I had a six month nightmare of doing business with the Dallas school district. The people there were so brazenly corrupt, at all levels, that I thought I was in a third-world country.

“limitthislimitthat”, I’m sorry that you clearly had such a terrible experience, and it’s sad that you think so badly of teachers. It is an intense and wonderful job, and most people who do it well love students, love learning, and love teaching. The reason we are paid more than minimum wage is because of the level of education and training that is required and the highly skilled nature of the job. Other jobs that require similar levels of skills and time are paid far better, and that is why teachers lament their pay. However, there are so many fantastic things about the job, that’s also why we stay.

One thing we can do that does not necessarily involve “throwing money” at the problem (although underfunding does cut those programs and extra staff that help us make lessons more innovative/creative, class sizes smaller, and speciality teachers who can address individual needs of students) but instead reallocating the money that we have is to make the public educational system more specialized, creating schools that have different niches for different types of students. I’m not talking about throwing problem kids in one place and gifted learners in another. ALL students can learn, but, it is not realistic to expect all schools (and therefore all teachers) to cater to every individual and their specific learning needs. This is one of the reasons that other countries have better scores – they are not afraid of specialized programs where kids get what they need. We are terrified in this country of pigeonholing children – making them feel different. What’s wrong with being different? As I teach my students, we all have different strengths and needs. If we didn’t, the world would be pretty boring! Kids and parents need to have more choices – specialized charter schools or vouchers for private schools (which can be more specialized because they do not get federal money), and schools that are designed to help students with specific learning disabilities so they can get specialized instruction. NOT dumping grounds – schools with teachers who are specifically trained to teach and reach their students. These students may eventually not need that level of help anymore and then would transfer to a different program, or they may continue to need that support through grade 12 – either is perfectly ok.
The idea that private vouchers will ruin public schools is ill-informed. It will be cheaper overall to give parents tax credits for private schools instead of spending up to $8k as the chart shows, to educate those students in public school. Students who do not do this will go to their public school and there will be more money there to hire highly qualified teachers and teach to the specific needs of those students in smaller classes!

Another issue is the idea that every student needs to go to college… not true. Especially in our world today, college is not necessary for the majority of most jobs, though a Bachelor’s degree is required. Instead, people need specialized training to do the work they are required to do. Trade schools have become a dirty word, and they absolutely should not be. Again, here’s where other countries have it right. If the majority of high schools were specialized or had specialized training programs (NB: some larger school systems are beginning to do this now) we would be preparing students for the world of work out of high school, if that’s what is right for them, or to go on to higher education, if that’s the better fit. The role of a School Counselor is to help students and their parents figure out what that right fit is.

It does need to be about changing the system. Educating the public and, especially, lawmakers, about what is really needed because the people making the rules are not the people in the industry. It’s about educating parents about how they can help their children. If I had to give it a number I would say that 95% of parents want to help but many don’t know how or are afraid/wary of the system for a variety of reasons. If our society supported and valued our teachers and schools more (monetarily and emotionally) instead of blaming them for all of the educational woes of this country, you might see more qualified people want to be a part of education. Teachers do have to work within some pretty strict parameters and red tape, and that often takes a lot of the great teachers out of the system because they burn out. We need to fix that to retain our people. Japan is a great example of how to do that.

Sorry this is so long. I am passionate about this because I come from a family of teachers, my husband is a teacher, and I absolutely adore my job because of my amazing students. Thank you for starting the conversation, Greg, and I hope that some of these thoughts resonate with others. Children are awesome and resilient – if we set our expectations high and give them the tools they need, we can again rise to the top in more ways than one.