thank you, anonymous

my job is safe. of that i am lucky. when people ask if ill be losing my job, i often joke that im not worried because no one wants it. which is actually quite true. do you remember yourself in seventh grade? you were a quite surly, hormonally imbalanced, insecure know-it-all, who was too cool for family, curfews, and school. multiply that by 107 and youre spending a day in my life. am i crazy? maybe a little bit. but i wouldnt trade my job for the world. with recent budget cuts and not enough retirees in my district, we are facing some unfortunate issues. i am not in any way comparing our hardships to those of my many teacher friends and family who are losing jobs completely. my district, with strong support for our union, is doing everything in their power to maintain jobs for all current employees. but that means, without boring you with teachery details, that they have to move people around because of the certifications they hold. this is the unfortunate part. its splitting up grade level teams with a good rapport, forcing teachers to spend what they thought of as a summer off learning a new curriculum, and generally getting used to the idea of starting over in the fall. i feel incredibly blessed and thankful everyday that i have a job, any job, in the current economy.  this is not meant to come through as a complaint. i just wanted to preface the following article with my thoughts. i feel for everyone going through this. and i wouldnt want to be in their shoes. but i do hope that all of this is sorted soon, because there are bigger issues facing education. ones that will not be fixed by cutting budgets, firing employees, or adopting the "next big thing" in education reform. if we just all take a deep breath and head back to basics for a reality check, i think youll see that the same problems still face our children and will continue to do so as long as we live in a world with poverty, unemployment, difficult family dynamics and socioeconomic issues.

i attempt to take no credit for the following article. i wish i could give credit to the amazing person who holds these thoughts. however, all i can provide is that it was published on may 12, 2010 in the opinion section of my local paper. and in that sense, thank you, mr. or ms. anonymous. i appreciate your sentiment more than you will ever know. thank you for putting my daily thoughts and emotions into such an eloquent piece. i often think and feel things things, but can never express them with the grace and intelligence that you have managed.  i found myself nodding and close to tears at many points. so thank you, whoever you are :)

pros and cons of proposed school reform

"don't just stand there! do something!" that could be the motto of too many of the school reform movements. either that or "ready. fire. aim."

there's no doubt that there are some fundamental problems in the american education system. federal programs such as no child left behind and race to the top are attempts to get at them. so are local programs like vineland's "small learning communities" at the high school.

it's difficult to know whether these new programs are effective. education is a bit like a glacier. it doesn't make quick moves. progress can be measured only over time. that's the reason we're very concerned about new jersey's education reform program unveiled by education commissioner bret schundler last week. 

schundler said the christie administration will encourage the legislature to pass a bill endorsing the broad concept that student learning would be the chief factor by which the state should evaluate education. sounds reasonable until you start to figure out how we define and then accurately measure "student learning."

standardized tests? we know that the wealthy school districts in north jersey far outdistance urban districts like vineland, millville and bridgeton. is that the fault of our local schools and local educators?

take a child from one of those upper crust schools. he or she is in a community with big homes and few apartments, meaning people don't keep moving around every few months. he or she is more likely to live in a home with two parents, and often both of them are college graduates. the family has the income for some travel, and books and educational opportunities. 

now look at cumberland county. we have the lowest percentage of four-year college graduates in the state. we have the lowest annual income and the highest unemployment rate. it isn't necessarily that the parents don't value education; some may simply not know how to encourage their children to succeed.

put teachers on a merit pay system? can teachers be fairly rated when they have kids in class whose families have moved three times this year, regularly disrupting the educational process? how do you rate the seventh-grade teacher who is dealing with students who have shown learning problems that haven't been dealt with over the years? how do you allow for the fact that -- although the politicians don't like to hear it -- some kids are simply smarter than others, and some have parents who are unable or unwilling to make sure their kids do homework and go to school regularly?

here are some more problems with merit pay for teachers. do we expect teachers and schools to cure all of society's ills that negatively affect student performance and education -- poverty, lack of health insurance, homelessness, single-parent homes, teen pregnancy and unemployment? and what about adequate school funding for poorer school districts -- funds the state is reducing? money isn't everything, but it would be naive or disingenuous to say state-of-the-art facilities and up-to-date computers and other educational materials don't matter or make a big difference in the quality of education.

who is going to evaluate those teachers on a merit pay system? let the computer do the scoring without considering those outside factors? we hear a constant drumbeat from the community that there are too many administrators in the schools. well, just think about how many supervisors would be needed to do detailed, frequent observations of the dozens of teachers in each school if they had to be evaluated for extended tenure programs or merit pay.

we're not suggesting that schools are fine and all teachers are great. they aren't. but we need to be wary of simplistic solutions that make the politicians feel triumphant while doing nothing to address day-to-day problems that are inherent in the education system.