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Teach for America

The Only Way Out Is Up

By | Education | No Comments

“Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to teach teachers,” said no one, ever.

You may be surprised to know that being a teacher of teachers is a highly coveted position in education circles. After a few years in the classroom, many teachers discover that their passion lies not so much with teaching children, but, as it turns out, other teachers. With all the wisdom of two, three, or five years of professional teaching under their belts, they will earnestly tell you of their newly realized professional ambition: supporting teachers.

As social beings, humans seek order and hierarchy in complex systems. Not unlike other industries, education professionals are organized in a complex and hushed hierarchy of respect, authority, and salary.  But unlike other professions, the people most directly responsible for outcomes are at the bottom of the totem pole, scavenging for resources.

Teaching is a relatively static profession. There is no clear career ladder with universally accepted benchmarks of achievement. There are few, if any, promotions. In law, one might aim to someday be a judge or make partner at a prestigious firm. In business, young associates set their sights on the C-suite.  In medicine, there’s a strict progression from intern to resident to attending. But in teaching, a prolific career could blossom in the same classroom, with the same title, over the course of 30 or 40 years. The salary increments are marginal. The prestige is limited and local. The accolades are private. An enduring teaching career runs counter to almost every indicator of success in our culture. It’s less like a ladder and more like a Ferris wheel.

But Americans, particularly Millenials, are not conditioned for success in stagnation. Raised on titles and trophies, we’re looking for the next rung before we’ve even steadied our footing. In a commencement address at Harvard Business School, Sheryl Sandberg compared the 21st century career path to a jungle gym instead of a ladder. But a jungle gym still contains a variety of heights – encouraging risky jumps and maneuvers to become king or queen of the playground. Rather than allow for some professional gymnastics within the teaching profession, the education industry has outsourced the monkey bars to various “Offices Of.”

It pains me to admit that a certain Miley Cyrus song seems particularly prescient here: it’s the climb, and young educational professionals seem to be always looking for the next mountain to conquer. Suddenly, dozens of new positions with fancy titles exist in schools and districts and Teach for America offices across the country. Instructional Support Teacher, Model Teacher, Lead Teacher, Program Director, Vice President of Leadership Development, Director of School Leadership, Director of School Design, Director of Teaching and Learning, etc. Surely, all of these roles are filled with passionate, well-intentioned, intelligent people working to improve the country’s education system and provide excellent learning experiences for children. But arguably, the easiest way to provide excellent learning experiences for children is to be an excellent teacher of children. Many of these newly invented roles are filled by former teachers, which begs the questions: are these new roles truly necessary for providing excellent education, or have they been created to make adults feel better?

Most of these positions are accompanied by salaries and benefits equal to or better than those of teachers. And instead of managing and catering to the unique needs of up to 150 young people every day, these other education professionals can retreat to comfortable climate controlled offices where they will engage with (mostly) rational adults all day.  What sane person wouldn’t view this as a step up in the world: equal or better pay for an easier job that still serves a higher purpose.  Certainly, these professionals make worthy contributions to education. However, I have to wonder if their contributions are absolutely essential to the education system, or if they are diverting the already scarce human capital and other resources away from the classrooms they aim to serve.

In its simplest form, education involves only a teacher and a student (think Socrates). What would happen if we streamlined all resources for the direct benefit of students and teachers? If instead of having PowerPoints and Curriculum Manuals and managers and managers of managers, every classroom had three certified teachers and one-to-one internet-ready technological devices? In which system would students thrive? In which system would adults thrive in their chosen professions? And might they be one and the same?

Doctors for America

By | Education, Social Media | No Comments

“Are you having trouble finding a doctor who will see you? If not, give it another year and a half. A doctor shortage is on its way,” warns John C. Goodman is his Wall Street Journal op-ed. He’s wrong. According to Businessweek, there’s already a shortage of 15,000 doctors, with projections of a 130,000 shortage of doctors by 2025. So why not increase the supply of doctors to meet the demand of the 30 million new patients ushered into the US health care system with the Affordable Care Act? Currently, doctors are trained through a rigorous residency program, lasting three to seven years, costing $145,000 per year per resident. “The residency programs to train new doctors are largely paid for by the federal government, and the number of students accepted into such programs has been capped at the same level for 15 years. Medical schools are holding back on further expansion because the number of applicants for residencies already exceeds the available positions.”

Wait, isn’t this supposed to be an education column?

Internet trolls love to snipe in comment threads about Teach for America, “Imagine if we had Doctors for America – would you want someone performing brain surgery on you after five weeks of training?” Frankly, this is blissfully ignorant First World snark. Partners in Health, founded by the brilliant Paul Farmer, trains community members as public health workers in impoverished settings like Haiti, Rwanda, Peru, and Malawi because they have a severe shortage of doctors. The only reason the United States doesn’t have Doctors for America is because America is not facing a severe shortage of doctors… yet.

