Failure

[Veronica]

Our schools are tremendously underfunded.

We have no resources like that here. I am very lucky to work with two other great teachers at 5th grade. We don't have a common planning time other than our lunch. The three of us all have tough classes this year. Mine is acknolwledged as the worst of the bunch. Well that is until one of the others got a kid expelled from another school in the district. We're constantly perusing each others' test scores and sharing ideas. But I do see that lack of trust at other grade levels in my school. That's one reason why I stick it out at 5th grade.

Our kids only get to see a counselor if it is in their IEP. My resource kids aren't the ones who need the counselors.

Veronica

[salsabike]

Those resources vary not only state by state and district by district, but even school by school in my district (school psych here). The poorer elementary schools get at least some resources for pre-special ed interventions, like Title I math and reading specialists. The wealthier elementary schools have much less, weirdly. So your fate as a kid in my district depends to some degree on which school you go to. The wealthier elementary schools start pushing to have kids labeled disabled when they're, like, six months below grade level in reading. The poorer schools---I'm at one of those and I love the place---will do their best to give extra help to kids until it becomes clear it's not working and there might be a genuine, serious disability.

The fate of a kid should not depend on caprice like this. It drives me crazy to know that whether a kid is labeled disabled or not will change from school to school in my district. It shouldn't be that way.

My district also decided about a decade ago to have a full time counselor in every elementary school. They have breached that a couple of times, and I worry about what funding cuts will do to that now--but so far, I have the world's most wonderful counselor in my elementary school. I can't imagine the school without her.

[Flybye]

Salsa and Veronica, I can't imagine teaching some of the kids that the teachers in our district teach after I hear their stories. How do we expect kids to come to school ready to learn when they have been molested the night before or had a table thrown at them by a parent that morning? Or the girl that was abandoned by her mother and feels like no one wants her and is contemplating suicide. It is terrible, but I am concerned that the school Counselors will be taken out of the school picture if funding gets cut.
I admire you both for working with so much diversity in a classroom. It is a bigger endeavor than most would be willing to take on!

[Irulan]

salsa bike,Washington has pretty darn good public school funding, especially when compared to CA where Veronica teaches. I moved up here from teh Bay Area when my kids were still in preschool.I remember even then, 20 years ago, there were 30 kids to a class, no art, PE or language, or buses.

Prop 13 really shafted the public schools in CA. Any time anyone brings up property tax freezes up here, I let them know what could really happen.

I was flabbergasted when we moved up here and my kids got attend a brand new elementary school, with buses, PE and art; both GATE and special ed programs, plus a new computer lab; counselor and more. And, 22 kids to the room.

[salsabike]

Irulan, that sounds great. It's definitely not like that in my district, but even so I think my district is in better shape than many. (no 22-kid classrooms, though, that's for sure. My three 1st grades this year have 28-29 kids).

It's a wonder, with the stuff that some of our kids live with, that many of them manage to turn out to be pretty nice kids. In my school we have a band of about 30-40% of families who are in pretty bad shape, and maybe about 10% who are truly non, not dys, but really non functional. We have one kid whose mom has huge mental health and substance abuse problems. She has no fixed address and you can't get her on any phone. She will not talk to CPS. The kid lives with maternal grandma (who drinks) and some other kids. Mom bops in and out of their lives at random. They were living in one of the terrible local motels. Now moved to an actual house. We cannot get grandma to give us either the street address (bus stop is at a corner) or any phone. We can't get either mom or grandma to come to any meetings. They did show up at the winter concert, however, late, and yelled at various people about various things.

I am very worried about how this kid lives and what is going to happen to him. I do not think he's going to be one of the kids I mentioned above, who will come through somehow okay. I don't think he will.

On the other hand, there's the kid from an almost as chaotic home who has kept some of his curiosity about the world and enjoyment and some sweetness to boot. How he does that, I don't know, but it's nice to see.

Sorry. I'll shut up now.

[salsabike]

PS I think states like California and Oregon, that passed big tax cut/control measures, have had their schools absolutely devastated.

[Crankin]

This is sooo upsetting to me. People here complain?? I know that I was extraordinarily lucky in my last job, due to a combination of an outstanding superintendent, aggressive grant funding, and a staff who was absolutely dedicated to meeting the needs of a diverse population. One thing that I think is different is that school districts in MA are generally small. I used to think this was bad, because you could provide less services, but now I think that it helps in financially lean times. The community sometimes rallies and finds a way to fund things.
My parents moved to CA from AZ when my brother was in high school. I had already been teaching a few years. After 6 months, Prop 13 passed. It had a devastating effect on his education. We have the same thing here (Prop 2.5), but I wasn't here when the initial cuts took place. But, that's why there weren't a lot of teachers my age when I got here in 1990. They all had lost their jobs. Then, when I got hired, in a year that 9,000 teachers lost their jobs, the other teachers were so mean to me! It was unreal that adults could act like this. I doubt they wanted to do my job (LD/BD kids). I only stayed in that district 2 years.
It's true, that the educational quality of a system varies from school to school, even within districts. I think that's everywhere. Teaching middle school, I immediately could tell which elementary school each kid had come from. Some emphasized writing (I taught lang. arts) and other kids thought writing meant "cursive." Some kids absolutely did not know how to "think" and explain their ideas, which is what we emphasized. It was not that they weren't capable of it. They had never done anything but fill in the blanks on worksheets.

[Tuckervill]

Is it any wonder why I kept my kids out of school? This thread just makes me feel SO right about that decision! I'm not talking about the teachers; most of whom are doing your absolute best, I'm sure. But all the rest? The troubled kids, with lack of services, the general attitudes? I'm so glad we missed it!

Karen

[Irulan]

From, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries a negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out out if necessary or possible; leave the sitaution or accept it. All else is madeness.