A Little Story To Illustrate Why Teachers Need To Be Well Compensated

I live in Michigan. When it comes to public school teachers, the majority of the focus and energy in the Mitten is to cut teachers off at the knees - build more subsidized for-profit Charter schools that will use standardized testing and other methods to justify hiring "teachers" who will work for slightly above minimum wage.

Join me as we face DC and give a big thanks to our Secretary of Education for such goings on.
Because of the fact that my mother was a teacher and I watched how much work is done behind the scenes, I think teachers need to be well compensated - and by that I mean a living wage, healthcare benefits and a pension. What follows is an illustration to support my position. I am not naming names for a variety of reasons.

A friend of mine is a public school teacher. She is an extra effort kind of person. In the course of her work at a public high school she came across a student - how about we call him Dan - who was on the verge of dropping out. Dan was from a family in which no one had earned a high school diploma and my friend wanted to do what she could to facilitate Dan being the first.

Dan is working on a special project in which he needs to interview a small business owner and find out more about life from OUR side of the counter. My friend contacted me to arrange a meeting between Dan and I. This meeting is going to take place after she returns home to check on her own children. Then she will gather up Dan to bring him to meet me. On her own time.

Teachers don't get "overtime" for stuff like this. She is not tutoring this young man for some extra income - she is doing what she can to prevent one more member of this family from facing life at an educational disadvantage.

Will Dan do well enough on his project and the rest of his school work to be the first in his family to graduate? Wish I knew. What I do know is that the enthusiasm and compassion demonstrated by my friend has given me the UMPH to put some of my time and effort into Dan. How cool if I could play even a teeny tiny part in his future success? How cool that this friend of mine not only puts herself out there but also is generous enough to allow me to get involved - even in a peripheral manner.

This young man is at a crossroads in his life. To those of us who take a HS Diploma for granted it might seem like no big deal. It is a big deal.

In my opinion there is no way you are going to get teachers to go the extra mile for kids who need some extra milage help if you beat them out of paychecks and/or benefits. A teacher who feels underpaid and un-appreciated is not going to be running around AFTER work trying to make life better for one kid.

We need to turn around the attitudes of our state and our nation when it comes to teachers.

9/15/17 - Had to add this killer video from a group of kids that go to Lowell PUBLIC Schools. The director of orchestras at Lowell is Wendy Tenney. Look at the passion she has ignited in this group of student musicians - then she let them run with their passion. AWESOME STUFF - never gonna happen in a goddam charter school because they don't have orchestras as a rule.


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