Why Didn't They Graduate From High School?

When I retired from teaching I wanted to do something worthwhile, to reciprocate for my good fortune and to use my teaching skills. I spent my career teaching children with learning disabilities and wanted to work with adults—people who had a deep desire to learn and came to school of their own volition every day. This brought me to Seeds of Literacy. 

In the past several years I have worked with many students and they are always appreciative and friendly. I admire their determination to make a better life for themselves and their children.  Many of them are middle-aged and some even older. One woman I tutor is older than I am. When I asked her why she was doing this she said she just wanted to get a job—at an age when some of us are retiring.

My teaching career was spent in an inner ring suburb of Cleveland, so I am familiar with the struggles and challenges of poverty and lack of education. I dealt with so many families just struggling to get by and school was often low on the list of priorities when compared to paying the rent or feeding their children. Students moved in and out of the district regularly. The lack of stability has a terrible effect emotionally and educationally. The social challenges of making new friends as well as entering into a different curriculum can lead to discouragement and behavior issues. By high school some students were angry and discouraged because school was a place of failure and they could never hope to meet the expectations.

I knew single mothers working a third shift and leaving the children with a teenaged cousin after school. Students often showed up at school hungry or distracted by a painful situation at home. I taught twin boys who would enter my room visibly upset and focused on each other because of an unhappy interaction at home. One of them was in need of medical intervention for severe asthma but never received it, and his day would be wasted in the clinic.

At Seeds, I overhear conversations while tutoring, and they remind me of the lives of the children I taught. Sometimes it is between the students sitting together at a table. They share their reasons for not completing high school, and it’s eye-opening. In many instances, the decision to leave school was completely out of their control. One day, two young women at the same table told me they were both forced to drop out of high school to watch younger siblings. They didn’t want to leave school then, and now it is so much harder.  

One of those women now needs her eldest daughter to watch her younger children when she works. The young teenager may struggle to find time to do her own homework. This mother may have no other option but to work to support her children. Imagine how overwhelming life might be to work, care for a family and study for a GED at the same time.  As a society we expect people to be responsible and move forward, but how many of us realize the obstacles and sacrifices that takes every day?

Another student worked all morning with me on writing a personal story. I learned she had a baby boy when she was seventeen and her family kicked her out. She lived on the streets for eight years “hustling” to take care of her son. She would drop him off at a friend’s house, make some money and buy her friend’s family some food to repay their help. One day her sister went to the babysitters, took her son and put him up for adoption. She said, “My reason for living was gone. I didn’t see him again for sixteen years until he found me.” She continued to survive alone for many years and was incarcerated several times. She told me she wanted to make her son and her two grandchildren proud of her by finishing school. But I have not seen her for months and we don’t know why she left.  The circumstances that kept her from graduating from high school are probably still there, and making a commitment to education is still difficult for her. 

Recently a student shared that he is sixty-six years old and his children do not know that he never finished high school. In his last semester of high school his mother became sick and made him quit to be “the man of the family.”  That set a difficult course for his life. Now retired, he wants to complete his education. 

Not everyone has grown up with the  same advantages and family support.  When I grew up in suburban America, I understood that I would graduate from high school and go to college. There are few, if any, obstacles in our way. My parents helped me with homework and raised me in a safe, healthy environment. I never came home to an empty house or heard gunshots outside my window. I never lacked for basic health care or went to bed hungry. I was never neglected or discouraged from reaching my goals. 

I’ve realized where and to whom each one of us is born is pure chance.

What if you were raised with very little guidance or love? I’ve heard teenage mothers say that a baby gives them the unconditional love they’ve never had before. I was born in the middle class and spent my childhood feeling a sense of belonging and love. I did no have to go out and look for it in ways that could be harmful to me. 

The students I work with left high school for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, poverty and the limited options that come with it don’t go away just because someone grew up. 

I have seen people come to Seeds of Literacy for months and suddenly disappear. They were attempting to do what our society asks of them even though our society might not fully understand where these adults are coming from and what they’re living with.  Giving these adults and their children a chance at a better future benefits all of us. None of us did it alone and neither should they.

Half of Us

Half of Us

Half of us remember the water and air pollution of the 1970’s when streams and lakes were too filthy to swim in, air dangerous to breathe, animals and birds endangered and nearing extinction. The EPA worked for decades to create a healthy, safe environment for Americans.  Half of us now think that a manufacturer has the right to pollute public waterways and air in favor of making more money. Half of us do not care about the health of the next generation—corporations are more valued.

