More to the story

The big question for the politicians right now seems to be --Whose fault is it that kids are doing as well as X thinks they should?



According to news print and the very wise TV commentators is the teachers. That is not a new concept. It comes around about every 10 years or whenever the politicians need something to take the public interest away from real issues and/or money.



For the politicians the answer is simple. Teachers are money crazy people who sleep at their desks and want more money. Thus, the conversation moves to tenure and salaries and how quickly can we get rid of "bad" teachers.



It would be easy to point out that current tenure laws were created by politicians. It works well for the simple answer folks that the system is full of "bad" teachers and they will be removed and all is well. For those who are making considerably over minimum wage (legislators) and really nice benefits, it is a quick battle cry to reduce teacher solutions to one they claim is only salary demands.



More money is always nice and, yes, the benefit issue is a major issue for all families and wage earners. But is that really the argument that we want or the teachers are calling for?



Maybe politicians need to pay attention to others besides their own press clippings. Class size is a major issue. Those who do not understand want to claim that class size makes no difference. It makes no difference to kids who come to school at grade level, understand the behaviors needed to do school successfully and are self-disciplined and self-motivated. Just because you can put 125 college freshman in a class doesn't mean the same can be true for 3rd graders. To reduce class size by one student in our school system would be very expensive. The cost would be somewhere in the neighborhood of over 4 million dollars. Without any question that is expensive. But does that take it from the discussions or as part of some solution.



It the question about schools of quality or one of how much do we want to pay for quality? American teachers have many more hours of student contact time and significantly less hours of planning and professional development than any industrialized country in the world. To reduce class size and to increase the hours of planning and/or professional development would be very expensive. But I would suggest the outcomes might be a whole bunch better than the rhetoric we hear from our political leaders.

Worrying about the education of your children appears to be what teachers are talking about - not salaries. Trying to bring attention to the real needs of children is what teachers are talking about and not who is to blame.

Yes, there are teachers who need to be removed and others who need to improve. But once we remove them all (and we need to) if the real problems are not resolved, there will be no improvements and our children (and country) continue to suffer a loss of potential.