Recently a local radio station featured a discussion about the Ethnic Studies issue with Tucson Citizen and Arizona Independent writer, Lori Hunnicutt. I listened to the entire program and it made me incensed. However, I wasn’t angry about the discussion of Mexican American Studies, I have stayed on the edge of that argument because unlike Mr. Huppenthal, the findings of his own panel were enough for me to go to what I saw as more pressing matters. What angered me was before they started their review of intended issue the two radio personalities decided to weigh in on what is wrong with unions. Their comments can be heard here:

http://youtu.be/VR4oUOquz2U

The fire in my belly was ignited by their contention that unions exist to get their members as much money as they can, then to focus on their working conditions. Obviously, these two don’t read what I write. But that is OK. What isn’t OK is this continued myth of the money grubbing teacher, just in it for as much as they can get and professionalism be damned.
There, see how angry this makes me, I actually swore!
That event is something that has only happened once in my entire thirty-plus years in the classroom. A few years back I actually said, “Damn!” when something broke during a very frustrating day. I immediately apologized to my class of fourth graders, who were looking at me like a second head had just sprouted next to my first.
One child solicitously asked me if I was “OK?” I laughed and said yes, and told them they should share with their parents that Mr. Severson had said ‘Damn’ in class for the first time in his career. At the time I was working at a school on an Air Force base. I half expected a call from the Colonel. I did not hear another thing about it.
But that is how much it affected me, I remember the looks on their faces, I remember the broken science demonstration that caused it, I remember the two kids who had so vexed me all day long that for one moment I lost my composure.
Why? Why do I remember this incident?
Because I am a professional educator. I have devoted my life to teaching. I teach because I love to teach, I am good at it and I value learning. I never went into this profession thinking, “Now I can make some real money.” And I do not ask my professional association to devote their greatest effort to increasing my salary. I ask them to lobby for the things I need most: funded libraries, adequate working conditions, enough books for every student, technology that works. I ask them to ensure that I am allowed to do the most important thing in my professional career. Let me teach! And I will be damned if I will let anyone say with impunity that I am in it for the money!
There, see, I said it again. But you know what, that’s nothing compared to what my wife the kindergarten teacher said about this.

Huffington Post has posted, as a public service, a list of the worst paying college majors. Guess what? Yep, if you’re in Child and Family Studies you stand to win the race to the bottom.

the-13-worst-paying-colle_n_911809.html#s317428&title=Children_and_Family

What? You thought I was going to say it was education. No, you silly — my major, Elementary Education — came in second. Second worst that is. That’s right I am officially not in it for the money.

What surprised me was that Special Education majors came in fifth. I worked in SpEd. for 6 years, I gave it up, it was too hard. I can’t imagine that they aren’t receiving greater remuneration for the kind of work they do. The paperwork alone caused me to have an onset of delirium tremens.

I remember a warm, sunny day when I had my fourth graders out for recess and my cell phone rang. Well, OK, actually it played Mozart but for me that is ringing. I looked at it and saw that it was my daughter who was currently away at college in Florida. Since it was her and we were outside, I answered it, something I rarely do during the school day.

“Dad,” she said, “would you be upset if I switched my major from education to medicine?”

Later, when the screams of joy died down, a couple of my colleagues asked me what I was so excited about. I told them I was thrilled she was going into a field that people actually value.

“What do I mean?” you ask, innocently. Teachers have been griping for years about low pay for what they do. Not me. I don’t gripe — about pay. Everything else, yes, but pay? No. My biggest gripe is this: Do everything you have been doing and . . . do this too. That is the current philosophy of education. I tell all the young teachers I meet, don’t stop, just keep going to school and get your masters, it won’t pay you to do it but you’re going to need it anyway.

And it is not a matter of amount of work, I will match the hours worked in a given year by the regular teacher with any profession. For example I went to my school today, about 10 days before we are supposed to be back, and found out that I am already two weeks behind. About a month ago all our classroom furniture was out in the halls while the custodians finished the floors, now nearly everyone has their room set up and ready to start.

That’s right I am a proud shirker. Actually it is part of a plan, I have really been trying to work less in my declining educational professional years.

A while back ago I made myself a pledge. I decided that when I got home, I was going to be like Charles Laughton playing Quasimodo: once inside the door I had reached Sanctuary; no more taking work home! In this I know I am definitely in the minority among elementary ed. teachers. It meant that I stayed at school until I was satisfied I was ready for the next day. Not that I was done — teachers are never done. We don’t finish anything. I have never completed a day, week, month, or a year of teaching — they just end. The students always leave the room with me saying to myself, “Wait, where are you going? I’m not done!”

Maybe that is why the pay scale is where it is. We need to figure out how to complete the job: produce that kid that can walk out the door saying, “I know it all,” and they do. I’ll get right to work on that, after I ring the bells.

I read with interest the article by my collegue, Loretta Hunnicutt 1).
While I laud Ms Hunnicutt’s ‘no excuses’ approach to the issue of whether the effect of HB2281 is a fable or fairy tale I have to disagree with the assessment that “experienced teachers in well-funded classrooms” are the equalizer in education. I do not want anyone to think I denigrate the importance of experienced teachers and adequate funding for classrooms would be heavenly while well-funded classrooms are simply a dream or perhaps a distant memory.

My argument is with the term ‘equalizer’. I have seen experienced teachers, and many and many a year ago in a kingdom in the desert, I taught in a well-funded district. Yet there were still those students who faltered, fell behind, could not keep up. In fact there were many of them. Beyond the factors mentioned by Ms. Hunnicutt there are significant pressures impacting education today, and those pressures are increasing.

Children enter class each day a mass of differentiated experiences. Teachers are faced with trying to individualize education for twenty five people simultaneously. It is a never ceases to surprise to me that so many succeed at doing just that. It takes a committed, experienced professional to be effective as a teacher in the modern classroom.

In a thoughtful article in the New York Times, Paul Tough (what a great name for a crusader!) takes on the critics of Diane Ravitch and raises some excellent points in support of the idea that it will take a major overhaul of education “supplementing classroom strategies with targeted, evidence-based interventions outside the classroom”. 2) Ravitch a professor of education has been an outspoken critic of the various reforms instituted under the auspices of NCLB and ESEA. 3)

Ravitch writes: “Families are children’s most important educators. Our society must invest in parental education, prenatal care and preschools. Of course schools must improve; every one should have a stable, experienced staff, adequate resources and a balanced curriculum . . .”

For my point, I agree that education needs overhaul, but that overhaul is not in the form of destroying what we have, firing all who work in the field including support personnel (as has been done to gain federal funding) and hiring all new faces unsullied by previous experiences in education. I do not support the throw the baby out with the bath water approach.

To be effective, schools need to be funded, teaching needs to be developed as a skill and experience needs to be recognized as an advantage, not a financial liability. Wall Street tells us that in order to attract the best in their field, they must offer billions in bonuses. Well, I have a deal for you. In order to attract the best educators we don’t need billions, millions or bonuses of any kind. We need respect, support and adequate funding and compensation. And we need to value education for what it offers all children and their families.

To be continued . . .

1) http://tucsoncitizen.com/tucson-daily-independent/2011/07/20/ninth-circuit-finding-reveals-tusds-discriminating-past-and-present/
2) “No, Seriously, No Excuses” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magazine/reforming-the-school-reformers.html
3) “Waiting for a School Miracle” www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/opinion/01ravitch.html