Teachers going alley digging

I was reminded this evening of what teaching has come to these days in our state s our choir teacher talked about her finds "alley digging" to find props for the theater, orchestra, and chorus program she leads that has no budget.

The Casualties of Politics

I recently spoke with a veteran teacher who resigned from teaching and completely left the world of education.  From my conversations with her and observance of the way lead others out of school, I think it a safe bet to say she was a dedicated and very talented teacher.  She isn't the first and she won't be the last.

Recent politics has turned to bashing teachers and government workers in general.  It has turned to making demands about a profession one can't fully understand until one is immersed in it.  Recent politics have turned away from learning and towards results of meaningless assessments.  It has taken away from teachers the ability to teach in a way that will enhance future generations.

When you display such a hatred against a profession, take away all their tools to truly do their job well, and eliminate fair compensation you are only left with those that can't find a job elsewhere or don't mind being a part of a system that is falling apart.  Because the rest will find a new career.  The talented and dedicated educators will move on to a career where there isn't interference with doing a job one can be proud of.

Is that what people want?

I fear that 20,40, or even 60 years from now, the few who can rise up without a decent education will really regret the politics happening now.  And the rest will be too dumb to know the difference.

Taxes and Teachers

Click on this link to read Professor James Edward Maule's blog post from today entitled Taxes and Teachers.  Professor Maule's blog MauledAgain discusses a variety of tax topics and how they affect real people.  Even though I am not in the tax field at all, I enjoy reading his blog on occasion.  As a former teacher, this post really hit home.  I have boxes and boxes of stuff in my basement that I purchased for my classroom to enhance student learning and those boxes don't include all the stuff that was not reusable.  So many people are quick to bash teachers and the excessive salaries and benefits they supposedly receive without understanding the entire picture.  Each year schools are cutting the budgets for classroom supplies to the point where there is almost no budget for that.  One teacher I spoke to last spring stated that she was buying her own copy paper to print student materials because the school only provided enough for a few months of the school year!