Half of us value public schools that have provided free education to all American children in their neighborhoods.  Half of us want school choice that would drain the resources from public schools and still only provide choice to the lucky ones who have parental advocates and a quality charter school within their neighborhood. This would possibly provide a better education for some, not for all.  Half of us believe we simply need to support and help public schools reach their potential not continue to take from them—then every child will benefit. This also starts with reform for fair and constitutional funding of all public schools.

Half of us say that government should stay out of our lives, but think it’s okay to tell a woman what to do with her body and make decisions that will impact the rest of her life. The other half of us are most likely not in favor of abortion, but understand that we are not in that woman’s shoes and cannot possibly know her circumstances. 

Half of us call ourselves pro-life but are not concerned about the lives of poor unwanted children after birth or that 30 million American children are hungry everyday. Half of us want to take away preventative care, prenatal care, contraception (which prevents unwanted pregnancy) and check-ups for those who have no where else to go, but call themselves pro-life. Babies, children, adults and the elderly—all are alive.

Almost all of us can trace our family history to immigration, yet half of us have decided that all immigrants should be demonized for the actions of a very few. Half of us boldly proclaim our patriotism but deny that freedom of religion applies to every religion, not just our own. 

From 2005 to 2015 there were 24 American deaths from terrorism. In that same decade 280,000 Americans died by gun violence at the hands of other Americans. Even though there are no recorded instances of someone saving others with a gun and there are thousands of instances of innocent bystanders being killed by guns, half of us think gun rights are more important than the right to safety and life.

Half of us are vocal and vigilant about defending the American flag, the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem. Those traditions and ceremonies do not make America great unless they apply to all Americans no matter their race, religion or gender. Discrimination of our fellow Americans is still overwhelmingly present in our society. 

Half of us revere the Constitution yet disparage those exercising their First Amendment rights when we do not agree with their stance.  Peaceful protest has brought about change in this country from Civil Rights to the end of the Viet Nam War to Women’s rights to vote. Freedom of speech and assembly applies to everyone—all the time.

Poverty and Children Continued

What If You Were Dorothy?

I've started volunteering to tutor adults who are studying to get their GED. It's only been a few sessions and already I think I might be learning as much from them as they are from me.

I spent all morning working with Dorothy on a language arts packet - excruciatingly dull worksheets on dangling modifiers and parallel statements etc.  At the end of the packet it asked her to write a story about something that happened to her. She thought for a while and then she wrote her story:

She had her son when she was 17 years old. They lived on the streets like "gypsies" for eight years. She wrote about how her every waking minute was spent on trying to meet his basic needs. She did that by "hustling" and dancing in bars.  She would leave him with a friend or acquaintance and buy food for that family with part of her pay. She worked hard for her son.

Then one day her sister came and took him from the babysitter and said she wanted him to play with her son - and Dorothy never saw him again - for 16 years.

When she realized he had been taken she wrote; "I no longer had my reason for living."

I asked her why she was in the GED program and she said because she had to make a new life - stop going to prison. An agency sent her to a halfway house in Akron and then in Cleveland to help her get back on her feet. She is done "hustling" and is getting an education with that support. She has a place to live and best of all her son found her.

Her son was adopted by a minister and his wife. They sent him to college and now he is a minister and gospel artist. Dorothy beamed with pride when she spoke of him.  She said he calls her mom and she has two grandchildren that she sees regularly.

I marveled at Dorothy's sweet nature and positive outlook after all she had been through.  I felt thankful for the social programs that gave her this second chance at life.  I realize her story isn't that uncommon. What was uncommon was sitting next to the person telling it.

So the next time you hear some wealthy politician saying poor people just need to get a job and take care of themselves ask yourself exactly how a 17 year old with a baby and no family support, no home and no education would do that on her own.

This country needs to get real about poverty. We can pay to help people out of poverty and horrific situations now or we can pay by keeping them in prisons and dealing with unwanted uneducated angry children. We pay one way or the other. Just imagining that  everyone has an equal playing field  doesn't make it so.

Public School Teachers

There is a teacher's strike going on in the greater Cleveland area. Strikes are terribly damaging to both sides and personally I do not think I would ever vote to strike. I have seen both sides. I do know that it always a last resort and I understand the union's need to retain their power lest working conditions deteriorate and effect student learning. I also understand the need to work with a contract and not be taken advantage of.

Thinking about this made me want to share what it was like in the elementary school building that I teach in this week.

