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From someone who sees it 180 days a year
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* Some teachers do nothing but show up to collect a check. Some go into it just for the work schedule and benies. Kids deserve better.
* Teachers hands are becoming ever more tied by Federal and State mandates, and correspondingly overstuffed curricula, that force a high teaching pace just to expose kids to the material before they take the standardized achievement tests. It would be far better to teach less content but to a greater depth than to turn kids into memorizing machines that can't solve basic problems. Less is more.
* Administration no longer works to protect the learning environment from disruptive students who deter the others from learning. Parents, and kids, have learned how to bully administrators, thus, the admin is lax and lets kids get away with too much. This in turn sets the example for other kids who quickly realize there are no/minor consequences for acting out. Administration won't stand behind their teachers anymore, and they often toss them under the bus when contentious issues arise. They have spared the rod and spoiled the children, just as parents have.
* Administrators are often upwardly mobile and intent on becoming superintendents. As such, their focus is on running a smooth operation for a few years to bide their time to get the experience needed to move up to the top paying education jobs. It used to be that administration worked for the teachers to provide the kids with a good education. Now they work for themselves first, their superiors second, parents third and the teachers last.
* Towns like Central Falls are destined for educational disaster solely due to their socioeconomic composition. Poverty brings drugs, alcohol, broken homes, homelessness and crime. KIDS GROWING UP IN THESE CONDITIONS VALUE A SCHOOL MOSTLY AS A SAFE HAVEN FOR 8 HOURS A DAY. Effective parenting is nonexistent, thus the kids are unruly in school and disrupt teaching and learning to entertain themselves. Sadly, many of these kids don't see education as a way out of their troubles, nor do they respect the institution for their classmates who do. Teachers are powerless to make kids behave, much less learn in this situation.
* Teachers unions, like any other, can bring out the worst while trying to protect their members. The CF union over played their hand, but not all do this- my union took a 0% increase for next year, and we agreed to freeze our steps for at least 2 years to help our community.
The issues at hand here were created by society, not a profession. Fix our society and the teachers will happily make the children achieve.
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