The problem with "teachers pay teachers"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real issue is that the school systems are not providing a curriculum, complete with supporting texts, that can be used as a sound foundation for teachers. This means that teachers are left to put together whatever they can however they can do it, which means most material for our new and young teachers is created on the fly. TPT can be a great resource for additional creative resources. It should not be used for a primary source.

The abdication by the school system(s) of one of its primary responsibilities, providing curriculum and resources, is appalling and I am disturbed that more people on this thread don't recognize that. Really, the silo approach to teaching, whereby one teacher decides his/her own curricula and then teaches it, is why our nation had to move to the standardized testing model we're in now. Otherwise heaven only knows what Johnny and Cindy and Lindsey Lou would be studying.

You reap what you sow, people.

It is not abdication by school systems. This is how teachers want it.

That's a sweeping statement. Most of the teachers in my building resent that our district has plenty of money to hire too many admins but not enough to buy an actual curriculum. We don't make much money ourselves and I am tired of spending my own money just to do my job. I already provide nearly everything in my classroom on my own dime except for the clunky old desktops in the corner and the ancient furniture. We get 2 boxes of copy paper each year and a random assortment of office supplies (most of which I don't need).

+2 I am the FP and I completely concur with this sentiment.

At my school, teachers almost rioted to try to get classroom sets of textbooks. Eventually admin acceded to the repeated requests. Ha, the last word was given by admin. Some teachers got texts from the same publisher but different editions and others got different publishers entirely. No one got enough to make a class set. And then admin wonders why teachers don't think admin take them seriously.

These are the same teachers who are dunned on evaluations if they aren't teaching exactly the same thing on exactly the same day for the materials that they are supposed to develop themselves. There are not enough hours in the day. At least with a textbook you have material that has been vetted by more than one pair of eyes.

With the current system you get a worksheet or note page that one teacher raced to get completed in time to distribute to team teachers so they can all make copies. You get what you get with this system.