Public Schools – The Path Out of Poverty
By Shannyn Moore
I should have a disclaimer on this column. I am the daughter of two retired educators.
Their story is simple, but serendipitous. Two college graduates from depressed communities in the South had an opportunity to come to Alaska as teachers — for one year. It has now been well over 40. As a child, I wondered why they picked teaching. I couldn’t stand to be in a classroom, and they chose to spend their lives there.
Poverty is damn near impossible for people to escape. My parents did through education. My mother and I shared our first plane ride. I wasn’t a year old; she was 28. My father declined mining jobs in the mountains of West Virginia for university classes. He said he would scratch on top of the earth for a long time before he’d go underground.
I see the decision to be an educator as a calling. Ministering to children more hours a day than their parents often see them, noticing their moods, tracking their learning and praising their successes, takes someone special. Not unlike the calling of the priesthood and, yes, there are good ones and bad ones.
There is a Whitney Houston song that once stuck in my head like an earworm for weeks about children being the future. Really?
I hear complaints about “bad” teachers, and “greedy” teachers who work only nine months a year and are off the clock by 3:30. Usually the people complaining are folks who couldn’t last in a room of 6-year-olds for five minutes. Sadly, they always seem to be the ones talking the loudest, bitching constantly about the cost of education.
The same people seem to love the idea of putting kids in jail for a long time. I guess they don’t know that education is cheaper than incarceration.
The concept that our school districts should be run like “a business” is cringe-worthy. If we applied business models to schools, we would start by cutting funding for special education entirely. What’s the point of sinking thousands of dollars into educating students who won’t ever drive a car or live on their own? No profit in that.
Public education is about something other than testing marks and “profitability.” Poverty is a trap and for many who escape it, a teacher was the first person who believed in them, who was able to light the spark of a bright child with few resources and let her loose on the world to make her way.
I talked to a friend this week who told me about growing up poor — until he “discovered mathematics.” A teacher took an interest in him. Now he is one of the wealthiest people I know. Education. Public education was the light to a path that would have been otherwise obscured.
There isn’t a union on Earth that could get me enough money to spend eight hours a day in a room full of children. They frighten me. The education calling isn’t genetic and I marvel at the people who answer it.
Over the next year you will hear much about “school choice.” It’s code for putting children of privilege in private schools and leaving the less-well-off kids in public ones. Know this: The kids who don’t become assets to our communities become liabilities, and the rest of us do not escape the consequences of that outcome.
Carol Comeau is retiring after decades of public service to the Anchorage School District. She’s one of those called to the job. She has to be; no one would work for her salary and suffer the kind of grief she gets every day if she weren’t.
One of my favorite questions for people running for office is to ask them who their favorite teacher was. If they have an answer, I generally know their stance on education.
With billions in state accounts, the last place we should look to cut is education.
And with individuals in our community willing to invest their careers in teaching our fellow citizens and future leaders, they should hear thank you more often.
So thank you.
Thank you Shannyn for sharing such an insightful light. I have related to all of the responces and ereryone of the mudpups are amazing people. I to believe “children are our future”. The Hydroponic Gardener — I remember all of my elementary and junior high school teachers, and we are also the same age. Have a great day .
And if the above problems aren’t enough to stimulate more spending on education, it has been documented that “low educational attainment” is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. Cut education to get
a less well equipped work force, more poverty, and now possibly more Alzheimer’s in the future.
Wow, can’t win with a hand like that.
