Posts Tagged ‘
activism ’
Originally published in the Oregonian, as “How about some straight talk about fiscal crisis?”
This past election I received 146 political mailings. They contained hundreds of promises, including vows to support businesses and seniors, improve healthcare and education, and reduce taxes and regulations. Beautiful promises all. But not one of the promises was to cut public programs or raise taxes. Troubling, since state and national fiscal crises suggest we must do both.
My economics students understand this. This fall we watched “I.O.U.S.A.,” which revealed that federal debt swelled to $12.7 trillion in 2009. Bad news, considering we have not budgeted for the additional $46 trillion Social Security and Medicare will cost over the coming decades.
My government students understand as well. A state senator visited with us recently and said Oregon must cut over $3 billion from a $15 billion budget over the next two years, about 20%.
Our national leaders understand, too, but sadly, they’re unwilling to admit it. This month our president and Congress turned their backs on the recommendations of the deficit reduction commission, then declared victory as they extended expiring tax cuts and heaped another $850 billion onto our mountain of national debt.
Why won’t they confront reality? Is it because we aren’t willing to? Consider Oregon. About 93% of our discretionary budget is spent on education, human services and public safety, so cutting 20% means cutting vital services. And in education, where about 85% of spending goes to wages and benefits, that means cutting people. But public servants are quick to react against this, understandably so.
Do I deserve to have my wages cut? I don’t think so. I care a great deal about our kids, and I work hard to support their growth and success. My commitment is reflected in my hours. I’m paid for a 40-hour week, and on that basis, I make about $40 per hour, a good wage. I don’t work 40 hours per week, though. I average 55 – my longest last year was 77 – so my true hourly rate is under $30. If you include the 135 hours I worked last summer unpaid to prepare for this year, my hourly rate is under $28. Factor in the $5070 my pay is cut this year due to 15 eliminated school days and my rate is just over $25.
So no, as a guy with a master’s degree and 25-years professional experience, I don’t think I deserve a cut. But I suspect none of us do. And that’s okay. In fact, I hope all of us, be we public or private sector, believe in what we do and that we deserve all we get. The problem is, fiscal reality suggests that the question before us is not what do we deserve, but what can we afford? The answer: increasingly less.
So, to elected officials reluctant to speak the truth, I, a voter, invite you to do just that. If you’re in Congress, tell me you may need to means test me for Medicare, or raise the age at which I’m eligible for Social Security.
If you’re in the Oregon legislature, tell me you may need to raise the gasoline tax, or ask me to pick up part of my public employee retirement contribution.
I invite you to be honest with me, and if you will, I promise this – you’ll have my vote.
Category:
education reform, teacher advocacy |
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Tags: activism, budget cuts, teacher advocacy, teacher frustration
Even though I’m not teaching this year, I often miss having students. I miss the personal connections with kids and their parents; I miss having my own classroom, a safe space for learning and exploration. I miss the creativity of lesson planning and the challenge of developing good curriculum. Sometimes, I just miss school.
In those moments, I’m lucky to have a lot of friends who are still teachers. I can often visit their classrooms, help out for as long as they need, and leave feeling refreshed, hopeful, and invigorated by what I’ve seen. My last visit, however, to see a friend who’s in his third year of teaching, left me feeling disheartened and frustrated—not because of his teaching, but because of the policies that are making it increasingly difficult for him to continue teaching well.
During his three years of teaching, my friend has taught four different subjects: language arts, social studies, PE, and finally this year, his actual endorsement area, math. As you might imagine, even with the best of intentions it’s been difficult for him to improve his teaching of any one subject. With the district bumping and reassignment that happens every year, it’s not what he’s good at or trained in that matters. What seems to matter is simply that he’s a warm body, capable of being plugged into any necessary teaching assignment. Is this the way we want to be using our skilled teachers, as interchangeable and menial labor?