This week grades and report cards were due. Report cards can take hours and hours for a classroom teacher with 25 students. We have one 45 minute planning time each day but at least once a week it is reserved for a grade level meeting. This week teachers started to give up two lunch or planning periods a week to tutor students in math for the all-important Ohio Achievement Assessment.  This will continue until the end of April.  It is voluntary but everyone volunteers because it is good for kids. Just like the entire district agreed to a longer instructional day without one dissent - because we care about the kids.

This week some teachers were required to be at school in the evening for a concert, many are at an all weekend IB training on the west side. These do not all apply to me but I did have extra special ed duties this week that took up several class periods.  This Wednesday we will all work a 13 hour day to accommodate conferences.

Most days I open my email in the morning with trepidation because I know there will 2-3 more things I am required to do that day or that week that I previously knew nothing about.

We are required to go to multiple trainings each year. Yes, they are part of the work day, but anyone who is a teacher knows how much extra effort it requires to prepare for substitutes (and then usually you have to teach it again anyway).

Am I complaining? No! No one I know complains. It's our job. It's also our job to deal with children who come to school hungry, angry, filthy, unmedicated and out-of-control, and deal with parents like the one this week - when told his children weren't doing their homework - yelled at the teacher that it is her job to teach them, not his.

There are days I come home exhausted, discouraged and sometimes defeated because it is not an easy job.  You can't stop caring because they are children.

Oh, and we also lost an hour this week  .......I'm just saying.

COEXIST XXXV - My Worldview Part 3

(See last two posts)

Education - The government response to education is often punitive instead of supportive. Firing teachers and starting business-run schools is not an answer to better education. I believe in quality education for all American children, not just those fortunate enough to live in a prosperous school district or those lucky few who get into a charter school. School choice is not the answer because it only helps some children and siphons money away from public schools. How is that improving American education?  Do we really support the demise of our public school system?
The government should leave education to the educators and support all schools, not use money for trendy experiments. It has been proven that government mandates, especially "No Child Left Behind" have all been colossal failures, but the government is never blamed, just teachers.

Teacher's Unions -  In my 30+ years of experience I have found teachers and teacher's unions to be overwhelmingly in favor of whatever is good for kids. We take pride in our jobs and our job is to educate and nurture children.  My district recently proposed a longer school day and it was unanimously approved - no extra pay - in fact, we are on a pay freeze, which no one opposed either. Schools run efficiently, in part, because of union negotiations for class size, discipline policies, support for troubled and disabled children - and the list goes on and on.

Prayer in School - I don't get it. How can you stop someone from praying? If the issue is that everyone needs to do it that's not very respectful to those who choose not to, is it?  (See Romans 14) Religious freedom is for everyone, not just Christians. I see groups on social media post things about children not being allowed to say the Pledge of Allegiance anymore, but it's not true - my school building does it every day. Don't make people angry for nothing - and if you want to pray - go ahead. The insistence that everyone believe the same thing is not American or Christian to me.

Evolution vs. Creationism - This is a no-brainer to me. I believe in both. If God created the earth and all that is in it - and called it good - then he created the laws of science as well. If we believe that God created human beings why do we need to agree on exactly how it happened? When I learned evolution in school it had no effect on my faith.

Teachers and Classroom Realities

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor, the highest responsibility anyone could have.
Lee Iococca

In a recent Plain Dealer article by Mark Naymik it was refreshing to not detect any agenda or opinion - just the realities of Cleveland school teachers. It mentioned that tardiness is a real problem. One reason is students as young as 13 years old are often in charge of younger siblings. Students show up hungry, distracted by a difficult home situation or event over the weekend. Some are not clean and draw ridicule.

Instead of complaining about things they cannot control, or blaming students for their difficulties, teachers said it was a testament to their character that these youngsters could show up to school every day. They face challenges that most suburban children never face.

When a teacher is angrily told to F--- off, instead of punishing the students teachers often reach out to that child, especially younger ones, to see what is troubling them. One teacher said they try to replace the angry behavior with something else. Although it would be easy to say this is the parents' responsibility, the fact is, when it enters the classroom, it is the teacher's problem.

And teachers DO buy many school supplies for needy students or things the school district no longer can afford.  If there are computers or Smart Boards in the classroom they are there because resourceful teachers wrote grants or raised money for them.

Teachers recognize that, no matter how difficult student behavior may be, school is the only safe place for many children. Teachers are like their family.

Personally, I am often greeted by hugs from younger children who seem to be longing for affection and validation.

