Good gravy! Where to start?

Let me start out by qualifying my statements with the old "one man's experience" codicil. I am finishing up my 10th year of teaching in an East Contra Costa County district. Prior to coming to the Bay Area, I completed my credential work in San Diego Unified and worked in Downey Unified in LA County for a year. My experience in education exceeds even my professional career as both my parents worked in public education. So that is what I am bringing to the table...

I also believe that the systemic problems in education are too complex and intertwined to really do justice to them in this forum...but I'll try to give you an idea of what my experience as an educator is.

As has been pointed out, most of the money that is poured into education is invisible to me. When I was teaching at one of the districts comprehensive high schools (I am currently teaching at our district's continuation high school for students who are significantly deficient in units toward graduation or have have received an administrative placement due to disciplinary/behavioral issues), I had a classroom budget of $20, which was snatched away from many before I had a chance to spend it. My wife and I spent $600. (that we could account for for tax write off purposes...I know we spent more than that), on basic classroom supplies, teaching materials, copies. Our district has continually mismanaged funds (as an example, $3 million dollars simply disappeared from district coffers last year it was recently discovered).

Despite (or possibly because of) this mismanagement, the district continually cries poor when it comes to teacher salaries and guidance counselors, and librarians. Last year, the high school that I taught at rehired 1 guidance counselor to service a high school of over 3500 students (he has since left, leaving the school with zero). The rest of the work gets piled onto vice principles who already have to deal with discipline issues that are voluminous, and referrals to the office can be back-logged for up to a week at a time. The issue of college counseling gets left to teachers, and the classified staff run career center. They also eliminated the librarians position, while continuing to stress the importance of teaching literacy.

Money for professional conferences and subject area development is gone. Meaning we are left to meet the challenges of remediation and the teaching of things like reading (which most secondary teachers have never received training in, because it is assumed that by the time they reach jr hi and hi school, they are supposed to be able to read, right?), without any (or at the best, minimal) training.

As of 2000-01, the per-pupil spending in the state still ranked $803 below the national average, according to EdSource.org, and I am sure that it hasn't gotten any better. So essentially what is happening is that teachers are continually asked to do more, with fewer resources. Class size is an issue. I had classes of 37 last year, and had close to 170 students total. As a bit of a math problem, assume that as an English teacher, I spend 10 minutes per student a week grading their work, how many hours per week am I spending just on grading and student assesment outside of my school day? That might give you an idea of why class size matters.

As you can imagine, teacher morale in our district is abysmal. Many of the really good teachers have left for greener pastures (for example, I had a colleague who left and went to an affluent district in which her full-time schedule consisted of 4 classes of no more than 25 students, for more pay...) I am actually considering a career change simply to avoid burning out. As much as I love what I do,it isn't worth my mental and physical health.

I have seen the Peter Principle at work first hand in our district. And unfortunatley, it is the kids who always seem to end up on the short end of the stick.



:brick