10 REASONS I’M WALKING OUT
That have nothing to do with teacher pay
By Jon McClintick, National Board Certified Teacher
Othello High School
The news has been reporting about local teacher unions staging one-day walkouts due to “funding.” The reports generally explain that teachers want more pay from the state legislator, right before moving to Steve with the weather.
The problem is, there is so much wrong right now with Washington State Public Education that the legislature in Olympia has caused, that to even bring up teacher pay misses the point! Our schools are in need, and pay is only a small part of the equation!
I could write a book about all the problems we are facing, but I’m walking out next week, so who has the time? So here are 10 reasons why I will be demonstrating with my local union - and Olympia can fix each of them without sending me another dollar.
1: Cut the focus on High-Stakes Tests - The SBAC exam is the newest flavor of high stakes test. At the start of this school year, I had not read a single SBAC test question, because most of them had not been written. Yet by November, we were told that our students would have to pass this brand new test in order to graduate!
I try to focus on teaching reading and writing every day, so I avoid test prep whenever I can. With my minimum focus, my 11th grade English class lost 18 days due to practice tests and the actual exam. That’s 10% of the the academic year! And the best part: 11th grade students didn’t need the test to graduate. The state mandated that they take it so we could have baseline data about student scores. 10% of my class time lost, so Olympia could “checkup” on us. Please, Olympia, stop rushing these new tests, and just let me teach.
2: Bring back Arts and History: This fall, no one in my advanced English 11 course could tell me why 1776 was an important year. Why? Because our school is judged on how well it performs in Math, Science, Reading and Writing. Those subjects determine if we are a failing or passing school. I shudder at the gutting of art, history, music, PE, and recess, in the name of raising our score.
It’s not just vital history that suffers. The “test and drill” mantra has killed the love of reading for most of my students, so that every year I hear multiple students in my class admit, “This is the first book I’ve ever bothered to read.” Olympia sees my school and my students as numbers, not as people - and that kills the humanity within the humanities.
3: Stop Demonizing Vocations: The word from OSPI is that to succeed, a student must attend college. The state calls it a, “13th year plan.” The problem is that this mindset tells students that “to be important they must go to a university. Armed services are for losers. worthwhile vocational careers like plumbers, electricians, construction workers, mechanics, or machinists are not worthwhile.” I’ve seen too many students heed the call of college, take out thousands in loans, and then fail out due to lack of support or understanding of college culture. We once had an auto shop; now we have student loan debt.
4: Stop killing new teachers: Once upon a time, a new teacher took classes, student taught, and then was able to teach whatever subjects the local administration found them capable for. Now, a teacher in training must pass the WEST test to prove their knowledge (because apparently a BA degree means nothing), then student teach, and THEN pay 300 dollars to submit a portfolio of their work to the ED-TPA program, where someone who doesn’t even live in the state will determine if they, “actually demonstrate the knowledge and skills required to help all students learn in real classrooms.” (Because apparently master teachers and supervisors just aren’t good enough.) Then they can teach only what they are certified in. Sure they may be fluent in Japanese, but they must go back and recertify to step foot in a classroom and teach it, even as an elective.
There are so many extra hoops for an aspiring teacher to jump through today that, if I had to go back, I’d not be a teacher now. I’m not the only one - I know personally of four good teacher candidates who just stopped trying and are seeking jobs elsewhere. My wife is one of them: even though she has a Masters in Counseling Psychology, she’d have to go back for two and a half years of undergraduate classes to have a chance at becoming teacher certified. These are GOOD teachers we are losing.
And now our state is now facing, what my district’s HR director described as a, “precipitous drop in number of students entering the profession.” The teacher I commute to work with described the problem even better. “I’ll be damned if any of my kids become teachers,” he told me, “I want them to go into a career that has a future.”
The best person to determine if a teacher is worthy of teaching is a principal who can see them in a classroom. Not someone in an office in Olympia.
5. Take out TPEP: Teachers have a new evaluation process called the Teacher-Principal Evaluation Protocol, or TPEP. I call it a waste of precious time. It’s a new system where teachers get to create learning goals, gather data, and then prove that they were effective teachers. This is also called “teaching” to those of us who have been doing it awhile.
This was my first year on the “Comprehensive” plan, meaning I got to make extra copies of 62 different documents and organize them as “evidence” that I am a good teacher. In total I spent about 20 hours on it - that’s the time it takes to grade an entire student set of research essays, or to write an entire unit of assignments and lessons from scratch. Time I could have spent actually doing my job instead of justifying it.
It’s frustrating because my evaluator KNOWS I am a competent teacher. I earned my National Board Licence a few years back, I have always collected learning data on my students, I relish opportunities to talk about my lessons to anyone who will listen, and my evaluator actually goes to my classroom to see what we are learning. So, why spend 20 hours gathering and organizing spare copies of my teaching life into a notebook? Because Olympia wants it.
