Marjchaos

blackraincloud:

You know, I really really don’t think folks understand what is going on in these school systems. In these majority-Black cities. How privatization means money is straight STOLEN from the city to build charter schools meant to make money for the BUSINESSES that own them. And then when everything goes to shit cuz the city has NO MONEY they blame it on the people.

People in this city have no jobs, not enough food, no housing security, kids moving 6times in 1 school year because their family can only pay enough for a security deposit… But they blame it on teachers that the kids aren’t doing well.

Do you know what my mom got in terms of supplies for this year?

1 pack of loose leaf paper

1 pack of printer paper

A few pens and pencils and white board markers.

That’s fucking it.

I don’t know any teacher who doesn’t have to buy their OWN supplies for students.

My mom had a student today whose mom sent a note saying she couldn’t buy her son school supplies until after the 14th. So my mom went in her cabinet and gave him a notebook, pens, and pencils from her own stash of supplies.

And now the district is making teachers go through all this unnecessary, humiliating shit because we gotta monitor THE TEACHERS. It’s THE TEACHERS we need to be sure are up to standard.

They made every DPS teacher this summer go in front a panel of admins to prove that they were an effective teacher and should keep their job. As if principals don’t know their own faculty. As if this is even worth anyone’s time. Now they all have to submit their lesson plans for review as if they’re fucking interns who haven’t been teaching for years and decades.

And they’ve been putting pressure on my mom because, apparently, her AP students aren’t scoring high enough on the exams. When, before she started teaching AP Gov’t, NO STUDENTS PASSED the test. Now she has some students getting 4s and 5s. But there’s still too many kids failing. Well, the ones that are straight failing are the ones who SPEAK ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE. Is there any support for the HUGE amount of DPS kids who speak Arabic, Bengali, or Spanish as their first language? No? Well then what the fuck you think is gonna happen!

I pray the teachers striking in Chicago get some support. Hell, kids and teachers need to be striking in all these cities where privatization is ruining the already small chance these kids have of getting out of poverty or just fucking surviving

Thanks for writing this. I don’t think people realize how much privatization means money being funneled out of the school systems, and essentially out of the tax-payers control (don’t get a vote on something that’s been privatized). My brother is a teacher, too. Still getting paying his dues, so to speak, as he’s been in the biz for less than a decade. He works full-time in one district, at two schools, and just went out and spent a bunch of money on classroom supplies. Last year, he felt so bad about his students breaking science lab supplies, and nobody replacing them, he spent over $100 ordering some online to replace them himself. Half of that was shipping. And here’s the kicker - this is actually a fairly rich district. (Yeah, don’t get any ideas about how much he’s making. He lives in a trailer park two towns away from that.) Makes my blood boil when I hear people talking about how much money teachers make for doing nothing. I guarantee you, that every hour they spend in the classroom, they spend at least half that again out of the classroom working on school-related things. They don’t get nearly the amount of money, free time, or security that people seem to think they do, and they are one of the most villianized professions out there, besides dentists.

(full disclosure, I personally know at at least seven current or retired teachers.)

(via curiousgeorgiana)