Posts Tagged ‘
school funding ’
The summer weather has finally arrived in Oregon and summer vacation is in full swing. Some kids are camping, some are at summer camp. Many teachers are taking a much-needed break, while others are enrolled in summer courses.
Summer vacation has been a tradition in the United States since the mid-19th century, but as the students of the United States fall behind in reading, math and science, the trend towards year-round education is gaining momentum. Is it possible that summer vacation is a tradition that is doing more harm than good for our children? Could year-round school be the key to improving our struggling public education system?
Public schools in the United States haven’t always had a long summer vacation; in fact, in the 1800s different areas of our country had different school schedules. In the city schools were open as many as 48 weeks a year while rural areas had a summer and winter term for school and a fall and spring break allowing children to help with planting and harvesting on the family farm. In the 1840s, popular educational reformers like Horace Mann proposed a blending of the two schedules citing the belief that year-round school was over-stimulating to children’s minds, but that 2 semesters wasn’t enough. And so it was. The “traditional” calendar was born: a 9 month school year with a long summer break. (Source)
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Category:
extended learning, funding, school year, student success |
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Tags: education statistics, Oregon schools, professional development for teachers, research, school funding, summer learning loss, year-round education
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.
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Category:
education reform, funding |
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Tags: budget cuts, education reform, Oregon schools, school funding, 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
Due to budget cuts and low seniority, I have had the privilege (or curse) of teaching at three different schools in the past two years. All three schools are in the same district, but each is vastly different in culture and climate. My current school is literally just up the hill from one of those where I was last year, but it seems like stepping into a different world.
My two former schools were Title 1 schools, where the pressure to meet benchmarks was stressful for teachers and kids. The meeting load, paperwork, and planning for multiple levels of learning took so much time that collaboration and thoughtful lesson planning seemed to take a back seat. The most high needs school lacked funding for innovative projects and hands-on teaching that is so beneficial for kids with little enrichment at home. Most of the dollars coming into this school were used for much-needed personnel and not for supplies, field trips, and innovative teaching tools. Now that I am at a non-title school not only do I have more capable students, I also have a bevy of talented volunteers, and a large PTO cash flow. These aren’t the kids that desperately need trips to get out of the neighborhood and experience life, but they are the ones that receive these benefits. Last year on my one field trips to OMSI, one of my kids asked what the Willamette River was. They had never taken a look at the river! This year as my kids write narratives, they recount stories of skiing and trips to Hawaii.
I can also tell you that for the same pay, I worked much harder at the Title 1 schools than I do now. I wrote out lesson plans for two assistants, ran 5 reading groups, managed 6 special ed students, and accommodated curriculum for 17 English Language Learners. The nagging feeling of inadequacy hung with me the whole time I was there. I knew that if I secured a permanent position there, I would burn out. This year, my class size is the same and the grade the same, but this year I can actually eat lunch. Today, I had a parent come and grade papers for me!
My message is this: teachers teaching in areas of high poverty need:
- more dedicated time for collaboration
- higher pay because of increased hours worked out of class
- lower class sizes
- a greater variety of resources in order to offer catered instruction
- a group of capable classroom volunteers for support
- a fundraising machine such as grant writers or sponsors
Until we address these inequalities, there will continue to be a high rate of teacher burnout and turnover at those schools where stability and experienced teaching is most desperately needed.
Category:
education achievement gap, education reform, student success, teacher advocacy, teacher effectiveness |
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Tags: at risk students, education reform, 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 |
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Tags: budget cuts, school funding, teacher frustration
