It hardly seems possible that in just two short years we'll be returning to the polls once again. Less than 6 months ago, the 2010 midterm elections saw a shift from Democrat to Republican control in many state legislatures and even the United States House of Representatives. The US Senate maintained its Democratic majority by a slim four members.
Most will agree that our slow economic recovery and Americans' general dissatisfaction with our current leaders has led to the widespread Republican support of late. I suppose I should be happy that this sense of unrest seems to have galvanized people to become involved in the governmental process, but I'm really more concerned about how short our memories seem to have become. Just a few short years ago our economy imploded, with repercussions felt not just across America, but across the entire world and leading to a collapse that was frequently compared to the Great Depression.
The discussion of Wall Street vs. Main Street has remained on our lips these past 3 or 4 years, but much of the rhetoric seems to have shifted from lamenting lax regulations and inadequate oversight to protesting excessive spending and far-reaching policies. It's all part of what I feel to be the reason for the tension that's been simmering all this time and is now threatening to boil over--we need someone to blame, and we need it now.
Obama won the presidency on his platform for change, in a nation stunned by the collapse of its economy. He promised regulations to prevent the banks from repeating their past mistakes, and salary caps for those executives that led their businesses to finanacial ruin. He supported legislation to bail out those floundering institutions, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, little more than two years later, the same voters who decried the irresponsible business practices that led to our economic meltdown are complaining about the deficit, a large part of which is due to the trillions of dollars in bailout and stimulus money designed to keep our economy afloat. Now, those same voices are raised in protest of stricter regulations designed to prevent exactly the same kind of collapse we saw just a few short years ago. Citizens blame Obame for our current economic woes, not seeming to remember that the crisis began BEFORE he was elected. How could we forget so quickly?
The pendulum swung the other way last November, and many Republicans who ran on platforms of job growth and government reduction won the majority, in large part due to the support of the Tea Party. With the backing of the anti-tax group, Republicans have taken office and proceeded to abandon their campaign promises in favor of attacking the middle-class, working families of America. Public employee unions have spent the last several weeks protesting the Wisconsin legislature's push to strip them of almost all of their collective bargaining rights, and thousands more are gearing up in Ohio and Indiana. Those politicians who vowed to "take back America" are keeping their word, all right--but they're not handing it back to the people. Instead, they're handing it over to the businesses and corporations whose deep pockets put them in office in the first place. Sure, let's cut or eliminate corporate income taxes. You know what that will lead to? Record profits for those businesses and record salaries and bonuses for those at the top. What it won't (necessarily) lead to is job creation.
Private sector businesses exist for one purpose--to make money. Like other Americans, businesses have had to "tighten their belts" and make do with less, and our unemployment rate testifies that the workers are the first to go. Those who have kept their jobs are working themselves harder and harder, frantic at the thought that they might be the next ones in the unemployment line. As a result, one man or woman may be producing as much as two or three workers in past years, often at the risk of his or her physical and mental wellbeing. Do you really think that companies that are enjoying record profits, which these tax cuts will only increase, are going to create new jobs when their productivity isn't suffering? More jobs equals lower profits and lower bonuses for those executives like Rick Scott (who sold the state's private planes because he has his own). Cutting or eliminating corporate taxes is nothing more than a gamble with the hope that those in charge will use the money wisely. I won't be holding my breath.
While we're on the subject of financial irresponsibility, let's talk about some of the other items that have been up for debate recently, like, oh, I don't know...Florida's brilliant teacher merit pay legislation. We narrowly escaped a similar crisis last year by the grace of Charlie Crist's veto, but this year our Governor has promised to sign the bill into law regardless of its popularity. Because he's exercising the will of the people, right? The public demands accountability for its teachers, who are, as one Polk County resident so eloquently put it, "on the dole," so we'll give them accountability. We'll hold those teachers accountable and prove that most, if not all of them are lazy and worthless and little more than part-time, glorified babysitters!
Oh, one small thing. We have NO IDEA how much it's going to cost, or where the money's going to come from. You don't have a problem with that, do you?
That's right. It costs money--a LOT of money--to create, maintain, administer, and process results from standardized tests. The new legislation places that onus on the individual school district, which means that the district will be responsible for purchasing existing tests or commissioning the creation of new ones. In a state that offers literally hundreds of individual courses, how is that going to happen without costing money, as Rick Scott claims? He's not concerned with how it works, apparently, since he's cutting $3.3 billion from education and has stated that schools will have to "figure out how to do better with less." In fact, Scott feels that those cuts, first to education and now to child welfare services across the state, are not only appropriate but necessary for him to make good on his campaign promise of creating some 700,000 jobs in the state.
