My wife is a teacher in Lowell MA, 7&8 Math. She is not the typical teacher. Degrees in chemistry, biology, laboratory science and a master in education. Before teaching she was a laboratory microbiologist. She has been teaching for 8 years now, 5 in Boston and 3 in Lowell.
While the teachers union does block efforts to improve education, the entitlement mentality bred into generations of minorities has resulted in parents who do not care. Of course, this is exactly the result the liberal left wanted. But great teachers like my wife who don’t give a hoot about political correctness end up burned out early because the administration blames them for failing students when the students won’t make even the slightest effort to do the work.
When my wife meets the parents, if they even bother to come in, she usually sees within minutes where the student’s attitude comes from. The bureaucrats don’t help because they believe the false idea that a teacher can “inspire” any student to learn. I believe that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
The end result is that my wife spends 4 to 5 hours every night at home working. She spends most of the weekend working. Then she gets mad at me for doing stuff with the kids and leaving her home alone. Our “together” time is often both of us on the couch with our laptops on and working.
The educrats push “new” programs based on biased pseudo studies that are designed only to sell a new system and force the purchase of yet more useless crap.
Bush did not help when he sided with FAT TED on NCLB. That FAT TED was for it should have told President Bush that it was a really bad idea. NCLB sets up a complete federal government takeover of all public schools in 2014. It does this by setting a mandate that for anyone with an IQ above 70 is not achievable. NCLB requires that all (100%, no exception) public school students achieve proficiency or higher by 2014.
It has already been shown that districts across the country are dumbing down tests to inflate the rate of improvement. The proof is that these district show flat SAT score at the same time their “state” scores are improving. There has never been a valid test given with 100% of takers scoring B+ or higher. It would be the same as requiring all students to make the varsity basketball team. It just won’t happen.
One thing has been proven many times over. If you want to screw something up have the government fix it.
Back to summary...