The Lancet Neurology, Early Online Publication, 19 July 2011doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(11)70072-2Cite or Link Using DOIThe projected effect of risk factor reduction on Alzheimer’s disease prevalence
Original Text
Dr Deborah E Barnes PhD a d , Prof Kristine Yaffe MD a b c d
Summary
At present, about 33·9 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and prevalence is expected to triple over the next 40 years. The aim of this Review was to summarise the evidence regarding seven potentially modifiable risk factors for AD: diabetes, midlife hypertension, midlife obesity, smoking, depression, cognitive inactivity or low educational attainment, and physical inactivity. Additionally, we projected the effect of risk factor reduction on AD prevalence by calculating population attributable risks (the percent of cases attributable to a given factor) and the number of AD cases that might be prevented by risk factor reductions of 10% and 25% worldwide and in the USA. Together, up to half of AD cases worldwide (17·2 million) and in the USA (2·9 million) are potentially attributable to these factors. A 10—25% reduction in all seven risk factors could potentially prevent as many as 1·1—3·0 million AD cases worldwide and 184 000—492 000 cases in the USA.
For your enjoyment….
Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they work; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan– that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.
However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! No pay for vacations or time off.
LET’S SEE….
That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year.
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be generous, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here!
The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter (and they even EDUCATE your kids!)
WHAT A DEAL!!!!
Sometimes, Wikipedia does have it’s uses! (Although I did know the part about guitarist/singer George Benson originally recording this song). Additions in brackets mine.
“‘[The] Greatest Love of All’ is an inspirational song written by Michael Masser [music] and Linda Creed [lyrics] and originally recorded by George Benson for the 1977 Muhammad Ali biopic The Greatest. The song was later popularized by Whitney Houston. Creed wrote the lyrics in the midst of her struggle with breast cancer. The words describe her feelings about coping with great challenges that one must face in life, being strong during those challenges whether you succeed or fail, and passing that strength on to children to carry with them into their adult lives. Creed eventually succumbed to the disease in April 1986 at the age of 36; at the time her song was an international hit by Whitney Houston.”
“I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
Give them a sense of pride, to make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be.”
Interesting info, thank you, Terpsichore. I have always been moved by the song lyrics, but never gave any thought to researching the origin. I’ll now remember the name Linda creed in connection with her lovely lyrics.
I taught for 33 years and then retired before running across this great John Adams quote from “Thoughts on Government”, 1776: Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.
I’m sure the the TPers (who seem to enjoy playing the “Founding Father Isolated Quote” game) would go apoplectic at the phrase “liberal education. My guess is the only other thing in the quote that would grab their attentions would be the words, “no expense.” Quite possibly the quote would be cut and pasted to read, ” . . . no expense . . . for the liberal education of the youth . . . of the lower class of people.” Of course we aren’t dealing with wise and generous people here.
i despise what the republicans are doing to education in this country. here in nc my son’s public university cost is up to $14,000 a year – and i’m supposed to come up with $3,000 before aug 15 or his schedule is pulled. i’m going in to work today and taking a second hardship withdrawal from my 401k which will still not cover it. the financial aid he received this year leaves a gap six times what it was just last year. i don’t know how he’ll get through to his degree. but he will. i will not let him be fodder for their endless wars. i have come to believe that this assault on public education is basically designed to make sure that the MIC has endless bodies for their endless wars. they’re just making sure that college is not an option for more and more young people coming out of high school.
What a tender and touchng love letter, Shannyn. Thanks for letting me read it. beth.
Shannyn,
Are you saying that if a poor child could choose to go to a high performing private school for free — that would be a bad thing?
it would be better imo if all the schools offered the same solid education made available to all the students.
I have no idea what Shannyn’s response would be but here’s mine.
It is a sidestep, at best, to say “private school for free”.
Removing ADA money from public schools in the form of vouchers or any other of the current flavor-of-the-month schemes does not make for “free”, it makes for using public money for private purposes. High performing or not, private schools are out of the oversight we require of public monies expenditures.
If people want to argue about that, go for it- change it if there are enough folks willing to play at the Haliburton-can-do-it-for-less-and-better game- but do it out in the open and honestly instead of the back door, sneaky foo-foo going on now.
Private schools already have an oversight and accountability mechanism that public schools and Halliburton don’t have — market forces. They are much more effective and efficient than any oversight committees. If private schools don’t get great results, parents flee and take their kids elsewhere. In the end that’s what we should be concerned with; the best results for the most kids.