The article ended - "Such a dynamic is hard to evaluate and categorize in contracts and through legislation."

I often hear that the answer to failing schools is to fire teachers - maybe they should be supported instead.

Did You Know???

I just spent two days at a training for my school building to become an accredited International Baccalaureate (IB)school. IB is a worldwide movement that promotes global learning and student learning from their own inquiry and discoveries. It's very involved, but to me it looks like it may put some joy back in the learning process after over a decade of making learning (and teaching) only preparing to take tests. We still have to give tests, but IB concepts have spread throughout the world for the past several decades and is now spreading through the US.

The following is text from a video you can view on You Tube if you'd prefer. It closely relates to this way of learning. Either way it's worth knowing.

If you're 1 in a million in China there are 1300 people just like you.

China will soon become the #1 English speaking country in the world.

The 25% of India's population with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of the US - translated - India has more honors kids than the US has kids.

The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.

We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been in invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.

The US Department of Labor estimates that today's learners will have 10-14 jobs by the age 38.

1 in 4 workers has been with their current employers for less than a year. One in two have been there less than 5 years.

1 out of 8 married couples married in the US last year met online.

The #1 ranked country in Broadband Internet Penetration is Bermuda. US is #19, Japan #22.

WE ARE LIVING IN EXPONENTIAL TIMES.

There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. In 2006 this number was 2.7 billion.

The first commercial text message was sent on December 1992. Today the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet.

Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:
Radio - 38 years.
TV - 13 years
Internet - 4 years
Ipod - 3 years
Facebook - 2 years

There are about 540,000 words in the English language - about 5X as many as during Shakespeare's time.

It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime on the 18th century.

The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.

For students starting a 4 year technical degree this mean that half of what they learning their first year will be outdated by their 3rd year.

By 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain.

While reading this 67 babies were born in the US. 274 babies were born in China. 395 were born in India ----and 694,000 songs were downloaded illegally.

The Sad, Sad State of Education

Cleveland is one of the poorest, most racially segregated, and lowest-preforming school districts in the nation. According to data in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Cleveland's school population is 85% black and Hispanic, and 100% of its students are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at NYU. From 1997-2004 she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board which oversees federal testing programs. In other words, she was all for charter schools, an abundance of testing and the voucher programs. But after all of those years she witnessed the failure of those programs. She noted that there was no evidence that they worked in the past 10 years. The following information is from Diane Ravitch's speech at Cleveland's City Club last week after her investigation of the Cleveland schools:

About 100,000 of the state's 1.8 million students are enrolled in charter schools. The average public school teacher in Cleveland is paid about $66,000, while the average charter school teacher in the city is paid about $33,000. A big cost savings for the city and state.

As in other states, charters in Ohio get no better academic results on average than regular public schools. There are more charters at the bottom of the state's academic rating, but not much difference at the middle or the top. The biggest charter chain in Ohio is White Hat Management, a for-profit corporation run by Akron businessman David Brennen, who has contributed millions of dollars to Republican candidates. According to information complied by NPR in Ohio, "No Ohio White Hat school earned higher than the equivalent of a "C" on the state report card. Most are in academic emergency. In the company's view the state grades are unimportant, all that matters is that parents are making a choice.

The state has pumped more than $1 billion into virtual schools over the past decade with disappointing results. Of 23 e-schools in Ohio only 3 were rated effective by the state, have been called "Vastly under-performing". Children are 10 times more likely to receive an "effective" education in traditional public schools than they are in e-schools. What a surprise! E-schools consist of one person monitoring 50 or more computers for profit. Sponsors of these schools make huge amounts of money, and where there is money there are lobbyists and campaign contributors.

The Voucher system has been in Cleveland since 1995, but students have not performed better on state tests than students in public schools. So why are we continuing this ineffective and expensive program while decimating the public schools that are available to all??

The mayor of Cleveland and the governor of Ohio have decided that the answer lies in firing teachers, closing public schools, expanding the number of vouchers, and possibly expand the voucher program! Vouchers are only for the select few. The ineffective schools are run by wealthy businessmen. Somehow the evidence, the proof, the data means nothing to our elected officials. They are NOT thinking about the children or their futures. They are thinking about how to cut costs. The political allies of these people may profit, but the children will be the losers. Disgraceful. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Testing Children

Once again, I am feeling frustrated in the age of "blaming teachers" for everything from students underachieving(regardless of the circumstances)to making too much money that has ruined the state budget.

