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The winner of the 2012 presidential election will face huge challenges when it comes to education. We wanted educators—the real experts—to have their say on the issues they think are most important. So we asked our readers to tell this year’s candidates why students matter, what they need and how to improve schools. Here are a few of the responses.
Repeal NCLB and Reset Priorities
I’ve been teaching for over 30 years. A
student I taught in third grade now has a daughter in our school. He came
to talk to my fourth graders. I recall that he had severe
dyslexia. Reading, writing and math were all challenging for him, although
he was one of the most compassionate children I’ve known. He would have
had trouble passing the No Child Left Behind tests. He might have felt unworthy
and perhaps might never have gained the confidence to do what he loves and
excels at.
He is now in the Air Force, a medic, whose job is rescue. Among other things, he’s been to Afghanistan three times and helped after hurricanes. He showed the students a video clip of himself from the previous week, parachuting out of a helicopter to rescue an injured man on a boat in the ocean.
I want you to
know how vital it is to treat children as individuals, each with a different
mix of strengths, challenges, interests, family structures, home environments,
resources and so on. The No Child Left Behind Law ignores all this, aiming
to judge every child in the United States by the same limited and limiting
criteria. I urge you to repeal NCLB and help Americans value individual
differences.
Ruth Kroman Gorrin
Berkeley, Calif.
Time to Protect LBGT Teachers
Gay
kids need role models like all kids. Some of the best role models for any
kids are their teachers. Yet many of us teachers in America live in fear
of losing our careers and livelihoods if we are found out to be gay. Being
gay does not affect how a teacher teaches, nor is it discussed in the
classroom. We need protection against being fired and our careers ruined
for simply being who we are—which is what we tell our students they should be.
Terri Morgan
Atlanta, Ga.
Let's Have a New Conversation
Please reframe the conversation about
teaching. It’s not about the unions, tenure, an inferior curriculum or
standardized tests. It’s about poverty. It’s a truism in education that you
show me a student’s zip code and I’ll tell you how she’ll do on a test. Why
doesn’t anyone talk about closing schools in Santa Monica or Shaker Heights? Do
you really think the teachers in those communities are so much better than the
ones in East Harlem?
Clean up our
inner cities. Give students healthy meals. Make certain they live in good homes
and have adequate health care. Give them books and quiet spaces to learn. Ask a
teacher. We know.
Nancy Letts
Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
I
have spent years as a teacher and counselor in elementary schools, junior highs
and high schools. We put monies into career guidance and focus the funding and
personnel in the upper grades when all of our research and experience tells us
to be proactive and create change where it is most effective—in the lower
grades. What a waste that later we spend it on prisons and drug rehab instead
of saving those lives before they go off track. Instead of increasing the
counselors for elementary schools to teach positive coping processes we wait
until there is a problem and then try to fix it. The biggest impact I have is
on children in kindergarten through third grade. None of this is new so why are
we still reactive instead of proactive?
Talana Fawson
Ogden, Utah
Funding Cuts a Recipe for Disaster
Students want desperately to complete their educations and start
their careers, but they are unable to due to
the dramatic decrease in funding to
institutions of higher learning. As
dean of English and Social and Behavioral Sciences at a community college, I know firsthand the struggles
to keep up with increased demands coupled with decreased funding. It’s a recipe
for disaster. Please consider the long-term
costs that a lack of education and deficient job skills will create for
our country. Undereducated and uninformed voters create apathetic citizenry.
Idle youth spawn increased vandalism and crime. And desperate people move from productive citizenry to
crime and jail. These potential outcomes are
much more costly than giving our students the education they desire and
deserve.
Janet Castaños
El Cajon, Calif.
Download the PDF of this article here.
Comments
It is getting more difficult
It is getting more difficult for students,especially in Reading and Writing, as they are exposed to so many technical advances. I think that we should not teach them why something is wrong vs right, but should concentrate on explaining how something can co-exist. By explaining co-existance and audience appropiate content we may re-capture the attention of a great percentage of students that we are truly losing. By trying to simply push right down their throats we are merely choking them, not teaching. By cutting funding in education, we short change students. We have good teachers that are part-time employers that could make a big difference. However, the cuts will not allow them to be employed full time and students are missing out. Technology is very important,but you still have to teach reading and writing.