Now I didn't vote for the man. But apparently some people did, and I'm willing to bet that some--not all, but some--would have cast their ballot a little differently if they'd seen the flip side to the job creation coin tossed around by Scott during his campaign. If they'd known that the 2.6 million children in Florida's schools and the half-million children served by the Department of Children and Families would be the ones to bear over half the financial burden of Scott's master plan, would they have voted differently?
Many people have as limited an understanding of the function of DCF as they do of public schools. Ask a random person about DCF and they'll probably give you an answer that has something to do with taking endangered children from their parents and placing them with other families. And yes, that is part of the equation, but what about all of the other services offered by DCF? They offer services to protect and care for adults who are disabled or otherwise unable to care for themselves; foster care and adoption services; support and shelter for victims of domestic violence; assistance programs for struggling families; resources for homeless children and families; substance abuse counseling; mental health services. And, lest you think that DCF is only for poor people or unfit parents, they also oversee the licensing of every childcare provider in the state, which number over 7,000. So if you have a child in childcare (like I do), DCF is your best friend. I know that I am only able to go to work and be a productive member of society because I trust the person taking care of my child.
I'm pretty surprised, to be honest, at the way the governor and his Republican counterparts in the state legislature (and other elected officials around the country) have so aggressively rocked the boat this early in the game. I wouldn't have thought they'd be so eager to throw away their newly won power, but it seems I was wrong. Then again, we always seem to develop memory loss when it comes time to cast our vote--perhaps that's what they're counting on.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
A Few Words, In Memory of Florida's Education System
Below is an excerpt from Rick Scott's State of the State address, given earlier this evening. The excerpt focuses on his "goals" for education in Florida...or, as I prefer to think of it, this excerpt is a eulogy for education in Florida. For this solemn occasion, I have elected to use the "red pen" approach to offering a critique of Mr. Scott's speech.
"We also need to focus on our incredible opportunity to improve our K-through-12 education system. We now have real innovators offering a 21st century approach to education. And many of those new approaches offer better outcomes without increasing costs. How, exactly, are we going to avoid increasing costs when these "innovators" promise to leave no child untested and promise to add untold additional work to the already overburdened classroom and administrative staff in Florida's schools?
With so many Floridians out of work, and the exhaustion of one-time federal handouts,
Let’s begin by agreeing on a few basic principles. Yes, lets.
First, that individual student learning must be the touchstone for all our decisions. Practices that improve student learning must be adopted. Practices that impair student learning must be abolished. I'm glad he pointed that out, because if there's one thing that we've obviously been doing wrong this whole time, it's using practices that actively impair student learning. Every teacher I know asks him or herself at least once a day, how can I stall a student's education today? (I was going to try to be serious and not sarcastic. I'm proud that I made it this far.)
Second, I think we can all also agree that the single most important factor in student learning is the quality of teaching.
Great educators are priceless. Actually....we have a very specific price. Just ask Wisconsin. Every one of us has a teacher in our past who made a lifelong difference in our lives. Educators, like other professionals, should be rewarded based on the effectiveness of their work, not the length of their professional life. Because no other profession awards pay and bonuses based on the length of employment. Good to know...I'd hate for us to be the ONLY profession ANYWHERE that does that. That’s why
The third principle worth remembering is that we all improve through competition. Oh, no you don't, Mr. Scott. NO CHILD WILL BE LEFT BEHIND. "Competition" implies that some will be better than others, and NCLB refuses to acknowledge that. Think of how exciting it will be when schools are recruiting our children, when every school in the state focuses on continual improvement in order to outperform every other school in attracting students. We need to expand the eligibility for opportunity scholarships to harness the power of engaged parents. Why is "the power of engaged parents" so far down on his list? Could it be because he genuinely has no clue what makes education successful?
And I am calling for an increase in the number of charter schools – which are public schools that are allowed to work independently of their school board and can innovate in ways that encourage all schools to improve. They still have A school board, it's just not the county school board. They still use taxpayer money, and thus are still subject to the taxpayer who knows better than they do.