Furthermore, my friend just received news that his district, still facing budget shortfalls, will likely be cutting an additional 100-120 teachers at the end of this year. As a teacher at the bottom of the experience scale who has each year very narrowly avoided being laid off, he’s fairly certain he will finally lose his job this time. So even though he, like me, is excited about teaching, loves his students, and wants to give them the best education possible, his motivation to improve on what he’s doing this year or to create long-lasting curricular plans is basically shot. Who wants to pour their soul into something, only to have it taken away, again, in several short months?
I don’t want this to simply be a complaint about Oregon’s districts, because I know that some of them are doing great things to avoid what my friend is going through. But I just want to know what the plan is here. Clearly schools are going to have to get used to not having enough money, but how can they adjust to that while not killing teachers’ continued desire to do well? How can we continue to give good teachers a chance to shine?
Category:
education reform, teacher advocacy |
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Tags: activism, budget cuts, school funding, teacher advocacy, teacher frustration
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
- Langston Hughes
The Senate has defeated the “Dream Act” (The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act). This legislation offers a path to citizenship for children who arrived in the United States illegally as minors (under 15 years old). One of those paths is through completing a college degree. A bipartisan team of senators has sponsored this legislation since 2001; the most recent iteration tried to address the concerns of tuition costs and the possible domino effect of citizen sponsorship. In fact, despite the cries from opponents, if you read the actual parameters of the bill, you may be surprised to learn how really difficult it would be – even with the legislation – to become a citizen.
While both sides in the dispute over passage used social justice language and/or financial issues to justify their votes, I would like to add another argument in favor of the bill: developing our infrastructure. We don’t always think of education as an infrastructure issue. We cannot see the physical results like we see a bridge or a highway or repair of a school building. People are not outside schools in their orange vests or hard hats reminding us of “our tax dollars at work.” Yet teachers and other educators work to create and build skills and knowledge that are necessary for people to function successfully in our complex and interdependent system. To deny access to that system seems equally as near-sighted as not repairing bridges or letting school roofs leak. Instead of car drivers falling to their deaths or water damage destroying gym floors, we will have a group of people unable to contribute their full talents within our society. Just as lack of maintenance on physical infrastructures often leads to more expensive work, lack of allowance for continued education can lead to more expensive services later on.
These children, educated in our K-12 schools, are not going away. But they can go underground and found an alternative system. I lived in South Africa for a year and saw what happened when a society decided not to educate a majority of its population. Those uneducated people did not disappear. When they were barred from using certain roads, they created their own roads. When they were barred from stores, they created their own outdoor malls. When they could not afford housing, they built subdivisions out of cardboard and tin. They did not, however, build schools. In their battle merely to survive, schools were a luxury.
While I do not equate this situation with South African apartheid, I learned during that year that people are resilient and will use any means to survive. And often just surviving creates embitterment. We want more for all of our children than survival; we want their talents to flourish – both for their own fulfillment but also for our society’s continued growth. Instead of “drying up” or “festering” or even “exploding,” we want children who join our society and add their gifts to it.
Delaying or denying that opportunity is like delayed maintenance on our homes – plumbing stops working, the structure looks run-down, weeds sprout up in our lawns or through the cracked sidewalks, our property value goes down, neighbors start isolating us. Delaying/denying those children who are willing to work through college to gain citizenship appears to me to be like posting a “condemned for demolition” sign on our future.
Category:
education achievement gap, education reform, student success |
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Tags: activism, at risk students, student achievement, teacher frustration
Teaching is a lonely profession. At some point in their career, everyone bemoans the fact that teaching, planning, grading, attending meetings, and tending to bureaucratic necessities leaves little time to reflect on one’s practice, much less to talk to another knowledgeable adult about it. It’s one of the paradoxes of education: to get better at something, you need time to reflect on what you can do to improve, but with so much pressure to show improvement, there’s no time to get real feedback on how to get there.
