At an IRA Conference years ago, I participated in a workshop in which the audience was asked to reflect on a favorite teacher. I chose my high school band director, Jose, who I believed actually had faith in his students, including me. I was an average student, but he expected my best anyway. After each person in the workshop had shared a story, the facilitator asked us to reflect on our worst teacher. For me, that was another band director, Joe, who had laughed at me when I told him I wanted to major in music in college. Both of these teachers taught the same subject, in the same school system. The point of the workshop was to demonstrate how much influence a teacher can have. Case in point, I am in my mid-forties, and I remember Jose's humorous instruction, and the pain I felt from Joe's laughter. It would be a grave error to label all teachers great because of Jose, or all teachers bad because of Joe. Likewise, it would be idiotic to say that the school system for which both worked was wonderful or terrible. Yet, this is the expectation of me in the current education debates. This places me in a quandary because I'm just not good at the "you are either for me or against me" mentality.
On one side, friends are asking me to support the push for federal funding of charter and private schools. I won't do this. My heart just isn't into it. My personal experience has taught me better than to believe that they are heaven's answer to education. Most importantly, charter schools (not present in Alabama) do not have the same challenges as public schools, so to compare them statistically is a futile effort. Those "high quality" private schools are too often fueled by political or religious agendas that do not serve the general public, so in my estimation, not deserving of federal funds. Too many of them are operated by people just as tempted by ambition and competitive antics as the politicians and corporations endorsing them. This was illustrated to me two weeks ago at a football game between my son's public school and a local private school. I shouldn't have been, but I was surprised to discover that the concessions were sponsored by a national brand restaurant. I should write a letter and ask for donations for my son's band trip to Chicago, just to see how graciously they decline.
I have also seen private Christian schools in my region simultaneously invoke the name of Jesus and play on parental fears. Their self-interest prattle about protecting students from the evils of humanistic teachers and heathen children is nauseating. Reality check: the evidence of this evil (drugs, immorality etc) is just as prevalent in private schools as in public. A 30 minute sermon during chapel each week and constant reminders of living the faith have not dissuaded infiltration. Second, too often, I have seen parents dismiss responsibility for spiritual education because they feel that placing their kids in a Christian school does the trick. If I could, I would sit with them over coffee and beg them to think about what they are doing, instead of blindly trusting a school as they hand over a tuition check. I have heard the defense, "But it <private school> has a low truancy rate, no pregnant teenagers, no drug problem." Of course it doesn't. If a student gets into "trouble," he or she is expelled. Problem solved, right? That makes the claim stand true.
On the other side of the debate, friends, many of them teachers, are fighting for basic employee benefits and for a voice in the direction of their profession. I am appalled at how much public school teachers have been demonized and at how flippantly certain individuals dismiss their responsibilities. Allow me to clear up some misconceptions. Teachers do not simply work from 7:30 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. Outside of class time, they are required to grade papers, attend meetings, and stay current in their field among many other tasks. Also, teachers do not join the profession to earn large sums of money at tax payers' expense. My first teaching job at a private school paid 12,000 annually. No joke. Alabama public school teachers at the time with the same credentials and experience earned 28,000 annually. Finally, the teachers who the politicians and pundits are accusing of incompetence and laziness are members of the communities in which they teach. Look around your neighborhood, place of worship, or coffee shop and talk to them. At present, they are being judged unfairly and defamed with faulty proof called standardized tests. Please, spread the word!
With that said, not all public school policies make sense, and in part, explain the mistrust parents have of public schools and teachers and why they are so willing to look elsewhere. Mandated tests aside, parents struggle most with the in-house policies put in place in an effort to control student, and consequently, parent behavior. Unfortunately, teachers have placed themselves in a camp pitted against parents who question these policies unfairly categorizing them as friends or foes. I have confronted more than one teacher who assumed, or hoped, that I was ignorant of all things educational. In one instance, a Math teacher gave my daughter 150 extra credit problems to complete over Christmas break. She followed his written directions, finished the assignment, and handed the work in on time. On the first day back from the holiday, he announced that no one would be given credit for the work if he or she had written the answers on the back side of the worksheet. This directly opposed his written directions. In the conference that followed, he tried to intimidate my spouse into just letting it go. My daughter and her classmates left that year frustrated and bitter with barely enough knowledge to make it to the next level.
This same type of arrogance spreads into any communication in which a teacher or administration is challenged. In a meeting I attended a few weeks ago, a teacher outlined a change in fund-raising procedure, reminding parents that he was the one with a degree. Afterwards, the principal stood, introduced himself, and pompously mandated that the parents "get on board or leave." This same principal enforced a tardy policy that requires late students to sit in a waiting area rather than interrupt a class in session. If class starts at 7:40, and the student arrives late for any reason, he or she sits in the wait room learning nothing. Another policy adopted by teachers and reinforced by this administrator includes hiding student property to "teach students responsibility." It may stay hidden for a day, a week, a month, or longer. My son lost the contents of a music binder last year, so I replaced the music, sheet covers, and folder. Four months later, it was "found" in the band director's podium. Because the podium typically remained locked, my son very likely would have never found it. I was not amused.
Absolutely, teachers should have a voice in their profession, but parents should also have a voice in education policy affecting their children, and taxpayers should have a voice in education systems they fund. The parental response (homeschooling, charters, and private options) stems from a place of powerlessness that has been exploited by politics. The truth is, teachers and parents must build a bridge and refuse to be enemies if they hope to provide the best in any form of education. Public education served my family better than private education. In spite of the negative incidents, my children enjoyed many more teachers who cared deeply for their welfare and academic success. I also personally know teachers in the private sector who are just as committed. So I am stuck in the middle of the debate, uncomfortable, and searching for clarity.
