When exactly is less more?

A South Carolina Republican is introducing a bill to reduce graduation credit requirements. Right now, students are required to earn 24 Carnegie units and pass a state standardized test. Thanks to NCLB, the test isn't going anywhere, but in their ongoing quest to cut from public education, Republicans may lower credits from 24 to 20.

Representative Dan Cooper believes that by lowering requirements, we could save money and raise the graduation rate! Yay! But what about educating children? What about improving our economy by improving our workforce?

I think that by lowering graduation requirements, we are once again lowering our standards. It is bad enough that schools are forced to use remediation techniques such as credit recovery because we are under the gun to graduate 100% of our student population in four years or less. This will just be one more jab to the heart for actual learning in schools.

My Grown-Up Christmas List

Here is the newest scenario that is making public education look ineffective. Instead of counting students who enter in ninth grade and graduate in four years, the powers that be are counting students in the eighth grade that graduate in five years in order to calculate graduation rates. Fair? Before you jump to say yes, of course, think about this...

If the student moves between 8th and 9th grades, he/she is considered a drop out.

If the student has to take a year off for one reason or another--pregnancy, illness, car accident, anything--he/she is considered a drop out.

If the student screws around during the freshmen year and takes an extra year to get out of high school, he/she is considered a drop out.

Public high schools are ruled ineffective on a daily basis by people who believe that they know what is best. Many of these people have never stepped in front of a classroom. In fact, Bill Gates even weighed in recently on how public schools should pay teachers. (FYI, it wasn't favorable for teachers.) Everyone believes that he/she knows what is best when it comes to educating children. None of these people have stood front of the classroom.

The sad fact of the matter is, there are kids who aren't cut out for the public classroom. For some reason or another, the four walls and desks don't mesh with some students' personalities. These students need an alternative form of education. These students may need to learn a trade in order to contribute to society. We want to believe that no child will be left behind, but the fact is that every child on this earth is special and unique. As a classroom teacher, it is my job to reach them all. All 150 of them that I may teach in any given year.

Where are the educators running education? Too often, administrators spend very little time in the classroom in their rush to get to the top. Elected education officials often have NO EXPERIENCE in public education at all. When they do, which is rare, it is typically less than ten years.

This Christmas, I wish for the pendulum to swing back the other way. I wish for teachers to once again join the highest echelon of respectability. I wish for people to understand that, while you get to check in to your nice cozy office, I get to teach in a coat for most of the day because the thermostat is turned low enough to save money. Understand that over the course of the day, I serve breakfast, clean up breakfast, mediate arguments, supply peppermints and tissues to sick children, dry the tears of broken hearted teenage girls, keep lunch detention for unruly boys who need attention, guard the halls against students looking for a place to hide out, discourage loitering, take cell phones, pull down hoods, and try to be engaging and entertaining. On really special days, I get to jump in the middle of actual fist fights.

All the while, people like Bill Gates get together and try to find reasons to pay me less.

For Christmas, I want us all to remember that none of us would be where we are today if it weren't for a teacher in the background, juggling all of her responsibilities and still finding time to tell us that we can do it. We can do anything we put our mind to.

Promoting Professional Advocacy amongst Educators

I was met with a disturbing comment from a colleague this year.

Let me set this up properly. My state is undergoing serious budget cuts this year, as I'm sure others are as well. This lead to me getting hot and heavy with some e-mail accounts. I sent several e-mails to the local senator and representative, as well as those for whom I am a constituent. I also sent out the links to all faculty members. My e-mails were pretty informative--a link to the e-mail forms, key items up for debate that week, and some talking points to use. Doesn't get any easier than that, does it?

I had good response from several teachers. Lots of "thank you!" and "I e-mailed today!"

This is what we need to do. We need to remind these politicians that we vote and we matter. What we do everyday affects kids, which affects this state's future economy. We want this economy to turn around? Whose shoulders do you think our future rest on?

Now to the disturbing part. In conversation with a few colleagues, the e-mail campaign came up, to which the youngest in our group responded that she hadn't sent any e-mails. What was the point? She just didn't do stuff like that.

How can you NOT do stuff "like that?" We voted for these people. They change platforms and loyalties like the rest of us change underwear. It is our responsibility to remind them who they work for. We can't just turn them loose and hope for the best!

So how do we encourage teachers to take the extra five minutes it takes to be politically active? How do we convince them that their five minutes are worth it? That's what I'm working on with my new committee members. As a part of CERRA's advisory board, we want to make advocacy as simply as possible.

Input is most definitely welcome.