Stop wasting my time, Olympia. If you honestly feel like there are bad teachers in the schools still, don’t make more work for everyone - fix the problem of administrators who hire poorly or are too lazy to fire poor teachers. And community members, if you know of a bad teacher, go to your school board, write to your Superintendent, get the person fired. The good teachers don’t want them around anymore then you do.
6. Stop Raising the Bar without Adding Cushion: Many community members haven’t heard yet, but Olympia now expects ALL students to pass 24 credits of classes so they are ready to go to University. They make a few small exceptions for students who want to study vocational directions, but not many. To graduate high school, ALL students must all pass advanced courses that prepare them for college - even if they aren’t going.
This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. I like that we want to “raise the bar” and make a high school diploma mean something. But every athlete knows, if you raise the bar, you add extra padding or someone is going to get hurt. And with the CORE 24 program, the neediest students are going to get hurt, because Olympia hasn’t added any extra supports. An ELL student has 4 years to graduate, a teen mom has 4 years to graduate, a homeless student has 4 years to graduate - and summer school costs them extra. Olympia can’t ask us to raise the bar for all students and then keep judging us by our four-year graduation rate as if nothing has changed. I don’t want to leave any child behind, but some kids need more time, more support and that means more money for students - which Olympia hasn’t provided for remedial and support classes.
7. Stop Ignoring Poverty: My school will never rank in the top 100 of Washington State. We’re a school of awesome teachers, innovative programs, high expectations, and we lead our region in test scores and student performance. Yet we aren’t a “good” school and never will be. The reason is simple: poverty. My school has poor kids, a lot of them. They don’t all have computers, they don’t have a place to study, they don’t have parents who can help them with Algebra, they don’t have spare money for tutors (or gas to get to one), they don’t always get breakfast, and they didn’t grow up with piles of books in their home. That doesn’t mean my students aren’t hardworking, passionate, and devoted to their studies, but it puts them, and our work at school, at a disadvantage.
This is especially true for funding. Olympia pays every teacher the same and funds every school the same. One of the things I teach my students is that “fair is not always equal.” We don’t have a rich community to pull levey money from to pay for new computers or updated textbooks. Olympia needs to consider the resources of the communities in the state, and learn to fund accordingly.
8. Actually Lower Class Size where it counts: Here is a place where Olymipa thinks they are doing well. They are lowering class size K-3, and studies show that this is effective. But it’s not enough. I teach English - if I have 150 students and I assign a 3-page paper, I have 450 pages to grade (or about 7.5 hours if I’m fast). With 80 students, less then 4 hours. When it comes to simple math, the fewer students I have, the more work I can assign, the more time I can have for each student, and the faster I can get work back to my class to help them improve. Some classes can be big, writing classes, and other advanced academic courses, should be small. Asking for a cap of 25 students per class isn’t asking too much for our students.
9. Provide Capital and Technology Funding: Most schools build new building thanks to local levy support. This money is horribly unreliable however, as smaller communities can’t raise enough, and many communities routinely reject any new taxes, leading to overcrowding problems. Technology is paid for in the same way, so some districts provide a free computer for every student, while the district next door may have only one, aging computer lab.
Olympia should step in to help here and provide consistent, reliable building and technology funds for every district, so ALL our students are guaranteed access to functional technology, up-to-date teaching materials, and a school that isn’t overstuffed.
10. Pay teachers what they’re worth, especially the STEM ones: Okay, so I’m cheating here because this is about pay - just not for an English Teacher like myself. Olympia seems to think that all teachers are worth the same amount, and this has led to a shortage of good math, science, technology, and engineering teachers. In the small town I live in, a science teacher can walk four blocks north or west and get a higher paying position in the private sector without even having to move. And they are. Last year, I watched two strong science teachers go to the private sector for better paying, lower stress jobs.
Olympia has to stop thinking that every field of expertise should earn the same amount. If we want good science and math teachers, we need to pay them better. Until we do, we’ll continue to have a shortage, and we’ll pretend that we don’t know why students hate math.
These reasons are why I’m walking out this week to demonstrate. Over half these issues have nothing to do with money, and if Olympia fixed them, my school would be better, my students would learn more, and I’d be a more effective teacher.
It’s a big government issue, frankly. Legislators 200 miles away from me think they know what is best for my students and keep getting in the way of my teaching. If they’d be smart about funding, get out of my classroom, and just let me teach, we would all get along fine. But since the policies and laws they create are hurting my students and school, I’ll be on the streets. And I’ll be the one holding the sign that says nothing about pay - because I’m here for my students.