With us here today is the principal of a very successful charter school – Sonia Mitchell of
And finally, we can all agree that measuring results is a key aspect of education. No, actually we can't. People who actually EDUCATE know better. But you haven't asked us, have you? We must test our students (ALL OF THEM. MANY TIMES), and we must evaluate our educators. Those measurements need to be fair and thoughtful, and they need to have rewards and consequences. Here he added, "not just rewards," in case anyone had forgotten just how cushy the teaching profession actually is. Snuck that little jab right on in there.
We must also analyze how much education money is spent in the classroom versus the amount spent on administration or capital outlays. No analysis necessary...we can alreay tell you that 80% of the education budget is salary. Florida has a lot of kids, and it takes a lot of people to run the school system. Hope they're still there after your "eight years."
With these principles in mind,
Monday, March 7, 2011
Tomorrow, Tomorrow...
Tomorrow opens the Florida legislative session, which will see voting on SB 736, linking teacher pay to student test scores, and a bill that will require Florida public employees to contribute 5% of their salaries to their pension plans. This session will also consider the budget proposed by Governor Rick Scott, which promises to cut 3.3 billion from public school funding. Oh, and let's not forget the revival of the voucher program, which was already deemed unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court.
To say that I'm discouraged would be an understatement. Last year, school teachers and employees offered such a backlash against SB 6 (predecessor to SB 736) that then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the bill after it passed through several committees and the Florida Senate. This year, the bill, which is scheduled for voting on Wednesday, the second day of the legislative session, has raised barely a blip on the radar compared to last year. I find this troubling for a number of reasons.
First, the bill contains mandates that are grossly and irresponsibly unfunded. First, teacher pay is facing drastic cuts under this year's budget shortfalls, yet SB 736 promises (yet fails to enumerate) significant increases in pay for teachers whose students show academic improvement. Where is that money coming from?
Second, and most troubling, is the egregious amount of additional testing that must take place to see SB 736 in effect. The only areas that currently have state-mandated test are reading, math, and science. We already spend millions of dollars every year administering and maintaining these testing mechanisms for just 3 subject areas. (Really, it's 2, because Reading is NOT a core content area--Language Arts or English is NOT the same as reading, and should not be considered its equivalent.) What about social studies, foreign language, physical education, agriculture, music, visual arts, performing arts, and all of the other areas that don't already have state-mandated tests? Sure, a few of them have end-of-course exams in place. But the larger part of them don't, and guess what that means? Those tests must be created.
And guess what that means? Someone has to create them.
Guess who has to create them? The district.
And guess what that means? We've got to spend money. Millions of dollars district wide, possibly billions of dollars statewide.
How much money? I have no idea, and I'd venture to guess that these legislators don't know either. Where is this money coming from? Creating, maintaining, and administration of 3 subject area tests is already a huge drain on our education budget--how much will that increase when we add some sort of measurable testing goal for every subject taught in the state of Florida? Our governor wants to CUT money from the education budget, while the Senate wants to mandate untold addtional expenses with not a word about where the funds will come from. I'm not great at math, but these numbers don't seem to add up.
And...that's just at the district level. After these student assessments are created, along with the teacher assessments that the district must create, everything gets sent to the Department of Education for approval! Who, you might ask, is going to approve all of these extra mandates? Certainly not the employees whose jobs have been on the line since Scott took office. The DoE is going to have to hire MORE people to complete these tasks, which--you got it--is MORE government and MORE tax dollars being spent. From where? No clue.
We've seen unfunded educational mandates before. Remember the Class Size Amendment? The all-knowing legislators were SO sure that would be a good idea that we voted it into our Constitution...and this year, when it went into effect on the classroom level, we saw what happened. There weren't enough teachers, schedules were disrupted, students weren't able to get the classes they wanted and needed, and in November, we saw an...amendment to the amendment? Not sure what it was, but it was right there on the ballot, boldly asking us to fix the mistakes that the legislature made those many years ago. Oops, it said, our bad, we pushed this through and it's not working and we want you, the voter and taxpayer, to fix our mistake. Luckily, we said no, and held those lawmakers accountable. I hope that in the next few days we will do the same thing.
Please be informed. Please contact your state legistlator and ask them to vote "no" on SB 736 and its unfunded mandates. I refuse to believe that anyone actively wants to see our education system go down the drain, but that's where it's headed if we don't speak up. Go to http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/Find and find your state Senator. Write a letter, send an email, make a phone call. Speak up in favor of Florida's students!
