Work is exhausting, and I'm somewhat disheartened by it all right now. I like my classes, I have good kids, things are going well with some new writing techniques I'm teaching them... But I feel like I'm working really hard to improve the things I'm doing and plan curriculum for the things that my students need... I spent a good deal of time at the beginning of the year poring over the new common core we are adapting and looking at how I already align with it in places and where I can make some changes... Then I went to a meeting this week where we heard about more stuff we're supposed to be doing, some of which I disagree with, and it's frustrating. I left feeling frustrated. I'm OK with that, though. Not a big deal. What is a Big Deal is the complete and total disrespect and disdain that a powerful faction of the Utah State Legislature has for public education. They are cutting funding, increasing requirements and regulations, and basically setting public schools up to fail so that they can privatize education in the state. It's become worse every year, and this year it's just ridiculous. I just can't understand why so many people in this state claim to be pro-public education, yet they keep electing legislators in their districts who are very obviously anti-public education. Part of the reason is the fear people here have of the big scary D-word. They'd rather vote for a Republican who actively works against their own values and interests rather than elect a Democrat. Last year Jeb Bush went around the country hawking Florida's system of education reform, which our legislature bought into enthusiastically. So they adapted the Florida system of giving schools a letter grade, but they conveniently forgot about the part where Florida increased school funding and decreased class sizes, and they apparently didn't look too hard into Florida's data. On the surface it may look like their reform efforts have been successful, but if you look a little deeper it's pretty ugly. Their FCAT and ACT test scores are not impressive. In fact, now that I think about it, Utah's average ACT scores are 2 points higher than theirs, so I'm not sure why we should be emulating them. Now there's a bill heading before the legislature next year to privatize any school that earns a failing grade. So let's cut funding, increase class sizes, and then punish schools that fail. Oh, and by the way, let's build schools and buy supplies with public tax money, and then think of a way to turn those facilities over to private business. This is only one of a slew of terrible education legislation that is being thrown about. They are going after the teacher's unions, teacher job security (hey, let's save money by firing veteran teachers with higher salaries!), and playing with the idea of saving money by putting kids in front of computers instead of teachers. There are proposals that would divert public school monies to private schools, and proposals that would lay the complete responsibility for a child's success in college on the high school they graduated from. Not on elementary or junior highs that turn them over to us with deficiencies, not on the parents that don't give a shit about junior's education as long as he gets to play football or gets the grade they think junior deserves, or as long as junior stays out of their way and they don't have to be inconvenienced by taking an interest in his education or handing out discipline when he doesn't do his homework... not on the parents who take a kid who struggles in school and is failing his classes and take him on vacation for a week during the school year... not on the students themselves. It's all the fault of the high school teachers. And there is a bill proposed that would force high schools to cover the cost of college remediation courses for any students they graduate from their high school that need those classes, with the theory that we should have made them proficient before we gave them a diploma so it's our fault. That's enough. I can't write about all this anymore. I could write pages and pages about it. All I know is, I enjoy my job quite a lot, but I'm considering a career change. Things are going downhill, and I'm not sure I want to stick around long enough to see how it all ends up. Because if these proposals go through, it will end badly. And it's not my job I'm worried about. It's my kids' education. I need a different job so I can afford to pay for a good private school once all of the dust settles and education in Utah is privatized. So I'm considering my options. So far I've come up with going back to school and becoming an architect, and being the activites director at a nursing home. Since the second one would pay even crappier than my current job, that's not too realistic. I guess I need to keep thinking. I've always wanted to go to law school, too, but there are way more lawyers than jobs right now, so not a good option.
Other than that, Sean had a birthday. Hopefully he enjoyed his little celebration.
We're going to the Trace Adkins concert next month and I have an outfit in mind, but no money to buy it. Hmmmm....
Sean, Josh, Steve, Kaden, Spencer, and Dennis all headed off for a fishing trip today. I stayed home to clean the house and do the grocery shopping. Yay me?
Brittney started skating with O-Town Derby Dames' junior derby league. Hopefully that will be fun for her.
I'm sure there a million other little things I should write down so that I can remember them, but I can't think what they are when I sit down to actually write.
