Hello dear reader. In the first blog I addressed just one aspect of the variables in play regarding the success or failure of public education in America. Those variables were students and parents. No, I wasn’t picking on anyone. I’m a parent, I know. It is tough job, and the economics of the 21st century make it harder.

Today I want to examine some teacher myths, and teacher facts. Feel free to call me biased as I am a 35 year teacher. That’s fine, I am partial to my colleagues. However, the attacks on my profession over the last 50 years under neoliberal economic policy by both conservative and conservative democratic administrations are inexcusable. Don’t worry, I have several blog posts on the failure of governance regarding education. Just warning you ahead of time… It’s long…..

Myth #1: Teachers are paid a full year’s salary for nine months work.

Fact: We are paid a contracted salary for 180-195 days of work pending the district, state, and job description that is negotiated through the board of education and our labor union representatives. There are stipends for extra work: coaching, outside day instruction for driver’s education or other work, tutoring, concerts, contests, plays, musicals, etc… These (pending the contract) may be based on a percentage of the base salary (Level 1-Bachelors) or some other derived figure from negotiations. Let’s say a first year teacher is making $50,000 on a 190 day contract. If we were to expand that to the 260 day work year by an the typical worker. The teacher salary (to be accurately comparable) would need to see a 37% increase. That would make the initial year one contract $68,500 for a 260 day school year contract. Is your tax base, state, community, capable of supporting a 260 day school year? If there are complaints about the 190 day contract, just show them the math. Comparing any salary from an urban, suburban, or rural demographic is not possible in a fair manner. The economics of Texas and California are far different than Wyoming and Alaska.

Myth #2 The teacher tenure system is harmful to education

Fact: There isn’t enough evidence to support the premise (It’s biased) This link has the information to support for the following paragraphs. https://www.weareteachers.com/what-is-teacher-tenure/#google_vignette

Teacher tenure began in New Jersey in 1909. It was designed to protect the teacher from political based firings and discrimination. Oh wait, #45 wants to do political based firings!?! In 1909 it was common for women teachers to be fired upon marrying as an example. <–No we don’t want to go back there. Receiving tenure gives a teacher some sense of security as they have invested in the community they teach in. Tenure also reduces employee turnover. Employee turnover does affect student performance. Personally, I have seen that damage in music and art departments. Students and parents alike lose trust in the system as philosophy, curriculum, and instruction styles change radically from teacher to teacher (fine arts only.)

Dismissing a teacher (same source as above) with tenure is possible. The labor contract can play a huge role in the difficulty of dismissing a teacher with tenure. Yes, I’ve heard and read stories about teachers that do not have a classroom collecting large salaries due to x,y,z. Is that normal? I doubt it. These stories are individual cases. A tenured teacher can lose their job for these offenses: incompetence, insubordination, neglecting their duties, immoral behavior, violation of school board rules, unprofessional behavior, committing a crime, workforce reductions due to economics or enrollment. I’ve seen teachers dismissed for all of these offenses, just as I’m sure many have seen this happen in other cases of employment. Bad decisions happen in all lines of work. None of us are immune. Education (because we work with minors) gets placed under a different lens of reporting than other walks of life. That isn’t an excuse, it is just fact. All of us realize that when we signed up for this career. Again no bias, just fact. As a lifer in this profession I can attest that many teachers (me too) will lay awake at night worrying about our students.

Same source: The Goodman Simon Strategic Research Group did a survey in 2015 on tenure with 506 teachers. Here are the results:

• 81% said tenure was personally important to them.
• 55% worked at schools where tenure had prevented an effective teacher from being fired.
• 69% said they knew of a teacher who should have been dismissed but wasn’t because of tenure.
• 15% said that tenure in two years or less was appropriate.
• 71% said that layoff decisions should consider classroom performance.
• 75% said that teachers should play some role in tenure decisions.
• 75% said that observation data should be part of tenure decisions.

Go visit the We are Teachers website. There is even more information regarding tenure. I found it interesting as I didn’t realize some of this information until I did some actual research. That’s more research than #45 has done on tenure or understands the nature of education and education policy.

Myth #3 Teachers are free to teach whatever they wish including Critical Race Theory, Novels of questionable material, etc. and they are corrupting our children.

Fact: Every district has a set of curriculum protocols to follow.

Depending on the size of the district the curriculum protocols will vary. If you have a high school language arts staff of three, you can reach a consensus on materials to address the standards. This consensus would be presented to the principal, superintendent, and the board of education for final approval on the expenditures of said materials. If the board of education doesn’t want the juniors to read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair based on its theme of labor socialism then the juniors WILL NOT read The Jungle. Larger districts have to consider a wider demographic of student, affordability of materials, and must get feedback from far more people. If there is a hint of discomfort with something by an administrator or board member it will be discussed openly. The check and balance works. It is reflective of the culture and of the community. Again #45 is out of touch with the governing process of schools and the Department of Education.

Critical Race Theory!?! I just laugh when #45 or a conservative utters those words. Go read this: https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory We can’t teach this in K-12 education. It does not address a single standard in our curriculum in any subject. Where would we fit in? We don’t have enough time to teach American History beyond World War II. Discussion and study on this theory is strictly for academics at the collegiate level. CRT does have merit for study and analysis, and that is all that needs to be reported. #45 is simply out of touch as is most of the conservative reactionaries when it comes to a community selecting curriculum in school. Where are the rights of the individual, state, or community with this aggressive talk? The Republican Party is about individual rights, but that seems to be lacking in this one size fits all talk during the election cycle. I dissent with the hypocrisy of it all, because it isn’t the conservative thinking I grew up in as a child. Also (#45) why are you so angry with us? We didn’t make your education choices for you personally…

Corrupt the children? With the exceptions of the teachers that break the rules and are no longer in the profession, we don’t have time. The corruption of children is taking place in the palm of their hand. The cell phone with internet access in your child’s eight year old hand is the gateway to all kinds of horrors. Once the device is in their hands we adults can only be there to do damage control. Technology is a double edged sword. I argue with my teenagers regularly about how awful TikTok… teenager walking away…

In my next chapter on education, I will hit merit pay and the teacher shortage which will also set up the governance problem.

Thanks for reading this far… On it goes…