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This is simple, public education needs to harken back to its origins. It has ceased to have the mandate to provide dozens of specialized opportunities for students. The only effective option is to simply choose the essential foundation subjects that students must have (Reading, Writing, Science, Math, PE), staff the schools so that all children have no more than a 15 to 1 student/teacher ratio in grades K-3, 20 to 1 in grades 3-8, and 25 to 1 in grades 9-12, and do the job of teaching those subjects well.

Oregon is unable and unwilling to support "Video Production", "The History of Rock Music" and "Film as Lit." in schools any more. The addition of these subjects in the '80s and '90s was great for entertaining checked-out teens when the money was pletiful, but the staffing to support these subjects now is simply robbing public schools of the opportunity to do an effective job teaching anything.

It's time for those people who make the decisions to just get on with it! It may ease their conscience to do across-the-board cuts, but, like the choices that many Americans now face, it's the choice between eliminating eating out at a restaurant once a week and trying to explain to the bank why the mortgage is not paid-in-full or just not going out to eat and paying the mortgage.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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It's a temptation, even as a public school teacher, to do what is necessary to help my child avoid the social pressures, the bullying, the overcrowding, the one-size-fits-all approach that "No Child Left Behind" has left us with. It's difficult to hear my sixth grader complain that his teacher is frustrated to the point of loud outbursts, that he has no friends, that the work given to him is repetative and boring, and that he is studying what he did in fifth grade for the second time.

You bet that I am tempted to find an alternative, but then I know better. I know that my child has a point-of-view that is valid, but his reporting of events is reflective of how his day went, who he talked to, whether he felt positive or negative. Frankly, his perspective changes depending on how much sleep he had the night before. I also know that I don't want my child to think that an education is an "instant grat" thing or that it is about subjects in isolation.

My child's education is about the people he encounters as much as the tests he can pass. I don't want him to think that his education is just something like a job that he tolerates during the day so he can go do something fun or that his education is isolated to the subject label at the top of the page in front of him. 

I admit that there are many things that I would change, but letting my child think that education is just a series of tests on a computer screen is not a change I can embrace.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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Religion is a lot like Project Runway:"Either you're in or you're out." I want my students to know that they are all "in" and that my objective is only to help them learn. That's the only one of my beliefs that matters.

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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