What you can do for your public school

We've had some great discussion at Bloom about educating our children. We've talked about some general concerns we all have about sending our kids off to school. We've discussed the option of charter schools and the option of home schooling. But I would guess the majority of us are going the public school route.

Maybe you are entirely satisfied with your public school. I certainly hope that is the case. But I happen to know that many of you aren't. Because of my time spent teaching, I often have sisters/friends/neighbors expressing concerns or dissatisfaction to me, asking me what I would do in their situation. They are most often frustrated with teachers who aren't meeting their children's needs.

I may have traded my briefcase for a diaper bag, but I am still passionate about my once upon a time career as teacher. I am passionate about education. Particularly education reform. Today's post is 2 parts. Part one--what is happening in education reform and how I think we can see overall improvement in American schools. Part two--what you can do RIGHT NOW to make your public school amazing.

Part one:

Em and I typically avoid getting political on Bloom. We don't think Bloom is quite the right forum for discussing the national debt or who might run in 2012. But today I'm going there because it's about our children and I think it's appropriate for this particular venue.

I think the number one problem in public education is tenure. Tenure essentially means that after three years of provisional teaching, a teacher can have complete job security and can't get fired for almost anything, short of physically harming a child. Tenure also means that when budget-required layoffs come, younger teachers get fired while teachers with seniority keep their jobs, regardless of performance. Tenure is protected by laws which teacher unions fight hard to protect. And I just think that's wrong. I taught next to too many teachers who didn't belong in the classroom. Teachers who were lazy, teachers who used the same purple ditto sheets I was taught with in the '80s, teachers who aren't implementing the latest strategies and programs, teachers who--quite frankly--know they can't get fired.

So what do we do?

Meet Michelle Rhee. She just finished over three years as chancellor of schools in Washington, D.C., where she created all sorts of awesome upheaval--getting bad teachers and administrators removed, and fighting for students' rights. Now she has started Students First, an organization dedicated to: Treating teachers like professionals, Empowering parents and families with real choices and real information, and Ensuring accountability for every dollar and every child. (See this editorial Rhee wrote in the Wall Street Journal.) Some of Rhee's sentiments are a bit extreme for me, but overall I agree with her platform and am thrilled to see someone leading real reform in American education. You can read more about Students First (including what you can do to get involved) here.

Part Two:

We all know that legislative reform takes a lot of time. So what can we do right now?

I would bet that most of you mothers of school-aged children spend some time volunteering in the classroom. Ask yourself, 'could I spend more time there?' Some of the charter schools that we rave about require upwards of 20 hours/month from every parent. No wonder they can boast such excellent teacher to student ratios! Just imagine if we all doubled the amount of time we spend in our children's classrooms. What an awesome force we would be!

There are all sorts of things teachers need help with. Here are three areas I would suggest:

#1. Simple tasks (grading papers, cutting out, making copies, etc.)--
As a teacher with almost no prep time during the day, it was often a sigh of relief to have a parent come in and take care of some of the simple tasks that were piling up. It gave me more time for planning lessons and working with individuals.

#2. Working with students one on one--
*The most important example of this is working with children whose reading is below grade level and need extra support. (Make sure the teacher gives you some instruction on what reading strategies the particular child needs to work on and how to help them with those.)

*Another great example of this is performing math assessments with individual students. Some math skills--such as counting out loud to 100 or counting a pile of coins--are difficult, even impossible to assess in a written exam. As a parent volunteer, you could pull children aside and assess these critical skills. If your child's teacher doesn't have assessments like this in place, suggest them, and help the teacher set them up.

#3. Teaching--
In many schools there have been drastic budget cuts, resulting in the disintegration of things like PE specialists, music programs, and art instruction. When I taught second grade, it was up to me to teach everything. Thankfully, I had excellent training and passion for the arts, so my students still got visual art, drama, and music. But a lot of classroom teachers don't have much training in those areas, and even if they do, many have no interest or confidence in teaching those subjects, so many students are completely missing out on the arts.

This is where you come in. You could help the students put on a small play. You could come in for an hour a week to help them learn holiday songs or basic music skills. My favorite example of a way you could help is this: The Meet the Masters Program. It is an excellent program available for purchase by schools and best run by PTAs. Using the program's instructions and materials, you teach students about famous artists--their lives and artwork, and then help the students create a piece of art based on the artist's style. It is a brilliant program. I absolutely love it! You could suggest its use in your school, help the PTA raise funds to purchase it, and organize a schedule for it to be used in the school. Read all about it here.

Conclusion:

I can see some of you reading this and thinking, 'But I pay taxes for teachers to teach my children. Why should I spend so much time in the schools when I'm paying other people to be there?'

I'm not suggesting teachers aren't responsible for teaching your children. But right now teachers are dealing with over-crowded classrooms, little help from aids, few specialty teachers, and low budgets. Some teachers deal with these challenges brilliantly, but some don't. And the reality is, your child may be missing out. You can help change that.

Feel free to weigh in with comments, ideas, etc.
Loves,
anne