I would like to share some excerpts from an article by Diane Ravitch, a former US assistant secretary of education, a historian of education and a professor at New York University. the article addresses the failure of No Child Left Behind, the ten years of testing students grades 3-12.

Maybe standardized tests are not good predictors of future economic success or decline. Perhaps our country has succeeded not because of test scores but because we encouraged something more important than test scores - the freedom to create, innovate and imagine.

Instead of sending the vast amounts of money that schools needed to make a dent in this goal, Congress simply sent testing mandates that required that every child in every school reach proficiency by 2014 - or the schools would be subject to sanctions. If a school failed to make progress over five years, it might be closed, privatized ,handed over to the state authorities or turned into a charter school.

The fundamental belief that carrots and sticks will improve education is a leap of faith, an ideology to which its adherents cling despite evidence to the contrary.. . experts who concluded that incentives based on tests hadn't worked.

. . . testing every child every year and grading teachers by their student's scores - is not found in any of the world's top performing nations.

Piece by piece our entire public education system is being redesigned in the service of increasing test scores on standardized tests at the expense of creativity, innovation and imagination that helped this country succeed.. . competition produces winners and losers, not equality of educational opportunity

21st Century Education

The children I am teaching today have not lived in a world without the Internet. The children I am teaching today have experienced school mostly as a place to hear about tests and take tests with a paper and pencil - and yet, the way they see the rest of the world communicating and gathering information is through Skype, Facebook, iPhones, iPads, teleconferencing and the Internet.

In 1898 The Committee of 10 came together to create education standards for America. They were learned educators who decided there should be 8 core subjects, that students should be in school for 180 days a year with 6 hours of instrcution, that they should graduate with so many years of math and English etc. Sound familiar?? That was over 100 years ago and we still operate by the same standards.

Then a decade ago we threw in No Child Left Behind. The intentions sounded good, but beyond the poor funding by the government that decreed it, this law has been at the expense of preparing children for real world skills. Research shows we have turned out a decade of young people completely unprepared for 21st century employment. They all may be great at taking bubble tests, but this has not taught them critical thinking and problem solving. Tests have taken the joy out of school and removed any opportunity for teachable moments. Teachers have not had any time to delve into any non-tested subjects.

Leading curriculum expert Heidi Hayes Jacobs has researched our educational system and determined that we are preparing out students today for the world of 1991.

Along with integrating the rapidly changing use of technology, schools need to be graduating critical thinkers, collaborators, communicators. Author Daniel Pink says the future will be ruled by right-brained thinkers. He says that American will never lead in manufacturing again, Those days are over. So if America wants a successful future we will value the creators, those with imagination, the problem solvers. (Maybe MFAs will be more desirable than MBAs?)

The building where I teach is working to become an International Baccalaureate School. We will spend the next year as a candidate school and then become official. I am very new to this process, but my first impressions are positive. Sometimes It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and I am not one to jump into every new fad - I've seen too many fail miserably.

But here is the gist: Education in our building will be student-centered, not teacher-led with teachers giving the answers and students regurgitating them out on a test. It will be research-driven, not textbook-driven. It will encourage the use of all available technology and be project-oriented. It will integrate subject matter just as it is in the real world. We're moving from passive learning to active learning. Does this sound logical to you?

The big drawback is that our students will still be taking standardized tests until our legislators come to their senses and admit that these tests have been mandated to measure teacher performance, not student learning.

How will our kids fare after spending a few years actually learning to think and solve problems? That remains to be seen,but I actually feel some inspiration at this new turn in education - something I haven't felt for a long time.

The Value of Public Workers

We all know what's been going on. I have been a teacher for over 30 years. I have valuable experience, I have a Master's Degree, I have continued my training and learning all these years - I have stuck with it. I have a retirement plan based on all those years I have worked and I think I've earned it.

But, in the mind of Ohio's new governor, it can be taken away now. Young teachers who planned on supporting a family on a teacher's salary may have to kiss that idea good-bye. I wonder, in 10 years, who is going to be teaching our children, when it becomes a low class, disrespected, low paying job. Is anyone interested in the impact on children?? Do they really expect us to believe that this will balance the budget when all public workers in Ohio amounts to 9% ??

The sad thing is that teachers (I can't speak for police and firefighters) have always been willing to compromise and negotiate for the good of their students. But do we have the chance to compromise and negotiate now? No. When you take away the right to collectively bargain you take away everything.

