I don’t know how I feel about this article. In some ways it is dead on and in others it completely misses the mark. Teachers, and for the most part administrators, are not to blame for the woes of education.
As a society we have placed enormous pressure on educators of all types to solve the issues of our communities and do it on shoe string budgets. We’ve tasked teachers with creating 10 virtual lessons a week while having daily, some times twice daily live sessions, plus hours of professional learning each week, just to have them create packets for those who are able to get online.
We hear the calls, see the memes, and feel the appreciation that everyone is giving educators right now, but sadly until those in charge see that priorities that are set for the minutia that is forced upon educators is changed, when we go back in the fall, nothing will change. We will still have a laser focus on testing, a laser focus on a letter grade, and budgets that limit what educators truly can do.
The Association/Federation/Union bashing has to stop. Are any of them perfect no, I know that first hand. But they at powerful that if unfilled will further harm education in America. They advocate not just for teachers but the students and communities they serve to help them get the resources they need. And as the author, regretfully, points out the “the requirements for remote learning are set by the ‘powerful’ United Federation of Teachers are both vague and minimal” because they had to set something. Because without it you would have situations like Arizona, where 4 adjacent school districts are doing 4 vastly different things and are as confusing and challenging for the educators as they are for the parents and students.
So yes, education is changing. But, here is the thing, it’s been changing continuously for centuries. But did it change the way it needed to change or did we focus on the wrong things to get that change to happen.