I’m not aware of any public school district that has school choice programs in competition with it, has ever lost a dime of funding on a per student basis, because of it. Some districts have decreased in size and experienced a small change in economies-of-scale, as parents are able to choose a path that better suits their family needs. This alleged loss of funding is an often repeated talking point, but I haven’t run across any empirical data to back it up. If you can find some, let me know. I’m always willing to be “schooled”.
Shannyn,
I went back to college at age 55 to finally get a degree. My teachers are wonderful and deserve
every penny paid to them and more. Every class I have taken so far has been interesting and the
teachers make learning exciting.
No money should be cut from the education budget, it is far too important to the future of the
United States.
DD
My husband and I are like your parents, Shannyn. We came from low socio-economic working class backgrounds. His family lived in a semi-rural small town. Mine lived in a big city but worked in factories known for grinding down their workers. His parents graduated high school, but mine did not because they had to drop out to earn money for their families and they did everything they could to help me not follow in their footsteps (though I am proud of them and can never come close to being able to being as self-sacrificing as they were).
My mother read only two books in her entire life: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck and For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. She read only because her first husband asked her to read them to him as he tried to go sleep after long days working on the railroad. But she and my step-father made sure that I had tons of books and comic books. She would take me to the library and leave me there for hours because she knew I was in seventh-heaven, lost in worlds I found there. I credit them with my lifelong passion for learning though they never had a chance to pursuit theirs in any formal way.
My husband and I were the amongst the very first in our families to graduate from college. Even today, many of the extended families have yet to leave dead-end jobs. My parents sacrificed almost every “extra” to ensure I got to a state college. He was able to use the GI Bill. We both majored in education – in different subject areas. I went on to law school very late in life, but what did I do with that law degree and license? I taught paralegals. We had been raised to value education and to pass along the gifts we had received from those who came before by helping others escape dead-end jobs or abject poverty. We’re still repaying that moral debt. We know we are lucky to have been given the gift of education.
We’ve not prospered financially, but we have lived a very rich life. We each have seen students we encouraged go on to college when their families thought they couldn’t or shouldn’t and now many of those people are teachers themselves. To a person, we each know how lucky we have been and how privileged we are to be able to promote the love of learning.
My husband now teaches in a district alongside some of his former students – some who had been kids that no one believed in or had written-off because their families didn’t have much or didn’t live in the right neighborhoods or were of the “wrong” ethnicity. I’ve seen my husband’s eyes mist over with emotion whenever he writes recommendations for those kids for colleges or for jobs in education. He had been one of those kids himself, but now holds a Master’s degree because one teacher believed him in high school. She challenged him to better than his family thought he was. She saw his potential, and he blossomed. Her belief has blessed generations of students, He has lived her example. I know, because his former students tell me how much he has meant in their lives.
I will always remember Mr. Fowler, a high school history teacher, who so passionately believed in American and World history that he caught my imagination and made me feel as if I could change the world. I haven’t changed the world exactly in any big sense, but feel as if I have made a difference in the lives I’ve touched through my teaching. Nothing in law or politics could come near to making me feel as proud as seeing kids and even adults catch that magically spark and come to love books and learning.
Our daughter is training to teach at the university level. She has sky-high student loan debt, but we know she will find her way just as we did because she is a natural-born teacher who energizes her students with a passion for her subject area. Even as a GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) for the past several years, she has had former students come to her to share their thrill that they, too, are going to graduate school and majoring in her area.
There few things that bring satisfaction as real and as lasting as that – not money nor fame. Teaching is a rigorous profession with very few tangible rewards, but it sure beats the hell out of many other ways to earn a living because of the intangible blessings it bestows on both teachers and students.
Teachers are expected to teach 20 – 35 students in a classroom at one time, and make sure each student is at grade level proficiency. They must do this every year for every student even though:
1. some students just moved to this country and speak no English.