To say that I'm discouraged would be an understatement. Last year, school teachers and employees offered such a backlash against SB 6 (predecessor to SB 736) that then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the bill after it passed through several committees and the Florida Senate. This year, the bill, which is scheduled for voting on Wednesday, the second day of the legislative session, has raised barely a blip on the radar compared to last year. I find this troubling for a number of reasons.
First, the bill contains mandates that are grossly and irresponsibly unfunded. First, teacher pay is facing drastic cuts under this year's budget shortfalls, yet SB 736 promises (yet fails to enumerate) significant increases in pay for teachers whose students show academic improvement. Where is that money coming from?
Second, and most troubling, is the egregious amount of additional testing that must take place to see SB 736 in effect. The only areas that currently have state-mandated test are reading, math, and science. We already spend millions of dollars every year administering and maintaining these testing mechanisms for just 3 subject areas. (Really, it's 2, because Reading is NOT a core content area--Language Arts or English is NOT the same as reading, and should not be considered its equivalent.) What about social studies, foreign language, physical education, agriculture, music, visual arts, performing arts, and all of the other areas that don't already have state-mandated tests? Sure, a few of them have end-of-course exams in place. But the larger part of them don't, and guess what that means? Those tests must be created.
And guess what that means? Someone has to create them.
Guess who has to create them? The district.
And guess what that means? We've got to spend money. Millions of dollars district wide, possibly billions of dollars statewide.
How much money? I have no idea, and I'd venture to guess that these legislators don't know either. Where is this money coming from? Creating, maintaining, and administration of 3 subject area tests is already a huge drain on our education budget--how much will that increase when we add some sort of measurable testing goal for every subject taught in the state of Florida? Our governor wants to CUT money from the education budget, while the Senate wants to mandate untold addtional expenses with not a word about where the funds will come from. I'm not great at math, but these numbers don't seem to add up.
And...that's just at the district level. After these student assessments are created, along with the teacher assessments that the district must create, everything gets sent to the Department of Education for approval! Who, you might ask, is going to approve all of these extra mandates? Certainly not the employees whose jobs have been on the line since Scott took office. The DoE is going to have to hire MORE people to complete these tasks, which--you got it--is MORE government and MORE tax dollars being spent. From where? No clue.
We've seen unfunded educational mandates before. Remember the Class Size Amendment? The all-knowing legislators were SO sure that would be a good idea that we voted it into our Constitution...and this year, when it went into effect on the classroom level, we saw what happened. There weren't enough teachers, schedules were disrupted, students weren't able to get the classes they wanted and needed, and in November, we saw an...amendment to the amendment? Not sure what it was, but it was right there on the ballot, boldly asking us to fix the mistakes that the legislature made those many years ago. Oops, it said, our bad, we pushed this through and it's not working and we want you, the voter and taxpayer, to fix our mistake. Luckily, we said no, and held those lawmakers accountable. I hope that in the next few days we will do the same thing.
Please be informed. Please contact your state legistlator and ask them to vote "no" on SB 736 and its unfunded mandates. I refuse to believe that anyone actively wants to see our education system go down the drain, but that's where it's headed if we don't speak up. Go to http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/Find and find your state Senator. Write a letter, send an email, make a phone call. Speak up in favor of Florida's students!
Friday, March 4, 2011
A "Modest" Proposal
First of all, if you recognize the allusion, thank an English teacher.
Now for business. Here's the deal. I'm sick of hearing about how easy it is to be a teacher from people who haven't stepped foot in a public school classroom since their high school graduation. I hear it on the news, in the paper, from random strangers, from my own family members, and I'm tired of it. So here's my proposal: if you, Joe Taxpayer businessman, think it's so easy, then YOU do it.
That's right. You teach.
My plan will not only open the eyes of the private sector employees who think we teachers have cushy part-time jobs, it will also help close the budget gap our county faces next year. Substitute teachers cost money--on any given day, there might be as few as 5 substitutes at my school, or as many as 10. Let's assume that each of Polk County's 17 high schools has 5 substitute teachers on a given day. Each sub is paid $90, so that's $450 per school, with a total
of $7,650. Assuming the same for the county's 19 middle schools, that's a total of $8,550. We'll assume 3 subs for an elementary school, which is only $270 per school, but there are 66 elementary schools in Polk, so that brings our total to $17,820. Let's add those up...we're at $34,000. For one DAY. And there are teachers who have to be out and can't find coverage, so sometimes that one sub is covering 3 teachers' classes. We're talking 6.1 million in a school year just on substitute teachers.
