Husband happy wife is leaving teaching
Published October 13, 2013
by Matthew Brown, letter to News and Observer, October 12, 2013.
It is with great happiness that I report that yet another distinguished teacher has left her career and chosen to be employed by a company in the private sector. I am happy not because I desire the public school system to fail, but because that distinguished teacher is my wife.
After nearly seven years of her passion for teaching turning to dread, she is free to live her life unburdened by the oppressive hands of incompetent legislators and school board members who wish to micromanage education without actually getting involved with the people in it.
As each passing year of new policies and tests fails to deliver the results they desire, rather than reform their thinking, these officials create new policies and new tests and pile them on top of the old ones. They, with the raising of a hand and a stroke of a signature, applaud themselves for their feigned ingenuity without thought or regard for those who will have to bear the burden of it.
For these officials, who create such policies as differentiation (which is just a fancy word for throwing students of all academic levels into a single class to preserve the precious self-esteem of those at lower levels), do not care to realize that in the effort of preserving the pride of the few they cripple the education of all.
Rather than having to prepare to teach a single class (which is difficult enough), a teacher is given several classes thrown into one and is expected to determine the level of each student and then to create lessons tailored to each student. While this might sound like a wonderful idea to some, the reality is that teachers have neither the time nor the resources to meet these demands. So rather than having the somewhat customized education that students used to receive when divided into classes by ability, the more-able and less-able are educated at the level of the average, so that the less-able are still left behind and the more-able are brought down to average.
Some say that teachers simply need to work harder. Such people are fools and clearly not acquainted with a teacher. If they were, they would know that teachers are some of the hardest-working people. These do not have to see their teaching wives come home from work every day and spend the rest of the night laboring over lesson plans and grading schoolwork. They do not see their dining room tables covered in papers that their wives could not grade at school because their planning time was displaced so that they could give new assessments or play the substitute for the physical education teacher who called in sick.
They do not see their wives turning down social activities on the weekends because they have progress reports to complete. They do not see them pulled away from teaching their classes for hours and days at a time, standing in the hallways of schools and frustratingly giving assessments to individual students on devices that were not designed for such assessments. And these do not see their wives periodically breaking down in uncontrollable sobs because of the ever-increasing amount of work thrown upon them and the effect it is having on their teaching.
To add insult to injury, North Carolina has not one time since my wife has been teaching given teachers the pay increases promised them. In fact, they have been given no pay increases except for a single, 1 percent increase a couple of years ago. Given that the average rate of inflation over the past 10 years has been 2.3 percent, by not giving teachers pay increases that at least match inflation, the state is essentially saying, “We will expect more and more of you with each passing year, but your services are worth less and less to us with each passing year.”
For some reason, the general public seems to be OK with this. There seems to be among them this ingrained notion that teachers are somehow charity workers who should not be concerned about pay. No one enters into teaching to become rich, but, for God’s sake, teachers should at least receive compensation that accords with the salary for which they originally agreed to work. The value of our money today does not equal its value in 2007, but teachers are expected to live on salaries that have been deadlocked there.
I am glad to be one husband who will not have to watch his wife live in incessant anxiety throughout the school year. I am glad I will no longer have to console her when the papers are stacked to the ceiling or when report cards are due to go out. I am glad I will not have to witness another new year with another new assessment and another new policy that further removes my wife from teaching her class just so some politician can have another metric on a sheet of paper.
I am glad because I know others aren’t so fortunate. Some teachers have vested so many years into their careers that leaving now would mean forfeiting their retirement. Unfortunately for them, they have almost no choice, and maybe the state is counting on that.
I count myself and my wife fortunate in that she can still leave. I’m sure that many will follow her, just as many have preceded her, to the utter shame of the state of North Carolina.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/10/12/3277055/one-nc-husband-whos-happy-his.html#storylink=cpy
October 13, 2013 at 11:27 am
Richard Bunce says:
There are education employment opportunities outside of the government education system. This will hopefully become THE growth industry in the US over the next several decades IF the government education industrial complex is not allowed to continue to strangle the alternative education competition.