2. At least one of those students can’t read or write in their native language (a language that may not even have writing).
3. For some students, the only meal they eat each day is the school lunch.
4. Some students are living in a home going through a nasty divorce
5. Some students have no home at all, and move from couch to couch, relative to friend, throughout the week.
6. some students have severe learning disabilities
7. Some students have very low IQs and the concepts they are required to learn to be proficient are beyond their conception.
8. Some students have never been taught any discipline at home and simply refuse to obey instructions
9. And when their parents are called in, the parents blame the teacher.
10. Some students have grown up watching way to much tv and playing video games, and have no attention span whatsoever
11. Some students live in a home where the parents do drugs every night and are not awake in the morning to get them off to school
12. Some students are required to work at night and on weekends to help support the family, so have no time to do homework
etc. etc. etc.
John, do you teach? For you surely speak with the real authority and knowledge of someone who knows what goes on in a school – the realities that face students, teachers, and staff.
Those who speak derisively of our public schools do not know the context within which teachers must struggle to teach and students struggle to learn. I think the public school system – which must accept all comers – does an admirable job, even a fantastic job considering all the inherent variables that could defeat it.
Thank you for the your list and how you ended it. It is indeed just a few of those variables, but many politicians and parents have not even acknowledged or realized even those few.
I work in a city elementary school and I can put at least one name to every one of the above numbers except for 12. I can even find a couple of names to fit number 12 if you include children who care for younger siblings while their parents work evening jobs.
And yet the federal and state agencies that pass education laws demand that every single one of these children be working on grade level. They don’t care that one of my students took a state test with a fever of 101 degrees. They don’t care that another one had been up most of the night before the test, being questioned by police after his cousin was shot on his front lawn. They don’t care that yet another had one parent who was bipolar and another who was schizophrenic, both of whom often refused to take their medication but were quick to dull their pain with illegal drugs and alcohol. They don’t care that still another had one bathtub in the home that was used as storage for dirty clothing, not for bathing…ever. They don’t care that one had an IQ so low and some kind of severe as-of-yet-undiagnosed developmental disability that, at the age of 8, could not consistently spell her name correctly, count past 10 or identify more than a third of the letters of the alphabet…and that was on a good day.
Think YOU can get these kids to test on grade level? Anyone???
I still know my sixth grade teacher. He was wonderful. He made a success out of many who were destined, it seemed, for a life of being below average or worse. He was so good at it that the principal and others tried to get him fired–he was showing them up by being successful with kids they all said were already lost causes. (Imagine being a lost cause when you’re only 11.)
True, not all of us made it. Several from that class died young because of their poor choices, and a couple ended up in jail. But there’s still several others from that class that give him all the credit for their productive, happy adult lives because he cared about every one of us.
Here’s to teachers!
I had dinner with a friend of mine tonight. She is a third grade teacher in the same city school district where I work. She spent over $100 just this morning, buying supplies for her class. I have no doubt she will be spending much more before this coming school year is over since her entire classroom budget for the year is only $50, which is likely going to be spent just on copy paper.
Comparing education to business will only work when children come off an assembly line and are all exactly the same, and when we can send ‘damaged’ or ‘imperfect’ ones back to the factory for replacement. We would never hold a mechanic responsible for being unable to fix our car if some of the parts he was given to use were broken, damaged, missing important pieces or the wrong size to fit the engine. Yet that’s exactly what we expect of our teachers. Children are not fuel pumps that are interchangeable and must all fit a particular set of specifications .
NCLB expects that our education system be able to produce 100% grade level proficiency in reading and math by 2014. Anyone with the briefest passing acquaintance with statistics knows that that goal is simply not possible, and yet that is what our educators are expected to accomplish. And they are expected to do so with fewer and fewer resources.
This is a wonderful essay written by a retired school superintendent from SC which illustrates the absurdity of NCLB expectations by comparing a teacher to a dentist, titled “No Dentist Left Behind”:
http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/no-dentist.html
that was a brilliant essay. shared, blogged.