So here's what we'll do. Business professionals from the private sector will donate their time, say, one day a month, to act as a substitute teacher in a local school. They'll be fingerprinted (at their own expense, of course), and go through NEO training, just like any other sub. Then, because we know they're busy, important people, we'll allow them to sign up ahead of time for a day--or days, if they're feeling ambitious--on which they can be called on to fill in for a public school teacher at the elementary, middle, or high school level. That might mean, of course, that their phones will ring at 5 a.m., which is the time my alarm goes off anyway, and that they'll have to skip their morning trip to the gym or their latte at Starbucks in order to be at the school by 7 a.m. to greet the kids at the door. (Not to worry, they'll be off at 2:30 so they can go to the gym after work, and a latte is a bad idea because there's often no time to go to the bathroom when you're teaching all day.)
Of course they won't get a TRULY accurate idea of what a teacher does. The lessons will be provided for them. The kids will probably act differently because a stranger is in the room. They won't have to attend faculty meetings or parent conferences. But give that private sector businessman enough days in enough classrooms, and I really do believe that his perspective of the educational professional will change (hopefully for the better).
What I'm after here is exposure and education. It's our job to educate--maybe we need to start educating those outside our classrooms about what we actually do. In following the ongoing debates in the last few weeks, I'm so often struck dumb by the perceptions that seem to be common about the teaching profession. And I choose the word "profession" deliberately because I feel like, at the heart of the matter, many of the politicians and pundits who are out there furthering the rhetoric are not comparing us to the equivalent private sector professional. I've heard so many comparisons of teachers to "the private sector" and I wonder, exactly what private sector are we talking about? Bankers, lawyers, CPAs...or the hourly employee at McDonald's? I mean, let's face it--there are jobs that require a college degree and considerable training, and there are those that don't. Teaching is one of the ones that DOES. I have close to a thousand hours of continuing education on top of my bachelor's degree--that's almost enough for two master's degrees. I had to take not one, not two, but three certification exams in order to be considered qualified. Every teacher who stands in front of a classroom has at least done that much, and will do much more in his or her professional lifetime. So you, Mr. Politician or Ms. Political Pundit, don't you DARE belittle what I do as a professional. I am highly trained and highly qualified, and I am damn good at what I do. Do I "leave work" at 3:00? That's the end of my day (which started at 6:45, two full hours before my private sector counterpart has even poured his first cup of coffee) and I often do leave campus at 3...to go home and grade papers and make lesson plans and call parents, and, and and... Do I get summers "off"? Sure do, and I enjoy every minute of it. I also spend my summers at workshops, planning lessons, reading books, and furthering my education (usually at my own expense) so I can be prepared on the first day of school. (And a note on that--"summers off" can't be the basis of your argument anymore. It's getting old, and it's starting to sound like sour grapes on your part. Perhaps you wish you'd chosen your profession more wisely?)
I am well aware that my paycheck comes from tax revenue, just as I'm well aware that the wages of the manager at Publix come from the money I spend in the store. But guess what? I don't assume that just because I shop there, I know how to run a grocery store. I certainly wouldn't presume to tell that business manager how to do her job, so what makes Joe Taxpayer an expert on education? Nothing. Nor does it make a Congressman or Senator an expert. Who are the experts, you might ask? Teachers. Contrary to the picture that some are trying to paint of us right now, we aren't evil. We love our jobs, and we love our students, and we're often willing to do whatever it takes to see them succeed. If you want to know what needs to be done to make that happen, ask us. We're the ones in there with the kids every day, we're the ones who know them and their strengths and weaknesses, we're the ones who take pride in their successes and commiserate in their failures. We aren't the enemy; we're just looking for some respect.
Now for business. Here's the deal. I'm sick of hearing about how easy it is to be a teacher from people who haven't stepped foot in a public school classroom since their high school graduation. I hear it on the news, in the paper, from random strangers, from my own family members, and I'm tired of it. So here's my proposal: if you, Joe Taxpayer businessman, think it's so easy, then YOU do it.
That's right. You teach.
