It's time to let teachers get back to teaching students
Article in the Nogales International
October 14, 2005
Karin Bernal, Nogales, Arizona
One of the things that makes this nation unique is that we not only offer a public education to every child, we even require our children to attend until they are at least 16.
In many nations, parents must start paying for their child's education as early as the 6th grade. Also, they usually have to pay for their child's books, materials and any other incidentals.
This obviously keeps many of the poor uneducated, and limits their opportunities at a better quality of life. As a Democrat, I believe in the value of public education and the importance of keeping it financially accessible to all, regardless of race, color, creed, sexual orientation, or gender.
First of all, public education does work. There seems to be much controversy over whether this is true. Many of us are products of public education and have gone on to a variety of satisfying careers.
My fondest memories of some of my high school years were in a high school zoology class at a rural public high school in Washington State. A friend of mine brought in from her barn a freshly killed rat in a paper bag and asked our teacher if we could dissect it. He was happy to oblige and we learned a great deal. it was also simply inspiring.
At the end of the year, our teacher decided to fry up some squid, slugs (popular in the Pacific Northwest), snails and mealworms for an end-of-the-year celebration. This teacher became my inspiration for becoming a teacher, even though I ended up teaching English rather than science.
What I'm now concerned about are the strangleholds that the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB) imposes and the conservatives' apparent reluctance to fund public education. NCLB is making teaching even harder by putting so many restrictions on it. With all the increased paperwork, mandatory testing and lack of funding to implement the demands of NCLB, it is becoming difficult to do anything innovative or motivational in or out of the classroom.
There is so much concern from the administration about not becoming a "failing" school, that teachers don't have room in their curriculum to do the motivational things that students really remember. Other elective subjects, such as theatre, art, astronomy, dance, and auto mechanics are being eliminated or under funded. These are often the classes that keep many kids in school.
More and more teachers, such as myself, are feeling squeezed out of the profession because it is not respected with an appropriate wage, nor does it have nearly as much autonomy as other professions with a similar educational background.
A teacher in a rural Mississippi town is definitely not getting paid as much as a teacher in Manhattan. There is no way the students in many poor, rural areas are going to attract well-qualified and educated teachers with such low pay unless the federal government does something to equalize this.
School vouchers will only result in closing some schools and increasing class sizes at other schools. Many of these schools, especially the rural ones, are not being allowed to make realistic goals for their student body, nor are they being given the extra funding to do this. Many of these rural schools, several in Santa Cruz County, don't have the funding for every student to have his or her own textbook in some classes.
Being labeled a "failing" school is seriously detrimental to students. No child is going to feel motivated to do better after being labeled a failure. What NCLB does not take into consideration is demographics and the lack of control educators have on a child's family life. There are a great number of social issues that need to be addressed before a child can concentrate on passing a test.
As a Democrat, I believe in supporting these social issues as a means of achieving some equity in the playing field. It seems as if some conservatives merely want to privatize education, much in the same way they want to privatize Social Security, which works if one has enough money.
Going to a private school is great - if one can afford it. I went to both a private and a public high school, and had several great teachers in the public high school and one or two great ones in the private school. Both schools had their share of mediocre, uninspiring teachers.
Our nation needs some real democratic leadership that will encourage public school administrators to put the job of teaching back in the hands of teachers, and provide more equity in funding for schools and teachers' salaries. Our goal is to provide quality education for all, not just the few who can afford it.