The Bakersfield Voice

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I will be the first to admit I’m generally negative by nature.  I don’t care for this part of my personality, and I continually try to change it but many times to know avail.  I’m sure this article will come across negative to many of you in Bako land.  However, this is an article that is one that needed to be written and addressed a long time ago.  Actually, it is one that I hope someone in the California government reads and gets a little perturbed by, because I myself as a California educator am very much perturbed. 

The problem in education, too many people are afraid to step on toes!!  Well, put your steel-toed boots on, because there is getting ready to be some stepping!

Recently, I was talking with a friend, also a teacher, and she informed me that the curriculum specialist along with one of the District board members would be visiting the underpaid teachers and the overcrowded classrooms.  They were also updated on the fact that they all needed to be following adopted pacing guides that were determined for each of the grade levels.  

Does this raise any red flags in anyone else’s mind?  Or am I the only one wondering, what in the world is going on with California education?

Did anyone, especially those in administrative offices, ever think that there just might be a student or two or maybe even the whole class that didn’t get the new concept taught the day before?   Did anyone also ever think that just maybe a lesson my need to be retaught for future foundational understanding?   I might just be going out on a limb here and some may be thinking I might be a little crazy, but I myself sometimes take a few encounters with new material to fully grasp what is being taught to me and I’m a clear California credentialed, highly tested, highly educated individual.  And I know it might surprise you all, but back in the day when I was in school, there was no CHILD LEFT BEHIND, and many of us seemed to do OK!! 

No Child Left Behind?  Or Children that don’t get it the first time left behind?  What about those students that get straight Fs and are pushed through to the next grade?  Because………No Child Left Behind!!  Who really is being left behind?  

We are told multiple times at inservices and by administration to do small group pull back and reteach for those that don’t master or understand a skill, but with what time?  We are expected to hit so many standards that it leaves us little time for reteach.  However, I do work with many teachers that do small group reteach, but do you know when that happens?  Before school, during breaks (recesses), lunch time, and after school, might I add without pay.  How many of you would be willing to miss your 15 minute break and lunch break to teach a coworker everyday just so they won’t be left behind?

When do we finally say enough is enough and this New Education thing “No Child Left Behind” is not working?  I’ve heard the educational pendulum always swings back and forth.  Oh, how I’m waiting for the swing of the pendulum where a credentialed highly qualified California educator can actually teach and students can actually build a foundation of learning for future educational endeavors without the state mandating every little aspect of education.  

Because sadly it is the children that suffer and many of my students get to me, I teach upper elementary, and I spend the first quarter on what should have been mastered and retained the previous years many times on basic concepts.  Of no fault to the early grade teachers, I know you all are doing an amazing job with what the State of California makes you responsible for.  But there is so much to cover in so little time. 

I have heard these sayings many times while playing sports, “If it’s not broke………don’t fix it.” and “Just get back to the basics.”  Hmmmmmm just maybe, that might be an idea for the California State government. 

Or maybe not.  They’re too busy cutting educational spending, funding illegal alien programs, paying themselves too much while teachers, after the hours they work, make less than minimum wage. 

If we initiate the adherence to pacing guides for California teachers so not to leave children behind, then I can absolutely guarantee someone or many are being left behind.  Most teachers know their students’ individual strengths and weaknesses and know how to best help their students.  Please leave the instructional pacing to the highly educated, dedicated, and qualified teachers that you hired!!