More Demands, Less Results

When she began her teaching career in the early 1980s there

were no levies being passed in her district. In the previous 

decade a strike by the local teachers union had turned bitter 

for the bedroom community. Consequently, the property 

owners of the district voted over and over again for more 

than ten years to deny the district of funds it said were 

necessary to provide a quality education for students. 

 

Knowing no difference, she began her career applying the 

skills she'd learned from her college courses on how to 

provide instruction for her students. In the early 1980s there 

was no Internet and home computers were only in their 

infancy. 

 

The principal set the school's expectations with teachers, 

using a curriculum adopted by the school board in the district,

 and the teacher marked a single sheet of grades for her/his 

students with a pen. The majority of parents appeared at 

their child's scheduled conference to find out how their child 

was doing and usually were willing team players in receiving 

advice from their child's teacher on what they could do at 

home to assist in the learning process. 

Most students in the typical public education classroom were 

in what could be considered the "average" level of ability 

when it came to learning. There were both special education

 classrooms for those with learning disabilities, as well as 

those who excelled in the "Gifted" classrooms where the 

students were allowed to progress through their various 

subject materials at their own pace. 

 

In the middle of her career, the state's legislature decided to

get involved in the issue of teacher's salaries across the 

state because of the disparity between the state's western

side districts had salaries much higher than its eastern side 

where salaries were much lower. This was due to the simple 

fact that the cost of living was much higher on its western 

side than its eastern side, but the state's teachers union was 

ignoring that fact because it had pushed for equal pay across

the state for the sake of equality and, they claimed, would 

produce a higher quality of student outcomes because 

higher salaries would attract better and more qualified 

teachers.

34 years later, this teacher comes home every night tired, 

dispirited, and frustrated. Tired because she leaves at 8 

o'clock in the morning and doesn't return home until 10 

o'clock at night. Consequently, within ten minutes of sitting 

down on the couch to watch a little television, she's out cold 

from exhaustion. Dispirited because she consistently has 

more demands to add to an already full agenda for each 

day, but doesn't have any more hours to add to that day. 

Frustrated because, on a regular basis, a variety of 

disruptions, demands from the district's upper administration 

are imposed on her, and decreasing involvement by her 

student's parents makes it feel as though she's losing the 

battle against being able to do a decent job for her students.

So,what has changed in three decades? Well, she has more 

pay, but that only helps keep up with the increases in the 

cost of living.

Thanks to the state's legislature, class size has been 

lowered from 28 -30 in a class in the intermediate grades of 

elementary; there are usually only around 22 -24. When it 

comes to accountability, the adoption of Common Core for 

curriculum in the district has done a great job of feeding the 

"beast" of assessing, or testing, while at the same time 

heaping bureaucratic expectations and demands on her to 

keep data on a report card program that requires so many 

entries for every little skill for each subject that she spends 

more time keeping up with data entry than she spends each 

day actually teaching students every day. As a result, the 

report card now has at minimum six pages of information on 

each student; all to show just how much better students are 

learning today.

The only problem is... test scores aren't improving! Is it poor 

instruction on her part? 

 

A regular disruption is school assemblies; one week 

students learn how they'll save the whales, another week 

they'll have a guest speaker explain to them how they can 

contribute to reducing global warming, and the next week, 

they'll spend another hour or two learning about how to be 

politically correct, so as to not offend anyone and be 

respectful of the diversity which makes up their increasing 

student body of immigrants who don't speak English enough 

to understand what's being taught.

Then there's her principal who consistently sends out emails 

to the school's staff informing them about a staff meeting 

which must be attended to discuss how to implement a new 

addition to their already full repertoire of requirements 

regarding the application of an instructional approach that 

will change everything, but promises to improve the 

student's learning.

The email is sent out the night before the scheduled morning 

meeting the next day. And the teacher is expected to 

implement this change by the following week, requiring 

hours of modification to all subjects being taught, on top of 

the already overflowing plate of demands to keep data 

entries current and for all same grade classes to all be 

synchronized on the same lesson.

No, the number of days comprising a school year have not 

changed, it's still 180 days for students. However, the 

number of days for early release, or late starts, from the 

school schedule has definitely increased so staff can attend 

yet another training on new instructional strategies.

When this happens parents have to scramble to arrange 

daycare for their children while they're at work. Some 

parents just let their children stay home, alone and without 

supervision for half the day, or all day, in some cases. 

 

Then too, today's student-led conferences are attended by 

fewer parents for a variety of reasons: work conflicts, 

indifference, or the difficulty of being able to contact the 

parent by the teacher to inquire when would work best for 

them to come learn how their child is doing, or discuss why 

they're not doing their assignments.

Now, the state's teachers union has managed to get the 

state Supreme Court to rule on what's known as the 

McCleary decision. In essence, the court is telling the 

legislature it is not funding public education adequately; 

which is language regarding the legislature's primary 

obligation. 

 

So, a few years after that decision, the legislature hammers 

out a budgetary increase of historical state standards, yet 

the teacher's union asserts that the increased funding is not 

enough! Also, let's not overlook the fact that the state's 

voters passed a referendum to allow for charter schools to 

provide parents with a limited alternative, but the same state 

Supreme Court turned around only weeks before these new 

charter schools were to open their doors to pass a ruling that 

it was "unconstitutional.”

As a former educator in the state of Washington, I'm 

ashamed and very concerned at what has taken place in our 

public schools. Too many take for granted the miracle that is 

performed by such dedicated people who see themselves in 

such a thankless job today.

And how do I know all of this? The person mentioned above 

is my wife, and I also taught in the same district for 30 years 

myself. So, I know first hand of what I speak! This will be her 

last year teaching. No doubt, a young, naive' person full of 

youthful energy, will fill her spot on the staff next fall. But, if 

circumstances for teachers continue as they have, I wonder 

just how long that person will last. Then again, this district 

had over 100 positions go unfilled when the school year 

began.