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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Paying for the class size amendment is easy, as easy as everybody teaching

One of the reasons certain people claim that want to roll back the class size amendment is it is too expensive. I happen to think we should spend as much as we need to assure our children receive a great education but I get it, times are tough, we have to prioritize. Well friends with that in mind I have a solution that isn’t going to cost us any extra money and keeps the class size amendment. It’s simple folks, everybody teaches.

Only about fifty-five percent of all the school district employees are teachers. The other forty-five percent of workers makes up custodians, paras, clerks and a bloated district staff of thousands of certificated (people eligible to teach) employees. We have cadre this and district that and more support staff than you can shake a stick at. Heck at the high school I work at we have about fifteen certificated people who don’t work in the classrooms with kids.

Lets put them all in classrooms for just one period a day and then I bet the increased costs
of the class size amendment will be seriously diminished if not out and out eliminated. It could have the added benefit of eliminating other problems as well. Our superintendent might realize that ignoring discipline is a detriment when he is threatened or told where to put his lesson plans. Principals might not insist on complicated two page lesson plans and voluminous data notebooks that only have a peripheral relationship with education if they have to make them themselves.

When a principal is teaching the vice-principal takes over and so on. For the hundred and hundreds of district people on the way to the school board building or where ever all they have to do is stop at their home school and teach a class. It’s that simple. Some might ask when will they have time to do their regular jobs to which I would answer, at night and on the weekends of course, the same time the district expects teachers to do many of their jobs as well.

You want to see reform? Let a school board member walk in a teacher shoes for one period a day and then have to do everything a teacher does. Then you will see reform. Instead of voting for amendment eight, how about you vote for everybody teaching instead.

Paying for the class size amendment is easy as easy as everybody teaching.

1 comment:

  1. Bravo!! Excellent idea:) That way our admin might actually gain classroom experience as well, since so many only stayed in the classroom a few years before "moving on up"! grin

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