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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Schools Matter: 62 Percent of American Teachers Work Two Jobs

Schools Matter: 62 Percent of American Teachers Work Two Jobs

62 Percent of American Teachers Work Two Jobs

This may be news to those who believe that those fat cat teachers have it made in the shade. From today's NYTimes, some clips from an op-ed by Eggers and Calegari:

. . . .WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons,