Let me be critical here. I had a school board member ask me recently what is causing morale problems among our school employees. I'm rarely good at coming up with articulate responses on the fly. Frankly, I've been hamstrung in finding words to place in writing. The writer of this piece has tapped into the stream of discontent. Her piece is not definitive, but it is something.
Our own school system suffers from the same issues she raises. Meteoric rise in children from poverty in classroom. Check. Loss teaching and assistant positions and the struggle to squeeze more of yourself to cover for the losses. Check. Irrational Testing/ Data-Stream Pressure. Check. Lack of aligned and developmentally appropriate teaching materials. Check. Grief from "excessive" paper use in response to the lack of aligned materials. Check. Blind focus on frequently unwieldy, unreliable (weak infrastructure), or unneeded technologies (I love useful technology). Check. Stagnant compensation and benefits. Check.
In my estimation, it all circles back to poverty. Poverty in funding. Poverty in training. Poverty in ideas. These rub and grate against the compassion and intensity staff members must harness to reach today's students of poverty. Such friction wears.
It's really past time for society to decide if they truly care.
