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.