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It's the first day of school here, and here I am, sitting here posting to you folks.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the lively and spirited discussions here on DU, but it wasn't supposed to work out this way.
I went back to college four years ago in order to get into teaching. I wanted to teach because I saw a need, especially after the damage that Bush was hitting education with. I have a firefighter's mentality(in fact I was a volunteer firefighter for a number of years), I rush towards the problem, not away from it. I wanted to teach, I wanted to help the next generation.
I started out in elementary education, and was praised as the next hot thing to come out of the Education Dept. Good with kids, male, older, excellent personality, the head of the Edu Dept. later told me that she thought I was an excellent teacher from the moment I stepped into her Intro to Ed. classroom.
Midway through my college career I also decided that while 3-5 grades were nice, there was a need in Social Studies that was being unfilled. I watched in horror as my cooperating teacher was forced into teaching to the test, each and every lesson was somehow test connected, at least until April, the week after the test. That's when she finally turned to American History. Now here, in my state, the GLE's demand that a fifth grade student's American History education for the year start with colonial America and proceed through the Civil War into Reconstruction. When I checked last, with just a month to go in the school year, the class had gotten into the middle of the Revolutionary War. This isn't the fault of the teacher, she was forced into this by the infernal testing of NCLB.
That's when I decided to add a Middle School Education major to my Elementary Education major. I also tacked on a History Degree, since in my college, as in most education departments, you have to get a major in you specialty area if you are teaching in any Secondary School.
My student teaching last fall saw me teaching at the local middle school. Loved it, thoroughly enjoyed it, learned a lot, had a lot of fun. My cooperating teacher and I got along great and apparently, at least according to my cooperating teacher, other faculty and the administration, I did really, really well(like any teacher, all I saw were areas where I needed to improve). In fact I was tapped last fall to take over for one of the other Social Studies teachers who was moving on. I wasn't guaranteed a job, but when you have the Social Studies Dept., the principle and asst. principle in your corner, you figure that your job prospects are bright.
So I went through my last semester last spring in a good mood. I finished up my senior thesis, took an upper level class on Marxism, just for the hell of it(and I was also learning from one of the nations preeminent Marx scholars), and thought, at least initially, that the future was looking bright. Why not, I was the hot rookie in camp. Reality set in last March went I went to the state education job fair. Five hundred rookie teachers running after a handful of jobs. By this time word was out that the only education funding coming out of the federal government was RTTT, which had enough strings attached to make it unappetizing to most of us.
I applied to every single school within a thirty mile radius. You see, that's my biggest drawback, I'm older and settled. Unlike the younger kids, I can't pull up stakes and move. Would that I could, I would be starting my teaching career right now, probably out in Wichita or someplace similar.
As the spring passed, I became more worried. With no continuance of federal stimulus money, state after state was screwed. Tax revenues were, and are, in the toilet. School districts were laying off teachers, leaving positions unfilled. I found out that the job I was slotted to step into was being eliminated, instead of filling the vacancy created by the departing teacher, they were going to split her students among the other two teachers for this school year. One hundred and fifty students split between two teachers, doesn't that sound like a nightmare.
Graduation was bittersweet, not just for me, but for every Education grad who was getting a degree. About ten percent of us had gotten jobs, which left the rest of us scrambling. I had an advantage, namely an impeccable college career. Perfect scores on the PRAXIS, glowing letters of recommendation, graduating Suma Cum Laude with three degrees, I was an excellent candidate for a job.
But school districts around here weren't hiring, and aren't hiring. I have banged my head against a wall since last spring, and there simply aren't any teaching jobs in my area. If I wanted to move, I would be able to find a job, but I simply can't do that. I have an orchard to take care of, family obligations, and frankly I don't want to move, that's why I bought my place.
So here I sit, on the first day of school, typing this to you. I have done the right things, I have made the right moves. When I entered school four years ago, there was a desperate need for teachers. But over the past couple of years the economy has tanked, as have tax revenues. Obama has doubled down on Bush's education assault, opening up his own offensive almost as soon as he took office. When states were desperate for education funds last spring, he dangled RTTT money in front of them, watching states scramble for cash like beggars scrambling for coins dropped from the king's hand. RTTT money is corrosive, forcing states to agree to more tests, more merit pay based on those tests, and forcing the states receiving the money to drop all barriers to unlimited charter schools.
I have watched as this president has praised mass firings, and after last year's stimulus money, delay any other cash thus forcing states into the RTTT program. And after all the dust cleared, after all the hiring and firing decisions had been made for the year, then Obama and the Dem's deign to pass a few billions of relief money. Too little, too late.
I should be teaching this morning. I did all the right things to pursue my goal. Yet I have been toyed with by this administration. In fact I have been directly harmed by this administration. But I will survive. I'm looking for jobs in other areas than education. I'm lining up my ducks for next year, hoping I can get into teaching then (a couple of teachers in the area are retiring, keep your fingers crossed). But the ones who are truly suffering this year are the students.
The classroom my cooperating teacher has is small. You can hold twenty six max in the room. Yet since the district didn't replace the teacher who left, well, she's packing them in as best she can. We she asked her principle where to seat the kids, the principle stated that if need be, on the floor.
Is our kids learnin' this way?
Education has always been something of a political football, a fact which I think has always been detrimental to education. Over the past few years, politicians from both sides of the aisle have become even more interested in the game. Only the game doesn't seem to be about improving education, but rather how to punish public education, and now, how to transfer education from public into private hands. We have already lost one generation to the Bush NCLB madness, do we need to lose more to the Obama privatization madness.
I'm a teacher, without a job, without prospects for even subbing this year (all those other teachers who were laid off have more experience and get higher placement on the sub list). I am a direct victim of the Democratic party, and Obama's assault on education. My life is on hold, my personal situation, while not desperate(thank god my wife has a good job), is certainly depressing. And this situation is being repeated out hundreds of thousands of times across this country.
Yet despite taking these hits, I am expected to vote for Democrats this fall, and to support Obama in '12. My honest question is why? Both parties have bipartisanly teamed up to make my life miserable, to make a shambles out of a once promising career. I have seen that while school districts have struggled, Obama has kicked them while their down.
Would you support somebody, a group of people who snatched your professional life out from under you before it was ever begun? Would you support those who would destroy your profession.
So why should I? Tell me how I am supposed to put aside this burning anger I have for ALL politicians, 'Pug and Dem, for teaming up and preventing me from doing what I'm good at, what I want to do. Tell me how I am supposed to support somebody who has made my professional life a shambles and my personal life an agony (unemployment takes a huge toll).
Yeah, yeah, I know a 26 billion dollar spending bill was passed. Too little, too late, the hiring and firing decisions have already been made(at least in my neck of the woods). The fact that they're getting this money by cutting food stamps is abhorrent to me, and will, if I ever teach, make my life harder as well. This money can help next year, but to have it come out a week before school starts, after doing nothing on it for the last nine months, that's an insult on top of injury.
I'll make it, one way or the other. But after witnessing the actions of Congressional Dems and the Obama administration over the past months, after being on the receiving end of their war on public education, don't expect me to generate much enthusiasm, or support for them this fall, or in '12. I find it counterproductive to reward those who would do you harm, and that's what has been done to me, and worse yet, countless students across the country. I simply can't hold that double standard, not and be intellectually honest with myself.
It's the first day of school here, and here I am, playing on the internet. How utterly sad that is.
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