I think teachers would have been quite willing to rethink and negotiate new agreements on tenure, retirement contributions, maybe even benefits - but we were not given the chance. We have been disrespected and somehow been labeled the enemy.

A small example would be last year when we were asked to give up some planning time during each day and an early dismissal day meant for parent conferences during the school day so the students had more instructional time. I did not hear any complaints (although we miss our early days) what I heard was - this is good for the students. We need more time to TEACH.

Labor unions were created to keep children from working adult hours, to provide workers with clean, safe workplaces, to assure break times and fair wages. Schools that run smoothly and efficiently do so, in part, because of conditions that unions have negotiated. Class sizes are not set for the convenience of teachers, but so that students have a fair and equal opportunity for a real education.

Forty-three years ago Martin Luther King was killed. In his last public speech he said, "You are doing many things here in this struggle. You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. . . all labor has dignity.

To question the dedication of public workers, to assume that we are all out for ourselves, when, in fact, the jobs we do are jobs of service to our communities, to blame us for the unbalanced budget, to take what we have worked for, does not give us dignity.

Will we hear about the governor and the legislators taking a pay cut? How about losing their benefits, or expense accounts? (Does anyone really believe that they actually work a 40 hour work week?) Or will they vote themselves another pay raise?

A Bad First Impression

If I was a newly elected public official I think I would try to impart a good first impression to the people who gave me the job. As you know I believe in coexisting, and when it comes to politics I am willing to give anyone a chance, regardless of the political party he or she aligns with. My idealistic hope is that our elected officials truly have the best interests of the people in mind, and are acutely aware that they work for us. Sadly, some appear to be giddy with power and control the moment they are sworn in.

John Kasich is Ohio's new governor, and it seems to me in his first two months he has managed to offend and alienate many of his constituents. His agenda appears to be one of taking away rather than helping. The first thing he did was try to ban the public and media from his inauguration. What??? The public that gave him the job in the first place? Next, he managed to appoint an all white cabinet. This is the first time in over 50 years that anyone has done that. After public outcry he managed to find one qualified African-American to appoint. Did this seem like a clueless move to you?

Now he is trying to oust a highly qualified member of the State Board of Education in favor of someone he prefers. The woman happens to be African-American. Smooth move, John.

But all of those are trivial compared to his support of Senate Bill 5 which will eliminate the rights to collective bargaining and seniority for all public union workers. This includes public school teachers, police officers, firefighters,prison guards and some nurses, among others. This would include changes to teacher contracts, benefits, bargaining timelines, layoff procedures and binding arbitration rules for police and firefighters. All issues that have been negotiated, worked for and sacrificed for over many years.

Senate Bill 5 would likely lower wages and benefits of all public employees who risk their lives for us daily. State workers' salaries schedules and step increases would be eliminated and based on merit(something no one has found an equitable way to do).

SB5 may weaken Ohio's entire middle class rather than creating the jobs we need. This legislation will hurt local communities by holding back job growth.

If this leaves you with a bad impression and you live in Ohio please contact your representatives and senators. It may be voted on as soon as next week. Personally, as a veteran teacher I have a retirement plan based on my present negotiated contract and with the belief that it will remain that way. I have worked hard for over 30 years to attain that plan. Taking away what people have worked for is not the solution to improving the lives of Ohioans - or anyone. I thought that's what our public officials are sworn to do - maybe not.

Bullying

There has been a lot of press about bullying lately. Children in school are bullied to the point of despair - especially gay children. We have all read the stories. A local high school has had four suicides recently. Children and teenagers don't have enough perspective on life to realize that it can ever get better, or that life will go on after high school.

Where do children learn to hate those who are different? If you watch very young children at play they rarely even notice differences in each other. It is learned somewhere. There are churches that profess to be Christian - which means they follow the teachings of Jesus - who preach that gay people are evil, sinful, unworthy. Jesus certainly never taught that, but if there are children in that church, what message have they received? We all know that Jesus taught us to love each other, and our enemies. In Matthew 22:5 he says, "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subjected to judgment."

If those children hear political discussions at home against gay marriage they have received the message that there are people out there who are less valuable than they are - otherwise why would they not be deserving of the same rights?

Dan Savage is a popular writer, columnist and blogger. He is gay and has started a campaign called, "It gets better". Many Hollywood stars have come on board with messages to gay teens that life does get better. His column this week (you can read it in Scene magazine) included a letter from a professing Christian who disagreed with Dan's previous thoughts on how many Christians encourage bullying by their beliefs.

