when schools focus on the wrong things (from a teacher)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm the principal, former reading specialist.

Again, if the lower grades are operating properly, there would only be a handful of kids or newcomers who cannot decode. And if it is only a handful, then the CLASSROOM teachers can remediate. This is what happens in my school. Just as lower elementary teachers have 4-8 reading groups per classroom, intermediate teachers and upper grades do too. Maybe not all in the same room. But between them all, they do. They are masters at collaborating, and they have a small section each day where they exchange kids and provide short, targeted instruction aimed at remediating those issues. 15 minutes per day, 3 days a week. What has happened is the few who need decoding help, fluency help, have grown tremendously. Those who need comprehension and language are also growing, albeit more slowly, because those are deeper issue. Our reading specialist does work with tier 3 kids, but the classroom teachers have to work with tier 2 kids and then they all give a second round of instruction to the tier 3 kids. It works.

So, this is the kind of discussion I'd be thrilled to have at our professional development meetings. How can we best structure our school day to allow for decent remediation?

In our school, we have 3 fifth grade classes as they don't all teach Language Arts at the same time. 2 have L/A in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. Ditto for 4th and 3rd grade. I'm the ESOL teacher and my students are often in at least 2 sometimes three classrooms per grade level.... as are the SPED kids. No one exchanges students for decoding remediation or any other skills based remediation or instruction past occasionally the 1st grade level. Our upper grade teachers very seldom even pull small reading groups but that's another story.

However, when we get together for professional development, what we are instructed to do is to ask each other questions about data. We are told to stay away from asking questions about instruction, time for instruction, type of instruction, etc. OP, are you being told the same thing?

Yes! That's the crux of the issue! I would love to have the types of discussion that the principal PP is talking about. But instead it's all about data and other bullshit questions that achieve nothing that we're actually aiming to achieve. Plus our reading specialist is treated like a de facto administrator because our principal and AP are either in meetings or dealing with other issues within the school, so she's called on to put out fires all day instead of being able to work directly with students. -OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While we all pay taxes for your salaries for who knows what to be taught ineffectively

Teachers pay taces, too. STFU. Oh and please do try to survive even a half day in my classroom, plan, grade, prep materials, etc

It doesn't matter if you would be better than me in school. What all of these posts are saying is that the kids aren't learning whether they are ESL or English speaking. What is the point of public school teaching if you are admitting the kids aren't learning and your only claim to fame is that you do a better job than someone without a degree in teaching?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It doesn't matter if you would be better than me in school. What all of these posts are saying is that the kids aren't learning whether they are ESL or English speaking. What is the point of public school teaching if you are admitting the kids aren't learning and your only claim to fame is that you do a better job than someone without a degree in teaching?

That's not what these posts are saying. We are complaining about the uselessness of many of our professional development meetings in helping us to teach students better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12:14 I'm not at your meetings. Internal issue. Sorry.
I'm sure for some kids some of this stuff is very hard due to disabilities etc., but my kids started kindergarten already knowing how to decode all words and how to add and subtract. These skills weren't hard to teach. Took one year. I taught them these skills myself using products sometimes from 1950 and didn't expect the school to. Good thing I guess. I really have no idea why teachers and school districts make things so complex.

Of course it is so much easier to teach a child and a one-to-one environment. Especially when it's your kid and you are likely coming from a research rich background.

However do you think you would be able to teach 20 to 25 or even 30 kids at the same time? Especially when they all have different needs and ability levels and you are being mandated to to come up with daily centers and math groups and reading groups and planning small group lessons?

So you are basically saying that you cannot teach kids in a public school setting and that differentiation doesn't work. I'm not a proponent btw of the current teaching methods, but it is the teachers who promote them.

If it doesn't work, speak up.

I'm saying that a parent who thinks that teaching is easy because she taught her kid how to read has no clue about why one person teaching 20-30 kids as time is a completely different challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12:14 I'm not at your meetings. Internal issue. Sorry.
I'm sure for some kids some of this stuff is very hard due to disabilities etc., but my kids started kindergarten already knowing how to decode all words and how to add and subtract. These skills weren't hard to teach. Took one year. I taught them these skills myself using products sometimes from 1950 and didn't expect the school to. Good thing I guess. I really have no idea why teachers and school districts make things so complex.

Of course it is so much easier to teach a child and a one-to-one environment. Especially when it's your kid and you are likely coming from a research rich background.

However do you think you would be able to teach 20 to 25 or even 30 kids at the same time? Especially when they all have different needs and ability levels and you are being mandated to to come up with daily centers and math groups and reading groups and planning small group lessons?

