Reply to The sky is falling in the DMV

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "The sky is falling in the DMV"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that all the schools around here are being overrun by underperformers which takes away time and resources from everyone else

The above average performers are either clustering in the remaining "decent school pyramids" aka the wealthier ones supplementing and desperately holding on or going private

The average performers are really hurting and I think people are waking up and saying enough is enough you need to focus on my children[/quote]

As harsh as this is, I second it in MoCo. Special needs / problem kids are taking all of the attention. I hear more and more parents telling stories of teachers lauding their children for "not causing problems." I heard one say "I hardly even notice she's there" as a positive comment. As far as parents clustering in the remaining decent pyramids, I've seen this too, which is why there's all this uproar about busing. Parents have spent $1M+ for a pyramid, and now some County Council do-gooder is going to "close the achievement gap" using kids as pawns... that's the perception. Many parents long for the days of great teachers dominating schools--today it seems like schools are mostly admin + paraeducators + big curriculum companies. It's definitely a long slide to mediocrity.[/quote]

Parents are willing to pay $1+ mil for the house in a W, but are not willing to pay teachers more. Compensation is what is needed to attract and retain top teachers who can meet the demands of special populations (ELLs, GT, FARMS, and SN). Until that happens, no progress. [/quote]

Teacher responding here.  No.  More compensation will not affect my effectiveness even a teeny tiny bit.  I'm damn effective already.  While I'd love more pay and use it to help my own family, more pay isn't what I need to be more effective with EL's or kids in poverty or special needs kids.  What I personally need is the following: Cap class sizes in K-3 to 15 kids per teacher.  Hire teachers to come help do all the RTI (interventions that either help keep kids out of special ed or identify them as non responders to interventions and thus qualify them for sped) that needs to happen.  Hire more social workers and psychs and instead of 90% of their job description (in practice) being to attend meeting or to give me ideas of how to help certain kids?  How about having some of those folks spending 90% of their time actually helping children?  All K-1 classes should have a full time, dedicated aide with extensive training and pay HER way more please.  
I want every single one of my students to have every advantage my own children have.  Paying me more money, while I'd take it, won't help the massive needs in public education.  I'm in another state and the projection for the number of kids living in poverty in my state in the next 20 years goes up to over 50%.  Schools with more than about 20% of their population in poverty need a whole additional set of supports that they currently don't have and a whole hell of a lot more staff.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics