The feeling of telling someone you lost your job is a difficult task to undertake. I didn't really lose my job though; I had it taken from me by New York Governor Cuomo with his budget cuts to education and by NYSUT, the union I belong to, whose support of an inane "Last in, First out" rule has prevented me from continuing my work with my high school students.
I have been on a nine-year journey through two graduate schools, three one-year teaching positions between New York and Florida and countless days of substitute teaching in the hopes that I would be more marketable to a district in the process. The 'Last in, First out' rule cost me and thousands of others around the state this year and it is destroying the institution of teaching.
A generation of teachers is preparing for retirement and without adequate replacements who are fresh in recent best practices and motivated to hit the ground running, the profession of teaching is doomed and the next generation we are charged to educate will suffer even greater odds as a result. In a profession where a majority of teachers leave after five years, the national commitment to education has faded.
As a nation, we do not give support to teachers and educators: instead, politicians and parents alike condemn teachers when students do not succeed and decide to make drastic budget cuts that make educating the next generation less appealing as a career. Where are the priorities of this once great nation? Governor Cuomo says that districts should have better fiscal management: "Manage the school system. Reduce the waste. Reduce the fraud. Reduce the abuse."
Well, which one am I Governor Cuomo? A waste? A fraud? An abuse of the system? Was my hiring a poor choice for a resource room for students with Asperger's Syndrome despite my expertise with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders? Are you really in a position to make a call like that?
Governor Cuomo does not want administrators to get a high six-figure salary and this we agree on. It is the teachers who should be getting six-figure salaries and administrators who are needed to help guide teachers and provide management of the school district slightly higher. If you want the best possible teachers for the future, make it worth their while to take the job.
How can you convince a college student with a straight face to accept a job that is guaranteed to leave a new teacher with little money to pay off student loans, buy a house, have a family or find a way to make ends meet without a second job during the school year? This is even harder for those who have families and children to provide for. The profession of teaching has now become a national joke, whereby teachers make paltry sums of money but are expected to undertake a task that will be scrutinized every single day, plan and teach lessons, meet the needs of students, all with the threat of having classroom sizes increase to unmanageable proportions or worse, losing their job because the Governor and Legislature of the state, despite not being teachers themselves, decide that you are expendable.
Special Education was once 'safe' from cuts but this is not true anymore. I went to graduate school the first time to get a Masters in Social Studies Education. I went back a year and a half later because it was said that certification in Special Education would help my marketability as a teacher but I ultimately stayed in Graduate school the second time so that I might help students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Now my job has been cut and a veteran teacher will take over a resource room for kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This person may have no experience with this area of Special Education, partially because it is a field which is relatively new and research and best practices are constantly emerging. Few who have not been focused on the Autism Spectrum in the past 20 years will find it challenging. Certainly, teachers in a position like this will step up to the challenge, but I had already done so and found every possible way to support my students based on my recent and continuing efforts in this field.
New York State and NYSUT rules support the established teacher but do not support those trying to become established. Come this September, without an unlikely influx of money from the state to prevent this, my students will have had three teachers in three years: my predecessor retired last August, I had my job cut, not because I wasn't good enough or did a poor job, but rather because I hadn't been around long enough. So I venture out to find another Special Education position, but with the cuts levied by Governor Cuomo that is less likely this year more than any other year. And when I start at a new school, I'll be starting as the Last in, ready to be the First out once Politicians decide that they know what is best for the classroom cut more money from education statewide.
Society is told through our leaders each High School and College Commencement season that teaching is a high calling with a great deal of importance for the future. Yet we underfund education on a routine basis and make it the first thing to go when cuts need to be made without considering all other options, including allocating money from elsewhere in the budget to asking citizens to share the burden of ensuring a positive future with an education tax. We lose as a nation when we do this, but the harm is local and lasting.
I love my job and my position but this is not the way to treat a teacher fresh from graduate school with four years prior teaching experience. Teaching should not be a journeyman's profession. I have had friends suggest looking at Delaware, North Carolina, even teaching in Europe. The cost to move and relocate my life isn't worth it.
I wanted to teach where I grew up but Governor Cuomo chooses not to allow that. He would rather I go on unemployment and live on less than half my current salary with no benefits. Bills for student loans will pile up; my knowledge and expertise will lie dormant for months, if not years; my students will not understand why I am not there to help them when that is exactly what I would rather do.
How can you explain this to them, Governor Cuomo? You are on a "People First" campaign without the slightest tinge of irony that you indeed did not put people first in your inaugural budget -- teachers came last and students farther down the list.
This is no way to earn a living and it is no way to treat those who put themselves to work for the betterment of others and society. It is a slap in the face of those who invest in their education for the purpose of helping those with the greatest educational needs succeed.
My students will lose a teacher who has the talents and knowledge to get them on the track to college and the workforce both prepared and educated for the future, but thanks to Governor Cuomo and NYSUT, I will not get the experience needed to survive another round of budget cuts. Governor Cuomo is in charge of preserving the states economic future while NYSUT is supposed to turn teaching jobs into teaching careers.
Neither did their job and I have lost mine.
Follow Pete Mason on Twitter: www.twitter.com/phanart
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2. I agree that this is "no way to treat those who put themselves to work for the betterment of others and society. It is a slap in the face of those who invest in their education for the purpose of helping those with the greatest educational needs succeed." But this is not only true for you. It is true of experienced teachers, who have devoted ten, twenty or thirty years to education. You seem to think that you deserve some kind of special treatment - and you do! But not at the expense of your older colleagues.
It is truly a shame that your students will not have you next year, but Cuomo and NYSUT are not to blame. They didn't cause the economic melt-down.
For you it's a temporary setback. A devoted teacher like you will be back. There will be a position for you within a few years, if not immediately. Keep the faith!
Cuomo and NYSUT ARE to blame: Cuomo for cutting state funding when millionaires get a tax break and NYSUT for 'eating their own' as union-member colleagues put it, focusing on the old and aging teachers and not replenishing their base.
It does not sound like you do, or you'd not be spouting the usual Republican LETS ALL HATE UNIONS drivel that spill off your lips like so much diarrhea.
Was it Mark Twain that came up with: "Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt"?
I'm a new teacher who like Mr. Mason have found it frustrating (and at times crushing) that I can't seem to get my foot in the door let alone hang my coat up, but I chalk this up to paying my dues which regardless of you industry, education, or tenacity is a part of obtaining employment. I know that one day (fingers crossed) I will find myself in a position where I'll be able to settle in and you can sure a heck believe that there will be a fresh crop of teachers out there scratching to get in like I am now. But will I feel they should be able to displace me from the job I've been honing for years because they might know some new best practices that I very well may already be instituting?
A) You can keep your job until you make too much, at which point you'll be fired and replaced with a cheaper new grad
B) You can keep your job as long as you want, as long as you're willing to have your wages frozen at your starting salary.
Option C? The one where taxpayers fork over an unlimited pile of cash to pay enough teachers what they are all worth? I'd like that one, too, but it isn't going to happen on this planet.
The devil really is in the details here, and the various proposals to do away with tenure/firstinlastout have hinged on finances. In PA, the proposed change was that districts which could claim (no need to prove) financial hardship could furlough whoever they wished. In an economic pinch, who do you suppose will get the ax?
Nor does a teacher quality ranking work out all that well for you newbies. I've been at it for thirty-some years. Most of the better teachers that I work with were no great shakes in their first few years-- most need 4-7 years to really hit their stride.
I get that it's frustrating as hell to try to break in. Took me about six years to land a "real" gig. And it sucks that some dead wood stays in place.
My real option choice-- administrators do their jobs, actually evaluate and correct or remove the deadwood. Tenure doesn't provide nearly as much protection in most districts as lazy admins do (tho granted NY is its own special mess).
Occasionally, we'll see a teacher get laid off from the suburbs and move to the inner city. They miraculously go from being a great teacher to being a horrible one. Then, if they get called back to the suburb, they become a great teacher again.
Weird, isn't it?