Goodman’s op-ed dances around some very important ethical and economic questions, but unfortunately, he abandons them for low hanging fruit like “wait time” at the doctor’s office, which will be probably be the least of the US health care system’s problems in the next decade. Universal healthcare will inevitably create some of the same supply and demand issues that plague the public education system. That’s basic economics. And as doctors increasingly feel overwhelmed and underpaid, they too will burn out and leave the profession for private pastures.

I wonder if the internet trolls will gripe how lazy doctors have become, as public health professionals across the nation try in vain to address the ailments of 30 patients at a time?

As a moral, socially conscious citizen, it is a popular liberal opinion to agree that healthcare and education are basic human rights that should be provided by the government. But as a society, are we willing to make the commitment (and sacrifices) required to actually provide those rights? Or do we just want to feel better about ourselves by nodding our heads and passing laws without footing the bill for the financial capital and human resources required to make those lofty provisions a logistical reality?

The two-tiered healthcare system that Goodman prophecies is essentially the education system we already have – wealthy people evade the system by paying for high-end education through private schools, while poor/middle class people are stuck with a resource depleted public system. Does America have the capacity to provide high-quality social goods and services to everyone? Or is a two-tiered system inevitable? Is a two-tiered system acceptable as long as the lower-tier provision is adequate? These are uncomfortable questions to ask, especially when politically palatable answers are not always economically feasible. Of course, it does not help matters that our nation’s political “leaders” are busy quibbling over the technicalities of rape instead of solving actual political and economic problems.

If you need immediate cardiac care, would you rather take your chances and wait a year for a top notch doc, or go under the knife with a 22-year old-who learned how to wield a scalpel last week (but was, like, so good at Operation)?

And if neither of these options is acceptable for our bodies, why is it the fate for so many of our nation’s young minds?

Not Another Blog About Why I Left Teaching

By | Education | 9 Comments

Every August, I would lose my mind (and half my paycheck) at back to school sales. Did you know there are an infinite number of ways to design a delightful classroom? Catchy themes, notable quotes, color schemes – joy! rapture! highlighters! Where would our imaginations take us this year? We read mythology and hosted our own Greek Olympics; we analyzed poetry and performed original works at our Poetry Slam; we studied Renaissance art and painted modern masterpieces. We read and performed Shakespeare with a resident actor. And all that learning paid off – my Language Arts classes had the highest reading scores in the school. I was rated “Satisfactory.”

I loved teaching. I just hated being a teacher. I resigned in April and felt the wave of relief that accompanies right decisions. But this is not a blog post about why I left. If you want to read one of those, you can go hereherehere, or here.

You already know why I left.  Hardly a day goes by without a cathartic blog or cheeky op-ed from teachers, parents, and politicians waxing poetic about deplorable school conditions, misguided school and district leaders, poorly implemented evaluation policies, and the sheer physical and mental exhaustion of teachers. Several idiots post snide comments about getting out of work at 3pm and having summers off.

We already know why teachers leave, but what would make them stay? “Stay,” because there is not actually a problem attracting teachers to the profession – we just have a problem keeping them for more than five years. Programs like Teach for America have proven that attracting people to the profession is mostly in the marketing. Lots of people like the idea of teaching; precious few can tolerate the realities of the profession.  We are left with a pool of martyrs and masochists, mostly, which does not smack of sustainability.

I have spent the past month in my first professional non-teaching job. Let me tell you about the luxuries of my new job.

I have discovered that there are more than 25 sites on the Internet. Gosh, some of these news articles and videos sure would have been helpful when I was teaching Social Studies. Speaking of which, I now have time to read the news. A lot has happened in the world these past three years, during which I was buried under a mountain of bureaucratic tasks.

I have regained the freedom to pee as I please. I can’t overstate this. Gone are the days of dehydrating myself until 4pm. A bevy of beverages! Water, coffee, tea, juice – as much as I want. (I don’t even have to ask to use the restroom. I may just go.)

I have learned that there are happy hours on days other than Friday! People all over the city enjoy an hour (or three) of happy every day.

My boss does not stand at the door of my cubicle and watch me work. We do have meetings every week, though.

At lunchtime, I eat my lunch. Sometimes we go to Chipotle, which is a real thrill.

I’m not being flip. I’m reclaiming my life, my autonomy, and my personal health and happiness, which somehow got lost in the shuffle as I let teaching consume me. A teacher’s work is never done, because their charge is Herculean. And instead of lauding teachers for the tireless super-heroes and heroines they are, we vilify them. We closely monitor them. We strip them of autonomy and professional choices. We call them lazy, because they’re trying to do the work of 10 people and come up short.

Why do half of teachers leave the profession? Why do half of teachers stay?

This is a blog about solutions and staying power.  Let’s talk sustainable systems and long-term planning, instead of bemoaning band-aid fixes and emergency certifications.  Let’s create schools and classrooms that will allow teachers to enjoy the anticipation of August all year long.