Reply #49: Public school teacher here: We all share the blame: Teachers, govt, and parents. [View All]

[jazzjunkysue]

23 years experience and I love it. But I didn't go into it for the $$ or the job quality, I just don't expect better.

But the "problem" with school is all three:
1. Government is over controlling, and ruining "education." Basically, with NCLB and test scores in the papers, education only really happens in towns where the gene pool provides smart enough students so that they can do well on the test and the teachers can get beyond the test and educate.

2. Parents are still looking for the lottery: I'll pay taxes and you'll raise my kids for me and spit out a perfect college prospect in 12 years. Just don't make me get involved.

3. Most teachers are awesome, but a few do phone it in. Merit pay is not the answer. It does help when parents are high profile and administrators are there to set high expectations for teachers. I've seen teachers improve with better administrators. The thing is, when money is tight, the first thing cut is staff development. Now, all of you out there in the real world get regular staff dev in your jobs. But teachers are told to "take care of these kids and we'll let you out at 3." And they get little contact between each other and none between schools. Isolation helps cement weak teaching and the only antidote is time and $$ for staff development.