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People cost money. . .there is no way around it. The more money you cost someone, the less valuable you are. One of my friends is a record producer in NY. One of the celebrities I met through him told me "unfortunately, it's not what you accomplish, it's what you generate." Generate a profit and you are rewarded. Cost money and you are punished.
My mother retired on Friday. She had no option. Her "benchmark" test scores were low and all the other teachers' scores were higher than hers. So, her principal in Vail, Arizona, the assistant principal and the department chair summoned her for a meeting, sat her down and performed and educational "struggle session," similar to what was outlawed here in China in the 1980s by Deng Xiaopeng. She really didn't listen and she really didn't care. She heard noise and saw lips moving, but truly had little interest. It was a "shape-up-or-ship-out" session.
They performed the positive sandwich campaign. . .I will say something positive, then the negative, then the positive, but the negative will take up a majority of the time and will make you feel worthless and terrible. In a school district facing massive budget cuts, teachers being laid off and remained teachers being 6/5 without an increase in pay (in face, their may be across the board pay cuts for everyone except administration), morale at my mother's school district is at an all time low. Everyone is afraid for their jobs and people do not know if the next year is secure anymore.
I saw this coming in 2007 and tried to warm people. I know, I was only 28. I didn't know anything. I was young (I'm still young). I was naive. But I saw the hand-writing on the wall and shipped out overseas, saying, in effect, to all my creditors "my time in America is done. Come find me. I live somewhere in Asia." My mother didn't listen. It wasn't politically based, because I am my family's conservative (which means I am in deep left field and not the left field parking lot), but more the age old "look, the young kid is trying to tell the adults something. How cute." I told my family to make plans. Luckily, my father did.
So, my mother performed what she normally does when she gets bad news. . .she called my father and told him. Then, before the words could be processed in her brain, uttered "I have had it with this shit. Screw these tests, screw these people. Screw the system and screw education. It can all go down to Hell. I retire." And like that, my mother felt a weight lift off her shoulders. Just like that, she went from worrying about next year to planning her ex-pat retirement life in China with me.
Still, there is alot that bothers me with this. Our Rec(DEPR)cession is nothing more than the end result of Reaganomics and the complete assimiliation of the idea that government is the enemy. The Grover Norquist idea of "making the government so small you can drown it in a bathtub," de-regulation, "the market will correct itself" idea has shown to us to be a huge, robber-barron driven fallacy. Ayn Rand is wrong. Milton Friedman was wrong. St. Ronald of Reagan was wrong. Now, we reap their Gordon Gecko "Greed Is Good" philosophy with the long term effect of Reaganomics.
Part of me is very upset with that has happened to my mother. A big part of me. She worked all her life to become an amazing teacher, which is an absolutely thankless job. She has put up with "A Nation At Risk," "Goals 2000," and now NCLB. She's dealt with being told she is the cause of all social, family and economic ills in the country. It's her fault a kid can't read. It's her fault there are gangs. It's her fault there is violence in school. All the while, she took it with a smile because she knew she would be judged on what she did in class.
Then NCLB came. Suddenly, classroom education was secondary to the test. Here in China, it's called the Gaokao. In Korea, they have their version of the Gaokao too. If the subject is not tested on the Gaokao, the kids and schools do not teach it. And this is what has happened in our schools. Schools only teach the subjects that are on the state standardized test. Math, Writing and Reading. Reading, writing and arthimatic.
In my mother's school, they have "benchmark tests" for history. No logic, no critical analysis, just 100 multiple choice questions on facts. To add to the fun, the teacher the test beforehand. On their first benchmark tests, my mother's students did poorly. She taught the way she has always taught since 1985. . .with reason, argument, logic and analysis. The kids bombed their tests. She was called in to explain. Now, she was a bad teacher. Then she caught the scent of wind, received a copy of the second benchmark test and taught only the questions on the test, nothing more. Scores jumped 25%. She was now a good teacher.
Teachers worked to fight the system, but now, they can't. They lost. It's over. The Great Economic Rec(DEPR)ression trumped their resistance. Now, in the name of budget cutting, schools have what they need to get rid of the teachers that bucked the system and actually tried to teach.
On Friday (of course), three people called my mother in and informed her to shape up or ship out, that her "classroom management style" needed improving (even though her observation was flawless) and her benchmark test scores were low. Mom saw it as it was and instantly announced her retirement. We expect the nation to lose 10,000 teachers in the next six months.
Unlike most, my mother has options. We have opened a language based business where I live in China. There are universities and high schools jumping on me to have her sign with them. I have my current boss ready to give her a job and a school in Haikou ready to hire both of us when my current contract ends. We are lucky because I saw the hand writing on the wall in 2007.
Our country has fallen down. And no one is truly listening to us. They have lost faith. As my father put it "one party lost its spine, the other lost its mind." My mother said it different: "I disagree with the teabaggers on everything, but one thing: Their bottom line argument is LISTEN TO US DOWN HERE!!! But no one does. You can vote for the Demo-can or the Republi-crat. Because one party says no and the the other gives in and tries to get yes but never does."
My parents smell revolution in the air and I smelled that in 2005. I said our country couldn't survive George W. Bush, but I figured the anger wouldn't boil over until 10 years later. I see all the right wing violence as the first skirmishes in a nasty, brewing rebellion. People are losing their jobs, losing their money, losing their security, losing their food, losing their homes and losing their hope. When there is no hope, people are desperate. When people become desperate, they begin to ask themselves 'what do I have to lose?' When people reach the point that they have nothing left to lose, the rebellion begins.
The powers that control the country own the governments, from local to federal. The judges are in their back pocket and, while they are loons, the teabaggers bottom line argument is "listen to us! Stop ignoring us!!!"
But they do not listen to us. They view people as a work horse. . .a usable, abusable commodity that can be worked to death and beaten into the ground. When one horse is used up, we send it to the glue factory and bring in another horse, like "Animal Farm." People are credit scores, social security numbers and ledger line filler. And people scream "listen to us. Stop ignoring us." Why should the owners listen to people? People cost money.
My mother was sent to the glue factory last week after 26 years of teaching. No retirement dinner, no watch, not one thank you. She will be shown the door. Published writer, Master's Degree, Native American historian and expert, mentor teacher, teacher of teachers, experimental curriculum developer. . .and she is put out to pasture because of "classroom management styles" and "benchmark test scores." But that is just the window dressing reason.
My mother was retired simply because, after teaching since 1985, her salary of $47,000 was too much money to spend on a 58 year old woman. She was retired, because after 26 years and finally getting close to $50,000 dollars, a school district accountant decided that her salary would best be spent on two first year teachers.
My mother was retired because she cost too much money. And in the end, that's all the matters in the Great Rec(DEPR)ession. We didn't survive George W. Bush. We didn't survive Reagan-omics. And we may not survive the Great Rec(DEPR)ession.
At least my family has options.
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