Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’

[kpete]

Here is one resignation letter from a veteran teacher, Gerald J. Conti, a social studies teacher at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y.:

Mr. Casey Barduhn, Superintendent
Westhill Central School District
400 Walberta Park Road
Syracuse, New York 13219

Dear Mr. Barduhn and Board of Education Members:

It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher.

As with Lincoln and Springfield, I have grown from a young to an old man here; my brother died while we were both employed here; my daughter was educated here, and I have been touched by and hope that I have touched hundreds of lives in my time here. I know that I have been fortunate to work with a small core of some of the finest students and educators on the planet.

I came to teaching forty years ago this month and have been lucky enough to work at a small liberal arts college, a major university and this superior secondary school. To me, history has been so very much more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my travel, guiding all of my reading and even dictating my television and movie viewing. Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or a presentation. With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching “heavy,” working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised. STEM rules the day and “data driven” education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill.

A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?

My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up” our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case.

After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.

For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.

Sincerely and with regret,

Gerald J. Conti
Social Studies Department Leader
Cc: Doreen Bronchetti, Lee Roscoe
My little Zu.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/10/1343935/-Teacher-s-resignation-letter-My-profession-no-longer-exists

[Eleanors38]

1. The recurring theme: No opposition.

[Enthusiast]

10. +1

[northoftheborder]

2. This is not just sad, it is catastrophic for the education of our citizens.

[frazzled]

3. Are teachers quitting in droves? No.

This is one letter, from one now 64 year old teacher, who was probably going to retire anyway. (And by the way, this letter has been very popular among the right wing: a google search reveals that both Rush Limbaugh and The American Conservative took note of it, for their own purposes.) There are 3.7 million full-time elementary and secondary public school teachers in this country. I don't think we're exactly in "catastrophe" mode when one of them, already near full retirement age, quits. And this letter is more than a year and a half old.

I remember there also being a letter from a kindergarten teacher that was passed around a lot a few years ago.

But the teaching profession is not shrinking. It has grown by 7% since 2002: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28

[hobbit709]

5. I personally know 6 teachers who have quit in the last 10 years.

When prepping for the test started taking more classroom time than actually teaching the course, they got fed up.

[Cha]

33. I personally know more teachers who have not "quit" in the last 10 years. My sister in New York

is one of them.

[F4lconF16]

36. That is the exact same argument used by people denying police brutality.

"There's no problem--I know more black youth that haven't been shot by police then have been."

Knowing more teachers that haven't quit then have means nothing. There is a serious problem with our educational system, and statements like this bely that fact.

Edit to add that "quit" is not the right word to describe what is happening. "Forced out of existence as educators and mentors" is perhaps a better way to put it.

[Cha]

40. I'm stating a fact.. too bad you have to bring "police brutality" into my sister's tenure as

a New York school teacher and all the other teachers I know in New York who didn't "quit". Which is the title of the OP's teacher who did.. "quit". The letter is from April 6, 2013.. I've seen it before.. I asked if there were any recent ones?

My sister actually appreciates and loves her job.

[Le Taz Hot]

6. How denigrating this post is.

He has been a teacher for 40 years. You really don't think he has something to tell us about the state of education in this country? And, honestly, when is the last time you actually talked to a teacher instead of digging up stupid statistics to try to bolster your argument.? You're no worse than the bean counters who strip people of their jobs, their professions in order to save a few dollars and who never meet the people whose lives they have devastated.

This teacher is trying to tell us something. Maybe, after being in the profession for 40 years, he has earned the right to speak out about the profession he so loved and maybe we should listen.

[frazzled]

15. How so? I am a huge supporter of teachers

Both I and my children attended public schools, and I spent 15 years as a volunteer in public school classrooms, assisting teachers and tutoring at-risk children.

Have some thicker skin--I simply don't think this letter represents all teachers or all districts, or that it defines all the educational issues at play today. Especially as it's on its third or fourth round of being circulated on the Internet (as much on right-wing sites that want to bogey-man "Common Core" as a communist intervention into freedom as it is on sites like ours).


Chill. My post is NOT denigrating.