Some of my favorite people in my childhood were my teachers. I remember learning to love to read, and silly Mrs. P who wore “go-go” boots even though she must have been all of 50+ years taught us to meditate and visualize warm sunshine and cool breezes in the shade. Mrs. W who taught me to line up my decimal points when I did math so that my numbers would be correct. She kept me after school – what an embarrassment! But, I never had trouble again! 🙂 They’re all long gone now.
Amen! A gift to be a good teacher. My father had it. I sure don’t but…I did something else that helps. What is not important since we are here to praise the teachers. Miss Resser taught me how to read! A greater gift she could not have given. Miss Curtis taught me to write, Miss Pinkston taught me to type.
Bless them and bless ’em all!!!
A teacher saved my life literally not once but twice, when my mother died and my 51 y/o father was left with 4 children under the age of ten and a six month old baby (me) to raise alone it was my brother’s and sister’s teachers who noticed they were coming to school in the dead of winter with spring jackets on and no lunches and reported it to the principle who reported it to the state. I was so malnourished I spent a year in the hospital, who know what would have happen if they remained silent. My father had no family to count on and had to work to support us but unfortunately the caregivers he hired were not the best.
My second grade teacher who I also had for first grade took notice I was not paying attention in class and staring out the window all the time. She went to the principle and expressed her concerns, he notified the state and I was removed from an abusive foster home. Teachers are the first defense for the voiceless, they notice when something is a miss because they are on the battle field day after day. I was blessed having many caring teachers who encouraged and inspired me when I was in school, of course there were a few who should have found a profession they were more suited for but they were few and far between. I can never understand this disconnect republicans have with life in general. There is good and bad in everything, each entity needs to be judged on its own merit. Good teachers/bad teachers, good police/bad police, good politician/bad politician. Such a broad paint brush for people with no vision.
You are so right, Shannyn. Your parents have given you the greatest gift they could give: a lifetime love of learning.
It truly is the only antidote to poverty and remains one of the least financially rewarding and most personally rewarding of professions.
Shannyn, thank you, too. I am grateful for every teacher I ever had–yes, even the “bad” ones; I learned something from all of them. One of my best friends retired from teaching last year, after over 40 years in the classroom. I’ve urged him to put his methods, which were often highly unconventional, into a book. When the pendulum swings away from teaching to the test, such books will be needed. Btw, he probably would have stayed longer if NJ Gov. Chris Christie hadn’t been so set upon shredding teacher pensions. He got out with his intact.
To every teacher I’ve had, in every subject I’ve studied, thank you.
I join Zyxomma in thanking you Shannyn. I’ve enjoyed your post and the remembrances of others here. You brought tears to my eyes and hope to my heart. Thank you and every one who supports the value of public education. It truly is the “great equalizer,” and provides countless millions an opportunity they might not have otherwise to improve themselves and their lives. Thank you, Shannyn.
Now, if only we could convince the GOP and Tea Party of this. Sigh. I fear they are simply too proud of their own ignorance to listen.
Shannyn, that was a song that I used to play over and over and over years ago! Haven’t thought of it in years!! I so totally agree that teaching is a ‘calling’, and that teachers leave a lasting impact, some more positive than others.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=I+believe+that+children+are+our+future+sung+by+Whitney+Houston&qpvt=I+believe+that+children+are+our+future+sung+by+Whitney+Houston&mid=41D49BAA8AC40BBDB33641D49BAA8AC40BBDB336&FORM=LKVR6#
Oh dear, didn’t think the url would be so long. 🙁
Vyccan, try this to shorten long urls. I’ve come to depend upon it.
http://tinyurl.com/
You just copy and paste your long url into a slot, then click on the buttons that says MakeTinyURL!
Thanks, KS. I’ve saved it for future reference. ** embarrassed by the ‘showiness’ of the long url**