October 13, 2013 at 3:58 pm
Dave Arnold says:
This guy nailed it. This is the smartest, most well-written response to the anti-education movement in Raleigh.
October 14, 2013 at 10:19 am
Richard Bunce says:
Not anti-education, it is anti a failing government education system under the thumb of the government education industrial complex which is definitely anti anything but the government education system.
October 13, 2013 at 10:40 pm
Joy Baas says:
This is exactly what "the government" in Michigan is striving for. They want experienced teachers to leave so they can continue to pay beginning teacher salaries. "They" also want the private sector to take over education so they will not have to pay anything for education. As a couple in Texas have paid $10,000,000 to fund the head start programs in six states that have been closed due to the government shutdown, it seems like this idea could take hold. Unfortunately, we know this case will be the exception and not the rule regarding educational philanthropy. I fear the demise of Jefferson's dream of a free public education.
October 14, 2013 at 8:49 am
TP Wohlford says:
I just left Michigan. I didn't live far from you back in the day.
In Michigan, you have there is a teacher's union that thinks like the AFL-CIO did, in 1975. Including, of course, "bidding" for jobs, zero contribution and zero copay union-controlled health insurance, and control of government.
Joy, I'm the guy who did that 1-man counter protest a couple of years ago in Jackson, when the local MEA (on the last day before a 3-month vacation!) did an anti-Nerd political rally. AT that event, I offered to pay $1000 to any teacher who, over the summer, really *could* find a job offer that really *did* pay more than what they make now. I used the money to buy a new bike later that summer -- while a few union reps did research on me, no one bothered to submit a job offer.
In the course of that action, I met a couple of the goons that the Jackson union people brought in. Big guys. Wanna see them? I got pics! This is what YOUR money paid for. This is the kind of thing YOUR union encourages. Sick really, if you think about it. The teachers at that rally were embarrassed, and they apologized to me.
Oh, and by the way, that "Recall The Nerd" campaign that ran next to that Jackson protest? Pure Dem playbook. Saw it in Wisconsin too. Worked out as well as when you guys tried to recall Engler too.
October 14, 2013 at 8:53 am
TP Wohlford says:
So this guy is outraged that his wife has to do work beyond 8-5, M-F, even though she gets a 3-month vacation in summer, and a 2-week vacation around The Holiday Formerly Known as Christmas?
He'd never survive if his wife was in one of the other professions -- law, medicine or clergy. Cause those people know what long hours really are.
October 14, 2013 at 10:17 pm
Katie Jan says:
So, you think teachers have three months off in the summer. I spend nearly everyday in the summer planning lessons, studying, trying to fit my lessons into a new system of grading and taking classes. I spent time in my classroom and online trying to find information that will go with common core. Then we show up to school the first day and are told, oh, we are doing a different math program so everything I planned has to be redone. I go to school an hour early everyday and leave two hours late. I come home and correct papers until I go to bed. Right now I have 25 students. Just in math alone I have to grade them in 13 different areas. If they don't understand the information it is my job to continue to teach it until they get it, while at the same time keeping everyone up to the level required by the state. In writing I have 10 areas to grade in, which means grading and re-grading while keeping everyone moving forward. In the three reading areas there are 24 different areas to grade in. That doesn't include speech. It isn't what it used to be. I have children, that I love, but they are so diverse that I wake up in the night trying to come up with ideas to help them. And, by the way, we do not have "vacation" in the summer, we are laid off. We are not paid for the work we do in the summer, it is volunteer time. I am not disputing that there are other jobs that are time-consuming, but until you have taught school, in the last few years, you have no idea what you are talking about.
October 15, 2013 at 5:38 am
JJ Williamson says:
Written by someone who clearly had no idea what the educational profession is like. Three months off? I had ten days "off" last summer. Those days were spent prepping my classroom and completing graduate coursework required to keep my teaching license. Get your facts straight when preparing your argument next time.