[Le Taz Hot]

19. My skin is just fine but thanks for your concern.

I don't think anyone asserted that this represents all teachers or all districts nor that it's a "communist intervention." Having said that, I've spoken with enough stressed out teachers to know this is a prevalent point of view. It's easy enough to discover for yourself. Go talk with 20 random teachers and see if you can find a common theme. The number of times a letter has been posted on the internet is less of a concern than the overall point the letters are trying to make.

[TBF]

28. Perhaps look up "denigrating"

in the dictionary and then get back to us.

BTW, the Obama/Duncan privatization of education can not possibly be considered a "communist" idea as it is clearly devised by and benefiting the moneyed class in this capitalist society. And that is the only group it is benefiting - folks like Pearson LLP who are creating the copious testing.

[Dont call me Shirley]

30. Pearson is a British corporation. How's that for the British revenge?

[1monster]

9. Four hundred new teachers in my district and many of those job openings

Came from teachers who opted for retirement before actual retirement age. The new rules for education and teachers played no small part in their decisions to end their teaching careers.

[sabbat hunter]

42. did your district

offer early retirement bonuses? That is usually why teachers retire early. Otherwise they usually will not do so, as the monetary costs are too high.

[1monster]

46. No.

[Thespian2]

13. Obviously, your are not a teacher.

I spent 38 years watching school systems disintegrate into testing factories where learning is almost forbidden. Teachers are discouraged from teaching unless the lesson is test preparation. I was extremely happy when I retired in '98. Since I retired education has just gotten worse. With people like Arne Duncan in charge, education is dead. Think about it...Texas wants their schools to avoid factual information and teach conservative talking points. I could go on but the mess in America makes me sick.

[frazzled]

16. Obviously, "your" not either.

And what happens in Texas is not what happens in Minnesota or New York or Washington State. Good teachers don't need to teach to the test 100% of the time.

And Canada?

[Thespian2]

23. Thank you

for correcting "you're.' Could you define "good teacher?" My concern for my 38 year career was the health and well-being of my students, including fostering their curiosity, letting them explore and dream, and giving them as much freedom as possible. You may call me all the names you wish.

Never taught in Canada.

[Initech]

21. I'm reminded of a scene from the Simpsons:

"Uh oh two independent thought alarms in one day. The children are over stimulated. Willie, remove the colored chalk from all the classrooms."
"I warned ya!!!!!!"

[LWolf]

18. Droves? I can't speak to that.

I can count a dozen teachers that I've personally worked with in the last 15 years...GOOD teachers, who left the profession because of the things the standards and accountability movement were doing to the profession. Some of them were young, new teachers who simply went back to school for another degree and career. Some were people from two income families who could afford to live on one income, or with one income greatly reduced. Some were people who were close to retirement and took it early, leaving the field to those of us who didn't have those options.

I suspect that if there were decent jobs out there available for former teachers, many more would have left, and would be leaving. I'm just one teacher, but it seems like that dozen or so leaving the profession, not because they weren't competent or had some other life events happening, but in direct response to the current "reforms" destroying the profession and public education, is a bit excessive.

I can also attest to a large number of young college students who seek a career elsewhere, even when they hoped to teach. One of them, my niece, just talked to me about this a few days ago. She's an English major exploring careers in technical writing, because a good look at what teaching entails, not the actual teaching, but the rest, has her convinced she wants no part of it. She's just one of many I've heard from on that subject.

[KJG52]

22. Apparently you think quantity has a quality all its own...

While that may be true on the battlefield, in the classroom it is rather self defeating, as quality education disappears with the concept of privatizing and "standardizing," the education system. The ridiculous assumption that replacing experienced teachers with "standardized testing systems" and "core curriculum," that emphasizes STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) disciplines that are, for most people, best taught in dedicated technical programs that have been eliminated in most school districts along with theater, art, music and physical education, is simply poorly thought out. Pure science, engineering and mathematics programs are not possible for most students, as they are neither intellectually nor temperamentally suited to theses disciplines and "technical," education has been all but eliminated in most school districts. The real core curriculum should be to teach people how to critically think, from that point any career path or line of pursuit in the professions, arts, business or government is possible. The current education policy of the DoE and most State governments is self defeating, as it tries to make a standardized product out of the most nonstandard material there is: people.

