Printer-friendly versionI’m standing at my customary position in the cafeteria during lunch duty one day, watching students pass by, lunches in hand, heading to their usual tables. Some students say hello to me. Others give a quick wave. Some avoid eye contact at all costs.
I catch snippets of conversations related to class work, weekend plans and lunch offerings when two boys walk by from the direction of the boys’ bathroom.
“Our school is so ghetto,” says one. “There’s no soap in the bathroom again.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard students refer to our school as “ghetto.” It’s a term that really gets under my skin when used in this way. I frequently give students gentle (and peers not-so-gentle) corrections when I hear it used to describe something as rundown or lacking.
Aside from the inappropriate use of a racially, ethnically and economically charged word, this boy has a point. How long are we as a society going to accept sub-standard conditions for the education of our children?
Each year in my career as a professional educator I have witnessed cuts to school budgets across the nation. Education funding has had a downward trajectory here in Oregon since the passing of Ballot Measure 5 in 1990, which cut education-related property taxes.
As a result, it’s not uncommon to have 40-45 students per class at the high school level, and, no soap in the boys’ bathroom. I’m not going to get on my soapbox here about the importance of education as the very foundation of our society, as this audience knows it all too well, but I will continue to wonder when we will start making our children and their education a priority.
We must communicate to students that they have value if we want them to achieve in school. How can we do that when passionate, dedicated teachers continue to be let go, students have to share desks and books and boys can’t have clean hands?
How can we continue to tell them that yes, they can, when society at large is telling them on a regular basis that maybe they can but it won’t be easy or even pleasant?
I did the one thing I could think of to do: I got on the radio and called the custodian to replace the soap in the boys’ bathroom. It’s a start.
Ryan Fear is a high school dean of students in Oregon.
Comments
Might I suggest that you talk
Might I suggest that you talk to the teacher union reps about pension and benefits if you believe there needs to be more money spent on education.
The average teacher can retire at around 55. That means that, if a teacher takes a job at 22, they work 33 years until they are 55. They can then retire 11 years earlier than a private sector employee. Simple math says that, for every three working teachers, public schools are paying one teacher who retired early.
That represents a 33% extra cost of personnel.
That buys a lot of soap.
The average teacher can
The average teacher can retire at age 55?
That's not even close to true for me or anyone I teach with.
I believe the critical word
I believe the critical word here is "can" retire at 55, however, many of the teachers I know cannot afford to retire at this age and often take second jobs to that end. Most of the teachers in my building of retirement age are struggling to put one or more of their own children through college and retirement is not an option.
Once again blaming teachers
Once again blaming teachers for the problem.
In my area, teachers can and
In my area, teachers can and do retire at age 55. Some public employees retire earlier. I would the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of teachers retire before 60. Here, the union contract requires the system to pay 96% of the cost of health insurance, and the retirement benefits must be pretty reasonable given the number who do retire early.
No, I am not blaming teachers. Why is it that when someone dares to bring up this topic, teachers get defensive? The gentleman talked about lack of money for education. Since he did not mention saving money in any way, I assume he wants more money which means more taxes. I believe in the need for quality public education. I also believe that taxpayers have right to have their money (which they worked hard to earn, by the way) spent in a manner that produces a quality education. The dollars spent in order to finance teachers retiring at 55 are HUGE. Of course you never see the number reported anywhere.
All taxpayers are asking is that all public employees receive retirement benefits the same as we receive. Where is that wrong? Where is that blaming teachers?
We can have monumental amounts of cash available for true education if we could just fix this problem.