with my grandmother who, as an African American, taught music in Aiken, North Carolina in the public schools in the 1800’s.
All of the women in my family, except for my mother, were teachers because it was the most highly-respected profession that an African American woman could have at that time. My mother received her M.S. in Child Psychology and went on to work with Los Angeles County placing children with adoptive families.
My uncle, who was a radiologist, took one day off each week to drive out to the reservation outside of Phoenix to teach the children about science and my older brother taught at UCLA’s School of Medicine after receiving his PhD in Pathology magna cum laude from that school.
All of the teachers that I have known were and are capable, knowledgeable, well educated, prepared and they take pride in what they do.
When people like Bill Gates think that a computer can do what a living, breathing, caring and knowledgeable human being can do, I know that something has gone horribly wrong, particularly when I know that the schools who someone like Gates sends his children to are not run my automatons or computers.
I already passed National Board certification, I don’t need to be video taped anymore!!
I want to be allowed to teach and not worry about everything else.
This is what I was hired to do.
I have spent time away from my own family regularly on weekends to clean my classroom, prep for lessons, and this weekend and next, work on report cards that are outdated and don’t follow the curricula that we have been using for the last few years.
Plus due to snow, I will be making up parent/teacher conferences– I cannot schedule them because translation is needed– on Tuesday and Thursday of next week. And my own children will have to be present because child care closes at 6 pm and these go into the evening.
Can you tell that I am overwhelmed and looking forward to winter break??
You think that what you are going through is bad enough?!
Check this out, Gates’ idea of videotaping teachers.
Teacher Ratings Get New Look, Pushed by a Rich Watcher
This is the ultimate in dehumanizing a profession or even just a person on general terms.
Dora
This is so true. This is what my colleagues and I are discussing almost daily.
Can we handle the micromanaging, the constant disrespect, the bullying by adults in admin, and the Gates types with their money?
My father retired after 40+ years. I cannot see myself making it that far.
I don’t know how much longer I will last, and I fear for the children in my class as well as my own children, who attend public schools.
What will we do?