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. You are pointing out the number of teachers

The OP is pointing out the QUALITY of teachers and education.
2 different things.

I know 3 teachers in my community, who are young, very nice people but who are not blessed with an overabundance of intellectual curiosity,
nor a passion for teaching. They are perfectly content to follow the new STEM curriculum.
And why not? It is all they know; any potential role models have left the field.

[freebrew]

55. ^^THIS^^

Our local district is seeing similar things happen. Teachers are getting more students, less help and less time to teach. They' seem to be in meetings about 20% of the time learning some corporate backed "new ways" of teaching while the current crop of kids is sitting either at home(school closes at noon on Friday) or sitting with a sub while the teachers are in these meetings.

Older teachers are retiring instead of teaching longer. Newer teachers don't have the time to learn from the older teachers. Like all professions these days, there will be fewer people around that really know how to do stuff.

[dixiegrrrrl]

56. It is the death of institutional memory which rarely is mentioned

The adage that " those who forget history are doomed to repeat it "
is highly important on many levels now.
This applies to all sorts of key systems...political, educational, medical, etc.
I would see it in agencies that had a lot of turnover.

The massive changes in the economy over the last 2 decades have caused many older and more experienced people to lose their jobs,
since it was the older ones who got "let go" first.
I now believe that was planned.
Newer inexperienced people were hired, who would work for less pay, but who also had no institutional memory to guide them.
Much of the fallout about this loss is not being recognized.






[font style=color:#FF0000;]the system is not broken.........it was designed this way.[/font]

[freebrew]

57. It's been planned for a long time, IMHO...

I noticed it when Nixon cut the GI Bill, halving the amount of $$ for education.
But, lately, it has steamrolled. The anti-union movement is strong people don't want to have to learn hard things.
Not sure if the cause is just laziness or just never having to work for things.
Have you noticed the number of planes falling out of the sky? Just kidding, sort of.

Love your sig...

[wcast]

31. In this economy very few people quit any job no matter how frustrating.

What you do see, however, is a major drop in college students enrolling as education majors. 33% drop in Pennsylvania's state schools, with that amount or more in PA's private colleges. While you may not think the letter means much, it is a salient and on-point critique of a broken system that, to us in the profession, seems to shine a light on what is really happening. Whether this letter, or others like it, change anything does not matter as long as it generates discussion.

[Smarmie Doofus]

44. Yes, actually.

http://www.uft.org/news-stories/uft-report-shows-exodus-experienced-teachers

And enrollment in teacher training programs is way down too.

[Tatiana]

58. Yeah. Actually they are. Many are taking ERO (early retirement option).

They are being replaced, at times with 1.5 newer, younger, cheaper teachers or certificated staff members. So it looks like we may have more staff than in the past, but really these teachers are less experienced, lacking in classroom management skills, and poorly trained. My District experimented with hiring TFA (Teach for America) candidates. Out of the six they hired, only one lasted for more than 2 years (and she quit in the middle of the third).

It's a lot easier to hire cheaper labor. The administration figures that all the curriculum and assessment materials are in the box. Just open, distribute, and test, test, test. We no longer teach critical thinking skills like we did. There is no time. Districts seeking Race to the Top funding dole out fat $$$$$ to charters that don't perform any better than public schools do. There is less time for recess, music, and the arts. Today's public education system is certainly worse than it was 15 years ago.

[frazzled]

60. Or because, like the teacher who wrote this letter,

they can retire early (he was already 62 at the time) and still get their pension by substitute teaching for several years. My best friend did this (though she retired long ago, when she adopted her kids, returning to substitute teaching only after they grew up in order to qualify for her pension).

[earthside]

4. Part of the Bush-Page-Spellings-Obama-Duncan plan.

There is no daylight between the education policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Corporatize public education:

Insert 'teaching' into the non-professional, low-skilled, low wage sector of the economy.
Convert public schools into so-called 'charter' schools paid for by taxes but managed by private concerns.
Elevate mangers, administrators, consultants and data analysts as solely responsible for education.
Standardize, conform, simplify and nationalize curriculum and practices.
Redirect billions of taxpayer dollars to private 'education' corporations.

