This teacher has had enough.

[Lorax]

The public education system in this country is broken. The reasons are many, and the solutions are complicated. But rather than look at all those problems, it has become easier to blame the teachers. After all, they are the ones teaching, right? Well that might be true if teachers had more control over curriculum, or class size, or even classroom management. But they don't.

I worked my heart out in my classroom. I worked myself into a significant health problem. When it got to the point where my doctors told me if I continued working the way I was, I'd end up having a heart attack in the classroom, I STILL struggled with leaving. I loved my job and I loved my students. I struggled with that choice but ultimately I love my life and my own family just a little bit more.

I didn't go into teaching for the money. I knew the money wasn't great. I knew I'd be putting in extra hours. I knew good teachers go "above and beyond" and I was willing to do that. I probably would have done the job for less money. It wasn't the lack of money that forced me to leave. It was the stress of being in an untenable position day after day.

If we really want to attract and retain the best and brightest to be teachers, then we need to provide them with what they need to be successful.
* Reduce class sizes to more manageable levels
* Provide curriculum and resource materials so teachers don't have to spend their own money to make things for their classroom on their own time.
* Provide more guidance counseling and social services type people in the schools to help students deal with the myriad of issues they come to school with each day.
* We need more special educators and early intervention programs.
* Those special educators need support personnel in the school to help deal with the crushing amounts of paperwork and scheduling of meetings (this alone is a full-time job but a special educator is expected to do this after teaching students all day).
* Fix the infrastructure in schools. All students deserve to be educated in a building with running water, working toilets, working heat, windows that open or working air conditioning. I have worked in a building that didn't have those things AND no one can concentrate when it is 84 degrees in your windowless classroom and there are roaches walking under the blackboard. Fix the infrastructure!
* Enforce behavioral expectations and stop coddling narciccistic children. I've had parents tell me, "well we don't really have rules for him at home, so I can't share any ideas for what might get him to follow rules at school".
* Provide better and more effective mentoring for new teachers.

As I said earlier, I probably would have done the job for less money. But I couldn't have continued to do it even if I had been paid twice as much because there were too many other factors that were broken. All I wanted was the tools to do my job
and maybe just a tiny bit of respect. It absolutely breaks my heart to read post after post on DU from people who think we are all a bunch of whiny, incompetent boobs. It breaks my heart to think that most of the American public thinks that teachers ARE to blame for the sorry state of our public schools. I think of how hard I worked, how much I gave up and how much I asked my family to sacrifice, and I want to cry.

Good luck with fixing the schools by insulting teachers and blaming them for the failures of society as a whole. Good luck attracting and retaining the best and the brightest when it is so obvious how little respect anyone has for teachers. If it wasn't for the Cooking and Baking forum, I'd probably stop coming to DU entirely. For now, I think I'll just restrict myself to that forum. I've really had enough of the teacher bashing on this board.