With that in mind, I was thrilled to see how many English teachers showed up in Orlando last weekend for the annual conference put on by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Over three days, teachers attended sessions on everything from using Facebook as an instructional tool to helping middle school students talk more deeply about literature, from improving grammar to being mindful of the social justice obligations of English instruction, and everything in between. Teachers had a chance to hear from other successful teachers what was working in their classrooms and also had the opportunity to mingle with principals, instructional coaches, and professionals whose experiences were drastically different from their own. It was an amazing opportunity to learn from each other’s experience and successes—not to mention a chance to be constantly inspired by the good work that’s going on across the nation.
Of course, the teachers who were there had predominantly been supported by their districts. Most needed to take at least one day away from their classrooms to attend; many balanced their time attending sessions and talking to other teachers by day with time spent in their hotel rooms at night, grading the student work that never quite comes to an end. Regardless, for one weekend, the focus was only on being reflective about one’s practice, about doing things better. To me, it seemed double or triple the worth of any district-sanctioned professional development.
So does it seem reasonable to assume that conferences like the annual NCTE conference, events that bring professionals from all walks of the nation together to reflect on their work, are the way education is going to improve? Sort of a grassroots movement that comes from those who are actually implementing change in their classrooms? To me it seems to embody the way change should happen: brought about by those who are most directly involved and knowledgeable about it. Is it possible that this is the way to make sure the important voices in educational change are heard?
Category:
teacher advocacy |
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Tags: activism, education reform, teacher advocacy
Below is a quick update from Mollie Dickson, sent via email to Chalkboard. Per Mollie’s message below, she didn’t have time to post this month, but will continue to contribute when she has time. We look forward to receiving updates from Mollie and wish her the best in her new commitments this year!
I am right in the midst of Spirit Week and Homecoming; as the Leadership Advisor this year, my job just tripled in time/responsibilities/energy… but also in FUN! I am having the best time of my life.
We’re putting together a float for the Homecoming Parade that’s this Friday–a tribute to Haiti. This is our big focus for the year, as we’ve developed a partnership with a village near Port-au-Prince and have personal connections so that money raised goes directly where it’s needed; we have people taking trips down and our school is sponsoring 25 Haitian children to be able to go to school this year. It’s inspiring to watch these kids come alive as they reach beyond themselves to make life better for someone less fortunate.
Anyway, I am past the point of swamped. I hate to break a commitment, but I just don’t think it’s realistic for me to do a blog right now. I have a million and one ideas for blog topics and hope to write and contribute as things settle down (or should I say “if”).
Wishing Mollie and her students a great year – sounds like they’re off to a good start!
Category:
student success, teaching strategies |
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Tags: activism, collaborative culture, inspiration, student engagement, teaching strategies
Last night I had the privilege of sitting fourth row, wide-eyed and all-ears, soaking in the wisdom, humor, tragedy, and truth of Chris Crutcher’s words. Speaking at Lewis and Clark, to an audience of new and aspiring teachers and counselors, he gripped us with his stories of childhood and what brought him to be a writer, stories of children who have inspired and changed him, stories of grieving, of hope, of impossible challenges, stories of revival and reconciliation. Real stories. Chris Crutcher looked us in the eye and spoke the truth, filling the room with our laughter and tears.
Captivated, I hung on every word. Yes. Yes! The voice in my head continued to shout, confirming the messages he expressed with conviction. Like when he looked around and declared, “We all have secrets. Every kid in your class has a secret. And they’re hiding it from you, from the world; because the last thing they want is for you to see their vulnerability, their fears.” (more…)
Category:
teaching strategies |
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Tags: activism, banned books, education reform
The stack of state-writing-test booklets stare at me from the corner of my desk, flaunting their power. I scowl back.
Picking up the top one to glance over prompts and format, I freeze when my eyes catch the scoring chart: 6 boxes, a numerical judgment of the student’s mastery in each of the six writing traits—ideas, voice, word choice, organization, sentence fluency, and conventions. But wait, what is this in fine print? Voice and word choice do not count?! Conventions are counted twice? No. There has to be some sort of mistake. What exactly are we expecting from our young writers? What message does this send them? No voice… No word choice… Says who? (more…)
Category:
CLASS Project, education reform |
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Tags: activism, education reform, teacher frustration, test critera
