This is from my hometown newspaper.
Teacher suggests how to fix local school system
By STEVE HENSON | shenson@chieftain.com | Posted: Sunday, March 11, 2012 12:00 am
Community leaders, education administrators and consultants all are chirping about how best to fix Pueblo City Schools, a district in which several schools are ranked as among the worst in Colorado.
I thought it might be a good idea to ask a teacher, someone who's in the trenches, how best to fix schools.
So I sat down this past week with one of the district's best teachers, a highly decorated teacher with more than 20 years of experience. She was reluctant to allow me to use her name — there has been this little problem with vindictiveness in the local school district from time to time — but she wasn't shy about her opinions.
In fact, she said that she and most teachers know what the silver bullets are to solve this problem.
"There are two," she said.
"First, there can be no daylight between parents and teachers. They must be united and work together for a common goal — to educate the child.
"The other solution is discipline. Strict, consistent discipline. We need to remove those students who are discipline problems and focus on those students who are there to learn.
"I'm not saying give up on those other kids. Maybe we set up a safety net, like an alternate school where it's like a boot camp with severe discipline and a three-strikes-and-you're-out approach. And if they don't obey the rules there, they're out. It will be their choice to flip burgers, go into the military, do whatever.
"But we need to be able to teach the kids who want to learn and not spend most of our time dealing with those who do not."
Back to the parent issue, she said it used to be that the teacher always was right, that parents supported the teachers and schools. That, unfortunately, has changed.
"They think because they've gone to college that they know more than we do," she said. "There's a big difference between getting a college degree and teaching in a classroom. We are here to help the kids learn, not to pick on them, not to be cussed out, not to see chairs thrown across the classroom.
"Parents and administration all the way up to the school board have to have our backs, and that's not the way it is now. Discipline a kid, and the parents come screaming about unfair treatment, threaten us with lawyers. That has to stop."
She also advocated strong emphasis on the basics and retaining students in grades if they can't do the work.
"I know a teacher who teaches in eighth-grade, and he has kids who count math problems on their fingers," she said. "They don't know their multiplication tables.
"I think kids have to know the basics. I'm a believer in flash cards, phonics, the basics. Because it doesn't matter if you're on a calculator or a computer or smartphone, if you don't know the basics, you won't know when you've punched in a wrong number because you don't have a basic feel for what is right or wrong."
And as for the argument that the teachers’ union holds back significant progress, she said that's the least of the schools' problems.
"I've been in five buildings and there have been maybe three teachers who shouldn't be teachers," she said. "Most teachers work far more than the hours outlined in the contract. They help kids after hours, donate their time for extracurricular activities, buy supplies and student lunches out of their own pockets.
"The union has nothing to do with kids showing up late for school, or not showing up at all. Or parents refusing to return calls or visiting school to work with teachers to help their kids. Or drugs, or alcohol, or gangs, or teen pregnancies or all of the other issues facing our kids.
"In many parts of our town, kids are living in war zones. I don't know how we overcome that. I don't have an answer for that."
She does agree that throwing more money at the problem isn't the answer.
"Most of us are in teaching because of that magic moment when a kid's eyes light up because he or she understands and learns something. If you paid me twice what I make, it wouldn't make a bit of difference in how hard I work. And I honestly believe most teachers are like that."
She does believe, however, in teacher accountability and agrees that there should be a mechanism to remove bad teachers.
"But it can't just be testing. I think it should be a combination of many things — parental surveys, how kids do in the grades before and after a certain teacher has the kids, then track that for several years, and so forth. Testing can be part of it, but teaching is a lot more complicated than that."
I asked her what she would do if made superintendent, with unlimited powers, with no fear of retaliation from parents or the courts.
"The genie is out of the bottle with our middle school and high school kids," she said. "So I'd start right now in our elementary schools. I'd enforce strict discipline, remove those kids who refuse to follow it. I'd reduce class size because kids at that age are so needy and they need lots of personal attention.
"We'd drill into them the value of education. We would teach them basic skills and core values. And if we needed to hold them back a grade or even do that twice so they can master the work in front of them, then that's what we'd do and we wouldn't tolerate threats from parents."
In summary, she said: "This has to change. Our kids and our parents must have respect and discipline. You get that, and students will learn. Without it, no teacher, no school system can be effective."