My plan will not only open the eyes of the private sector employees who think we teachers have cushy part-time jobs, it will also help close the budget gap our county faces next year. Substitute teachers cost money--on any given day, there might be as few as 5 substitutes at my school, or as many as 10. Let's assume that each of Polk County's 17 high schools has 5 substitute teachers on a given day. Each sub is paid $90, so that's $450 per school, with a total
of $7,650. Assuming the same for the county's 19 middle schools, that's a total of $8,550. We'll assume 3 subs for an elementary school, which is only $270 per school, but there are 66 elementary schools in Polk, so that brings our total to $17,820. Let's add those up...we're at $34,000. For one DAY. And there are teachers who have to be out and can't find coverage, so sometimes that one sub is covering 3 teachers' classes. We're talking 6.1 million in a school year just on substitute teachers.
So here's what we'll do. Business professionals from the private sector will donate their time, say, one day a month, to act as a substitute teacher in a local school. They'll be fingerprinted (at their own expense, of course), and go through NEO training, just like any other sub. Then, because we know they're busy, important people, we'll allow them to sign up ahead of time for a day--or days, if they're feeling ambitious--on which they can be called on to fill in for a public school teacher at the elementary, middle, or high school level. That might mean, of course, that their phones will ring at 5 a.m., which is the time my alarm goes off anyway, and that they'll have to skip their morning trip to the gym or their latte at Starbucks in order to be at the school by 7 a.m. to greet the kids at the door. (Not to worry, they'll be off at 2:30 so they can go to the gym after work, and a latte is a bad idea because there's often no time to go to the bathroom when you're teaching all day.)
Of course they won't get a TRULY accurate idea of what a teacher does. The lessons will be provided for them. The kids will probably act differently because a stranger is in the room. They won't have to attend faculty meetings or parent conferences. But give that private sector businessman enough days in enough classrooms, and I really do believe that his perspective of the educational professional will change (hopefully for the better).
What I'm after here is exposure and education. It's our job to educate--maybe we need to start educating those outside our classrooms about what we actually do. In following the ongoing debates in the last few weeks, I'm so often struck dumb by the perceptions that seem to be common about the teaching profession. And I choose the word "profession" deliberately because I feel like, at the heart of the matter, many of the politicians and pundits who are out there furthering the rhetoric are not comparing us to the equivalent private sector professional. I've heard so many comparisons of teachers to "the private sector" and I wonder, exactly what private sector are we talking about? Bankers, lawyers, CPAs...or the hourly employee at McDonald's? I mean, let's face it--there are jobs that require a college degree and considerable training, and there are those that don't. Teaching is one of the ones that DOES. I have close to a thousand hours of continuing education on top of my bachelor's degree--that's almost enough for two master's degrees. I had to take not one, not two, but three certification exams in order to be considered qualified. Every teacher who stands in front of a classroom has at least done that much, and will do much more in his or her professional lifetime. So you, Mr. Politician or Ms. Political Pundit, don't you DARE belittle what I do as a professional. I am highly trained and highly qualified, and I am damn good at what I do. Do I "leave work" at 3:00? That's the end of my day (which started at 6:45, two full hours before my private sector counterpart has even poured his first cup of coffee) and I often do leave campus at 3...to go home and grade papers and make lesson plans and call parents, and, and and... Do I get summers "off"? Sure do, and I enjoy every minute of it. I also spend my summers at workshops, planning lessons, reading books, and furthering my education (usually at my own expense) so I can be prepared on the first day of school. (And a note on that--"summers off" can't be the basis of your argument anymore. It's getting old, and it's starting to sound like sour grapes on your part. Perhaps you wish you'd chosen your profession more wisely?)
I am well aware that my paycheck comes from tax revenue, just as I'm well aware that the wages of the manager at Publix come from the money I spend in the store. But guess what? I don't assume that just because I shop there, I know how to run a grocery store. I certainly wouldn't presume to tell that business manager how to do her job, so what makes Joe Taxpayer an expert on education? Nothing. Nor does it make a Congressman or Senator an expert. Who are the experts, you might ask? Teachers. Contrary to the picture that some are trying to paint of us right now, we aren't evil. We love our jobs, and we love our students, and we're often willing to do whatever it takes to see them succeed. If you want to know what needs to be done to make that happen, ask us. We're the ones in there with the kids every day, we're the ones who know them and their strengths and weaknesses, we're the ones who take pride in their successes and commiserate in their failures. We aren't the enemy; we're just looking for some respect.
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