So you are basically saying that you cannot teach kids in a public school setting and that differentiation doesn't work. I'm not a proponent btw of the current teaching methods, but it is the teachers who promote them.

If it doesn't work, speak up.

I'm saying that a parent who thinks that teaching is easy because she taught her kid how to read has no clue about why one person teaching 20-30 kids as time is a completely different challenge.

I never said it was easy. I said it was ineffective. And if teachers can't speak up about meetings, they sure aren't going to speak up about the ineffectiveness of public school. I'm not saying that teachers aren't working hard. I'm saying they are working hard and not accomplishing much because of the situation.

[Anonymous]

And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.

Does your school board adopt teaching methods and textbooks, and approve meeting topics, at their budget meetings?

In my district these are the responsibility of the school superintendent, and the instructional directors.

[Anonymous]

Criticizing the decisions of the Central Office staff is not politically wise. Asking for more money is one thing. Protesting curricular decisions gets you labelled a "malcontent".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.

Does your school board adopt teaching methods and textbooks, and approve meeting topics, at their budget meetings?

In my district these are the responsibility of the school superintendent, and the instructional directors.

They approve textbooks and the amount of money spent on meetings. They also determine with the superintendent what to focus on generally in education which would concern teaching methods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Criticizing the decisions of the Central Office staff is not politically wise. Asking for more money is one thing. Protesting curricular decisions gets you labelled a "malcontent".

So you think somehow the taxpayers will continue to pay more money for teachers (over 90% of the budget) when they refuse to speak up about curriculum decisions and meetings that aren't effective. All the while they spend their time criticizing others for not reading their minds and teaching children how to think for themselves when they are too afraid to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.

Does your school board adopt teaching methods and textbooks, and approve meeting topics, at their budget meetings?

In my district these are the responsibility of the school superintendent, and the instructional directors.

They approve textbooks and the amount of money spent on meetings. They also determine with the superintendent what to focus on generally in education which would concern teaching methods.

You’re talking about district wide trainings, not the meetings that OP and others on here are talking about. The meetings they’re talking about are not in the budget because they’re held at the school level which doesn’t cost money. It just costs a lot of time. The school board doesn’t really care about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.

Because teachers work to live. Salary is the over-riding factor. Duh! I am sure that it would be your primary factor, too, if you had to go to your Board or other entity head each year for salary funding. If the school systems are ineffective and do not deploy resources so that teachers are able to effectively and efficiently teach so that children learn, well, it makes sense that this would be a secondary concern. But everyone in the job market in the US wants to be paid. That is the way our democratic and capitalistic society works. If you want something else then you need to go to another country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Criticizing the decisions of the Central Office staff is not politically wise. Asking for more money is one thing. Protesting curricular decisions gets you labelled a "malcontent".

+1 And the next thing you know, you have admin after admin lined up at your classroom door class period after class period to evaluate you as they document you out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.

Because teachers work to live. Salary is the over-riding factor. Duh! I am sure that it would be your primary factor, too, if you had to go to your Board or other entity head each year for salary funding. If the school systems are ineffective and do not deploy resources so that teachers are able to effectively and efficiently teach so that children learn, well, it makes sense that this would be a secondary concern. But everyone in the job market in the US wants to be paid. That is the way our democratic and capitalistic society works. If you want something else then you need to go to another country.

However this opinion is what is causing the charter schools and private schools to rise. If no one in the public school system is willing to work on change out of fear of retribution and just act like a sheep who is going to be paid for showing up no matter how ineffective they are, it's no wonder that people are looking at other options. The government will eventually cave if it is not effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And for more proof just go to the thread about kids not knowing where to get information to study and teachers not having textbooks that align with standards just below this one. The whole system is ineffective. And yet come budget time the only thing I hear teachers talking about is salary. Every Single Year. Can't speak up about meetings or ineffective teaching, but yet somehow they find their voice on salary. They are all over our school board budget meetings then.

Because teachers work to live. Salary is the over-riding factor. Duh! I am sure that it would be your primary factor, too, if you had to go to your Board or other entity head each year for salary funding. If the school systems are ineffective and do not deploy resources so that teachers are able to effectively and efficiently teach so that children learn, well, it makes sense that this would be a secondary concern. But everyone in the job market in the US wants to be paid. That is the way our democratic and capitalistic society works. If you want something else then you need to go to another country.

Also please understand that businesses in the private sector thrive for their product or expertise. They all want to be paid by their boss or even by themselves, but they understand they are providing a service and have to meet the needs of the people that are purchasing that service. They cause change by reflecting on this aspect of the businesses even when they are going against the grain of the higher ups. Teachers aren't paid any differently just because there is a school board. It is still about getting money from the people who want the product and service.