Then as students fail to meet even mediocre Common Core standards and teachers subsequently fail their evaluations --- doubled down on the above formula with more teacher and union bashing and even more contracts to Microsoft, McGraw-Hill, College Board, etc.

Teacher Conti is no longer caught in the cycle because he is leaving what was once a respectable profession; those who follow him will never even know what it means to be a real teacher.

By the way, it goes unnoticed, but the corporatization of your local public library is also underway. The civic arena where "we the people" engage in dialogue and debate and make democratic decisions is being replaced by the so-called "democracy of the marketplace".

And ... sadly, our President is completely on board with this in education.

[Wella]

27. + 1

.

[Teacheral]

7. I retired from teaching just in time

The profession no longer exists.

[Indydem]

8. This letter is 18 months old.

Why do things like this come up as if they are new?

No one cares. If they did, s state like New York, or a President like Obama would have done something besides make it worse.

[jtuck004]

45. "would have done something besides make it worse" < You mean like we have with the climate? n/t

[Auggie]

11. Corporatocracy at work. And there's more to come.

[Fearless]

12. Same reason I got out of the career

What's next? For profit public education??

[Ka hrnt]

37. Already done--they're called charter schools.

Just do an internet search for "charter school scams" and you'll find dozens and dozens of examples.

[Fearless]

51. Fair enough.

I had blocked that from my memory.

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. kick

[woo me with science]

17. United oligarchy, not gridlocked democracy.

We have two fake parties representing the same direction of policy: corporate takeover of this nation and all its wealth.

[Initech]

20. 40 years of failed policies under Reagan brought us here.

[WillyT]

25. A Sad K & R !!!

[Cleita]

26. Bet a lot of journalists and reporters feel the same, too.

This is what corporate rule has done to these once honorable and necessary professions.

[Octafish]

38. + Infinity

Journalism is my field. What once were busy newsrooms throughout Michigan are now about a quarter of their size, if they're still around. The Detroit CBS folks built a HUUUUGE state-of-the-art studio in which to produce local content. It sits near-empty, most of the stuff pumped out on the tee vee is piped in from New York City.

Most of my friends in the business now rabbit as freelancers and contractors, writing this, researching that, editing for the Man where they can find work. It absolutely stinks.

Bonus Torture for Me: I got to hear my neighbor's kid talk about how some professions are extinct and, too bad, but that's the way it goes. In the future, it'll be economics and how people should study more math so they can get good jobs. Those who work hard will rise to the top. Too much PC crap as it is. More economic Darwinism. Geesh.

[Cleita]

52. Young people don't know the loss. I'm an ordinary person who grew

up mostly in So CA. The most important part of my day was reading the Los Angeles Times. when I was a kid it was the comics. In high school I did have to do current events but I was largely more interested in the fashions and features. When I left college, it was the classifieds for jobs and apartments, but also the news. Then I grew up and graduated to the crossword puzzles and more importantly the editorial pages, and what editorials they were with some of the best political writers in the field. I had moved around in my later years but always made an effort to get the Times no matter where I was.

Then one day things changed. The editorial pages started being filled with Jonah Goldberg and the rest we know of so well in the conservasphere and ....*gasp* Ann Coulter. I really miss being able to get a good newspaper in print, to sit over a cup of coffee before you start your day.

[Dont call me Shirley]

29. "Rotten To The Core" = common core

[840high]

32. ....

[Cha]

34. Got any more recent "I quit" letters? I thought I had seen this before.. it's from April 6, 2014

[bigwillq]

35. Our education system is broken

Just like pretty much everything else in this country, with no signs of anything getting better anytime soon.

[southerncrone]

39. Same reasons I left the profession.

The education system was broken by nepotism, weak administrators & greedy politicians--not teachers.
A planned demise. Dullards are easy to control & manipulate.

[Smarmie Doofus]

41. I felt like this the day two imbeciles w. clipboards came into the classroom.....

>>>After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me.>>>>

... to make sure that I was teaching ALGEBRA to my 17 and 18 year old Down Syndrome and cerebral palsy kids.... who struggled with counting money, telling time and doing two-column addition w. regrouping....because that (ALGEBRA) is what the Common Core SAID all 17 and 18 year olds must be learning.