Taxpayer funds are not unlimited?
The NCLB law opened the flood gates of greed and capitalism into our schools. The law mandates failing schools to pay outside companies too facilitate and help set up day to day instructional materials and curriculum. Now the private sector smells blood and their political contributions to both sides of the isle combined with a very aggressive PR campaign have most people looking at a patsy. Sadly teacher's have been cast as the fall guy and the uniformed voter has bitten, hook, line, and sinker.
Governor Cuomo says that districts should have better fiscal management: "Manage the school system. Reduce the waste. Reduce the fraud. Reduce the abuse."
The waste, fraud, and abuse, has nothing to do with teachers or their unions.
Private companies are profiting from the failure of our schools, and yet those same companies are paid to assure that they don't fail.
Textbook, computer, software, construction, companies and countless others gouge the school districts and yet its the teachers and unions fault education cost so much. It's really sad that a teacher who wants to teach, will loose their job because it was more important to buy the latest gadget for every class even though it will be obsolete right after it was installed.
Teachers should be honored and celebrated for the sacrifices they have made for the betterment of country.
On the other hand, a terrific new math teacher (23) was rehired even though they don't quite have enough classes for her next year; she will also run the after-school homework program to keep her on the staff because she is so good the principal did not want to lose her.
The result is that the kids who graduate from our 8th grade do very well in high school and college; in fact, they constantly come back and tell us how well prepared they were.
I support the idea of unions and know how important they are in protecting workers' rights, but I sincerely wonder if the kids of this country are always getting the educators in their classrooms that they deserve. Every public school teacher I know admits that there are frauds in their midst, hanging on until their pensions are large enough. Is that who we want in the nation's schools?
Too bad for US.
http://www.lvrj.com/view/clark-county-s-new-teachers-of-the-year-among-first-to-be-laid-off-122029014.html
This is a political propaganda piece pretending to be a personal story.
Meanwhile, it is actually hard to get hired and then to survive the evaluation process (which is more and more designed in ways that are not connected to good teaching). So those who are able to make the grade and stay teaching should have the protections that many people fought for over many years - which are being torn asunder by Gates, Broad, Duncan and friends who think, like Bloomberg, that those involved in public education are not smart enough to understand the value of education. Later on, when public schools are reduced to test factories and no one learns anything and Pearson and Gates rake in the cash, people really won't be able to understand the value of education because they will not know what it really is....
I think the biggest discrepency I've noticed is that up here, there is no pressure on teachers to "produce results". To me, it is absolutely insane that teachers can lose their jobs because their students don't perform well on a few tests. If I lived in a system where my income was below the poverty line, my performance constantly scrutinized, and my job constantly threatened, I would be under so much stress that there is no way I could provide the education my students deserve. I understand that people want to get rid of "inept" teachers, but there are not many out there, and those that are not very good get squeezed out of their positions one way or another. Maybe if your teachers were compensated fairly and not threatened to be fired each day, they would enjoy their job more, and as a result would put more effort into it, care more about student success, and students would benefit (and succeed).
But I'm just a Canadian, what do I know?
How dare they grade papers, create lesson plans and call parents at night? Teaching children to read/write/add/subtract as if it's important. Who do they think they are?
Sound crazy? It is.
I never thought I'd see the day when teachers would be the "evil" in our society. My parents were teachers,(1st grd teacher/HS principal) and I'm sure they're spinning in their graves. They are our (3 siblings) role models.
I remember my mom visiting students at home if she hadn't seen them lately. I recall my dad walking his campus telling the the young men to put their shirts inside their pants or take their hat off when inside a building.
The Regressives have been relentless in their efforts to dismantle public education since Brown vs Board of edu. That case was the deal breaker. Pub. edu. is accessible to all Americans, but in their twisted logic, it must be privatized; can't pay, too bad.
Everyone is tightening their belt, except the rich who continue to get tax breaks and the oil companies keep their welfare; at the expense of the Am. people.
Their goal is to leave as many children behind as possible; it fills their private prisons and drives down wages.
In other words, their utopia.
=^.,.^=