He wrote,"The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged and disordered and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack at the ballot box, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners". Gay and lesbian children."

A final point: What do you call politians who waste millions of dollars of advertising by name-calling, mud-slinging, outright lies and half-truths against their opponents. I call them BULLIES. When will we reject this type of advertising? Why is anyone sponsoring it? Personally I am insulted every time I see one because these ads assume that we are gullible and stupid if they think we would blindly accept their ridiculous accusations. I am in favor of outlawing ads that mention the opposing candidates and only refer to what that person intends to do if elected. But, of course, that will never happen, because this is America and we love free speech. I don't believe ANY of them anymore. But children are looking and listening. These so-called public servants are teaching them how to be bullies.

Pink Hearts Not Pink Slips

By the end of this school year it is estimated that as many as 300,000 educators will receive pink slips across the country. This means drastic increases in class sizes and less indivualized instruction, the erosion of classroom discipline and school safety. the elimination of art, music, AP classes and summer school.

"Our educators put their heart and soul into their work, and every day they make a real difference in the lives of children. Starting MAy 4, National Teacher Day, wear a pink heart to acknowledge their important contributions. Students need their educators in the classroom, not in unemployment lines.
Our government didn't walk away from Wall Street. We should demand no less from them when it comes to saving our children's future. Voice your support for federal legislation that will provide $23 billion to help school districts avoid layoffs and cut vital services for children. We need to preserve the education lifeline our students deserve." The American Federation of Teachers.

To me, this is unthinkable in a country like America. We pride ourselves on progress and equality and yet it sometimes seems that our public education system is at the bottom of the priority list. At the same time schools are required to raise the bar on achievement. As a teacher, I never stop hearing about the need for America to become more competitive in education and in the world - but where is the funding? Why are schools constantly struggling for their basic needs? How will we move forward with less and less? How will your child receive the encouragment and individual attention he/she deserves from one teacher who is responsible for forty children in a classroom. The Cleveland Municipal School District is laying off over 600 teachers this spring. Who will take their place? If you think these teachers are unnecessary or not doing their job I challenge you to step into any classroom, on any schoolday and see for yourself.

My Testing Rant

This is the week I like to call Official State of Ohio Torture Children Week. It is the week, as a special education teacher, that I get to hand out a reading test on the fourth grade level to students who are reading at a 1st-2nd grade level. It will have no less than SIX 3-4 page stories that I will ask them to TRY to read (with 2-3 pages of questions attached) They will stare up at me like I am crazy and they will wait for me to help them as I have been for the past 30 weeks. But I will say - go ahead - read it yourself! I imagine it's similar to being handed a book written in Russian and told you can read it if you just TRY HARDER!

The next day I will give them a math test that includes algebra, reducing fractions, elapsed time, probability and those great story problems. The thing is that some of my students are still struggling with skills in addition and subtraction.

To me this all reinforces their belief that they are stupid and failures before they get out of elementary school. Then we wonder why they drop out.

I am all for schools being accountable, for special ed kids too, because they CAN learn. They have learning disabilities, cognitive disabilities, may have been exposed to drugs and alcohol prenatally, or struggle with ADHD every day which interferes with their learning, but states insist that they should take the same tests and progress at the same rate as all the kids who have none of those handicaps.

I will say that the state is beginning to introduce value-added status which measures yearly growth. This is good start - but my students are still expected to PASS the TESTS. If they don't I look bad, which makes my principal look bad, which makes the district look bad, which gives us an inferior rating, which is published in the paper, which causes the citizens not to vote for levies, which puts the district behind - again.

Maybe someday it will all make sense - but it will most likely be long after I am retired. My simple solution is to give them tests on their skill level and the next year show growth.
(There are also science, writing and social studies tests - and we all know you cannot possibly have a successful life without passing a social studies test. )

A Little Rant

I've been struggling with my job teaching students with special needs this year. My degree,a few decades ago, was in learning disabilities, and I still have a good handle on that. But the emotional needs and behavioral issues I face everyday are wearing me out this year. You can work with a devoted and supportive staff of teachers and administrators and still must face the fact that there is really no effective consequence for plain old bad behavior in our classrooms today. Kids get away with disruption, talking back, and refusal to follow directions or complete work every day of the week. I have three 4th graders this year whose behavior reminds me of the antics of two year olds; tantrums, crying, rage, ripping up papers, throwing things, and inability to be reasoned with. They are all on medications that vary in their effectiveness from day to day. We, as teachers, have very little support from home. The worst punishment they can get is sitting in the principal's office for awhile after school.

