Posts Tagged ‘
budget cuts ’
There were tears in the hall again today. No, I don’t mean a child was crying. It was a teacher.
Many teachers have been laid off from their positions for next year. It is a hard time in the year already. It’s the time when we teachers have to say good-bye to the kids we’ve come to know and love, and for some of us, it’s time to say good-bye to the profession that we have extensively trained to do, and one that we feel is meaningful and important.
Unlike the business world, our customers have not disappeared. They need us more than ever. Many more kids take home food for the weekends. Many more kids come to school with learning delays and unstable situations at home. Our schools need to ramp up, but instead we are under attack.
I hear all the talk about how we need to change the system. Meanwhile, the funding is held hostage—no one wants to pay for the children. It’s funny, because in houses across the country and world, kids bring in no income and yet families will go to great sacrifices for their children. But as a society, we can’t seem to do that for the education of our children. We teachers generate no money and yet we “feed” children. We feed them knowledge, feed their self-esteem, and in doing so, we feed society. Yet, society is starving us.
(more…)
Category:
education reform, funding |
No Comments »
Tags: budget cuts, education reform, Oregon schools, school funding, teacher frustration
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 |
No Comments »
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 |
No Comments »
Tags: activism, budget cuts, school funding, teacher advocacy, teacher frustration
I want my 8 days back.
This past week my school district, in conjunction with our various employee unions, agreed that the best strategy for meeting statewide budget demands was to hack 8 days from the school year for all programs in the district. They also decided to cut 2 full time positions at my school. I understand their dilemma, having to meet the Governor’s request for a 9% reduction based on income tax revenues, and I also applaud their decision in that few of my colleagues (most of them young and energetic) will lose their jobs. Yet, when I sit and think about what it means to lose 8 days of school, I grow more irate at the situation that the economy has plunged our districts into.
In “teacher terms” what does 8 days look like for me and what does 2 people cut mean? (more…)
Category:
education reform, student success, teacher advocacy |
No Comments »
Tags: budget cuts, school funding, teacher frustration