(Notice the internal consistency of that psychotic logic.)

That was my last year too. I thank Obama, Gates, Duncan and, especially, that bug-eyed parasite, Andrew Cuomo for helping to eliminate actual teaching from public schools in NYS.


And of course... they had a lot of help.

K and R

[WorseBeforeBetter]

43. "The coming crisis: Too few teachers for NC"

--21 The percentage decrease that N.C. State University saw in the number of students majoring in education between 2010 and 2013
--40 The percentage decrease in education majors at UNC-Asheville over the same period
--39 The percentage decrease at Winston-Salem State
--29 The percentage decrease at UNC-Chapel Hill

....

Problematically, N.C. public and private colleges of education produce only about 61 percent of the teachers needed to fill our classrooms. The remaining teachers come primarily from other states, and a small number enter through other routes into the profession. Reliance upon teachers from other states moving to North Carolina was tricky in good times. Now, with N.C. education budgets and salaries squeezed, the allure of teaching in our public schools is certainly diminished.

The shortage of trained teachers means it is harder for public schools to fill teaching positions, with schools having to hire more individuals through lateral entry and without formal teacher education and, in many cases, relying on long-term substitutes. Our students are facing the consequences of this gap in qualified teachers, and it is most pronounced in rural and urban districts.

Additionally, just as North Carolina is seeking to expand schools that have a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) focus, these are precisely the teaching fields that are in shortest supply.

....

Scott Imig, Ph.D., is an associate professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Robert Smith, Ph.D., is a professor of education at UNCW.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/08/4302959/the-coming-crisis-too-few-teachers.html#storylink=cpy

I just posted this in the NC Group; seems appropriate in this thread.

[jtuck004]

47. Oh, please. There is no crisis. These people will happily teach us into becoming like the poverty-

ridden areas of rural India, vast tracts of misery interrupted by the occasional mansion. And all it will cost us is making sure they get a paycheck. We can replace them every few years, keep the costs down. 50 million people on food stamps, another 50 million drop in and out of near poverty on a regular basis. It's like a plantation without all the messy moral stuff.

Then they have a job, and at most all the money people have to hire is half the people to police and train the others, yes?

The author of that letter is talking about spirit, and like this nation, that left us when we decided becoming more profitable was better than increasing our humanity. The schools just reflect that broader trend.

The author is correct, but it's not the school's fault. The community built it and staffed it, and broken adults can't create anything but broken children.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

48. This is why I retired earlier than planned.

I could not endure an environment that had become brutal. In the future, a "teacher" will be a minimum wage worker watching fifty kids on computers.

[YvonneCa]

49. As did...

...I. 😓

[defacto7]

50. I could rec this a thousand times.

"in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken"

No one is trying to fix anything. It's a right wing plan to break it. Break the education system, turn it over to the private sector (Pearson and co.) and make the best education only available to those who can afford it. The rest become servants who are too stupid to know who to vote for and that voting even matters.

The plan is working.

There is nothing on earth more stupid than privatization of education. Standardizing education is to teach the mundane and undermine the advancement of society though the segregation of human abilities.

I do weep for America on this point, and I weep for the future of humankind.

[elzenmahn]

54. Agreed...

...the right wing has always been ideologically against the very concept of the "commons" (e.g. libraries, schools, etc.). What else can we expect from them?

[Iwillnevergiveup]

53. "Process has become our most important product"

is the phrase that most resonated with me. Mr. Conti is absolutely correct and the biggest reason I opted for an early retirement from teaching. I hadn't seen this letter before, but it matters not that it's being recycled - the conditions he so eloquently describes still exist.
Megabucks to be made in education today. Let's give our kids and grandkids BOOKS for Christmas....all the ones we enjoyed when we were young.

K&R

[Paladin]

59. Sounds like the sentiments of my veteran teacher friends.....

....early burn-outs, every one of them.

I think this country may very well be past the point of no return.

[woo me with science]

61. kick