October 15, 2013 at 10:59 pm
KD brown says:
If you have no idea what you are talking about please do not say anything at all! Your ignorance is just the reason teachers are wanting to get out of the profession. You think you have all the answer but you have no idea. Coming from someone that was just recognized as teacher of the year last year; teachers do not get the recognition nor near the pay as your so called "hard working" professions. So you sir need to thank an educator next time you see one because they put in some hard hours to get your doctors and lawyers where they are today!
October 16, 2013 at 10:05 am
Richard Bunce says:
Is that ALL teachers or only government school teachers?
October 14, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Michael Sisemore says:
Anyone who believes that teachers get 3 months off for summer is in dream land. Try 7 weeks that many of us have to work a full time job just to pay the bills. Vacations during the school year are spent grading and creating lessons that challenge the students. I average 2200 hours in a 10 month school year. Working full time a 40 hour week is only 2080 hours. On top of that paying for my own education beyond a BS degree, insurance, retirement etc. Here in NH teachers retirement is a joke. If you want to point fingers at people who get a real easy ride then look at police and fire. They get pensions that equal their FULL salary. However I do agree that administrations are a farce in many school districts and the school boards are typically uneducated fools.
October 14, 2013 at 8:49 pm
TP Wohlford says:
"I average 2200 hours in a 10 month school year. Working full time a 40 hour week is only 2080 hours. On top of that paying for my own education beyond a BS degree, insurance, retirement etc."
So let us compare. If teachers want to compare their professional demands to the rest of the professions, that would be a good thing to do. Not that they'll enjoy the results, but it's a good thing to do.
Clergy routinely turn in 50-60 hour weeks. Lawyers even more. And doctors are legendary in their work load. Any number of executive/management people turn in boatloads of hours too. Shall we talk about accountants during tax time?
Most people these days pay for their own continuing ed, and certainly we all pay for that terminal degree in our field. I have to pay for my continuing ed and the certification exams that go with it.
Most of us now have a 401k with little (if any) matching, and most of us pay a good chunk of our health insurance -- $125/week on average for just that. As a point of comparison, my understanding is that Michigan teachers average 1500/month in their benefit package, mostly because the health insurance is provided by the union, which then spends a good chunk on it on "union activities" (ie, political ads).
Look -- teachers have a tough job. We get that. We admire the good teachers, and have a special place in our heart for them. Just don't put out a set of statements and not expect us to think critically about them -- isn't that what teachers trained us to do?
October 16, 2013 at 11:06 pm
Linda Benfield says:
Just would like to add that any "time off" for teachers is not a "paid vacation." Many people have this misconception. If you don't work, you don't get paid. (Many teachers have their checks spread out over 12 months.)
October 14, 2013 at 4:03 pm
Kelly Cochran says:
My husband is also happy for the same reason! THIS Pennsylvania teacher retired this past June, after 15 frustrating years of teaching in Philadelphia! My health has greatly improved, blood pressure at a healthy level for the first time in 10 years, without medication! My husband was overjoyed when I left teaching and now he is even happier!
October 15, 2013 at 7:40 pm
Julie Rogers says:
I don't understand why you feel the private sector will be any different when it comes to incompetent and oppressive requirements. AND...you don't get to work with kids.
I get it. I do agree that teachers are overburdened and underpaid. But this is yet another blog post that misses the point: EVERYONE has it hard right now. There is no perfect job, and there are a lot of jobs out there that are a whole lot less perfect than teaching.
It may just be the natural cycle of things that teachers need to leave the profession after 10 years.
October 15, 2013 at 11:37 pm
Richard Bunce says:
Nobody owes anybody a job but themselves... perhaps you should consider being your employer.
October 17, 2013 at 8:57 am
Tommy Staley says:
Didn't they teach you in school that all government related institutions will be confusing and inefficient, if not outright corrupt? Incompetence is the essence of government - especially at the stage the Federally manipulated government schools are in. How about simply encouraging your wife to be a "keeper of the home" like God intended? Yes sir, everybody get up!
October 20, 2013 at 8:41 am
Jennie Cusick says:
You have made some wonderful points except that in all of those professions, barring the Clergy, they are compensated for the hours they work and the education they obtain. Conversly, teachers are not compensated for those hours; nor do they receive adequate compensation for the degrees they earn.