This is a quote from a Cleveland Plain Dealer reader that was published a couple weeks ago. He/She says it better than I:

Urban districts have unique needs. The children come to classrooms 2-3 years behind suburban students of similar age. Asking urban teachers to be responsible for a students' total educational success is like asking a dentist to be responsible for a patients total oral hygiene care. A dentist can clean teeth and fill cavities but the patient/parent is responsible to brush their teeth regularly, floss, and eat the right foods. Should a dentist lose his job if a patient has bad teeth? The community needs to step up and until then, it is unfair to ask urban district teachers to shoulder ills and effects of poverty on their own. If a student comes to school exhausted because the parent wasn't there, or if a student isn't on the proper medication for ADHD or bi-polar disorder, how is a teacher's performance to be judged and rewarded/penalized? A teacher can have the best lesson in the world, but if a child is tired or upset because their home life is difficult, they cannot learn to potential.

I think that says it all. I would really like to go back to being a teacher - not a babysitter or a disciplinarian or a substitute parent - someday...

Moving Windmills

School Breakfast

Many, many children in my district qualify for free or reduced lunches and free breakfast. This year, since it takes a village, I am helping out with breakfast supervision some mornings, and I am appalled. All of the "food" is prepackaged and most of it gets thrown in the garbage. Maybe the kids have more sense than those who are supposedly trying to nourish them. Here are two of my observations. See if you can detect why obesity and malnourishment might be a problem in our country.

One day the children were given a package of two Pop-Tarts. Here is what it said on the label:
420 calories
22%of daily fat
14 gr fat
32 gr sugar
4.5 gr saturated fat

Today they had a packaged muffin:
310 calories
11 gr fat
2 gr saturated fat
65 mg cholesterol
310 mg sodium
48 gr carbohydrates
25 gr sugar

This is the garbage we are feeding them to help them learn? They shouldn't be fed any saturated fat. A breakfast of sugar and fat and more calories than I eat for breakfast going into little children? It's sickening to me. I'm hoping to find out where this food comes from. If these children are getting free "food" because they are below the poverty level - doesn't it defeat the point of charity when it's doing more harm than good? There is no kitchen in our buildings like the old days when lunch ladies actually spent mornings cooking lunch. But what's wrong with some toast, or an apple or cereal with milk? Any thoughts?

A Culture of Foolish Fears?

We've all read the forwarded emails about "the good old days" when we hung our feet out the car windows without seat belts, and the kids stayed out playing after dark and the playground equipment was mounted on hard asphalt. Yes, some things have changed for the better. But do you think some of our concerns have gone too far? I am, of course, thinking of the panic at the thought of the President speaking some words of wisdom to American students. A recorded message went out in my district from the board of education to tell all parents that if they did not want their children listening to the President of the United States then they should send a note the next day. SAY WHAT?

I would be incredulous at this no matter who the president was or what party he represented. To tell your children that our president might have a subversive message is the root of what now divides our country. What happened to teaching respect? This country did elect him, just as every other president. George Bush got a lot of disrespect and every time I heard a child echo his or her parents venom at the President I reminded them that he led our country and was to be respected no matter what our opinion was.

I think it is incredibly harmful to teach children the message they received this week. Here's another thing that irked me this week:
The fourth grade teachers in my building chose to do away with desks and have children work at tables. All school supplies were brought in and combined so they could be shared all year long. Pencils would sit in a container on the table. Now to me this is genious. Pencils disappear like socks and dinosaurs and your money. Pencil sharpening is the bane of a teacher's existence. Elementary students rarely have a decent pencil (someone stole it). An electric sharpener is too noisy. An old-fashioned one undependable and doesn't work for all pencils. Those little individual sharpeners ALWAYS end up on the floor with pencil shavings scattered. But an abundance of already sharpened pencils on the table - beautiful. The table idea also takes care of desks crammed with papers and books until they don't close. Those are just two reasons I loved the idea, but as you probably already guessed, one parent complained that her child was not to touch supplies of the other children for fear of getting the swine flu and he should have his own supplies. Fine. That's do-able - but I want to say to that mother - I guess your child will not be touching any gym equipment, go on the swings, touch a used library book or a door handle either!COME ON!

So I'll get off my soap box after I say - if you don't want your child in public, exposed to everything in public (including horrible messages from the President reminding students to do their best and take responsibility for their education) then take your child out of PUBLIC school! HMMPH!