Re: Just wondering about teaching in KY
Posted by TO DB77..so if you quit teaching 4th grade..what r u doinNOW on 7/23/04
sO IF YOU QUIT TEACHING 4TH GRADE, THEN WHAT R U DOING NOW?
On 7/23/04, db77 wrote:
> I completely agree with Tom. I moved here from the Midwest
> three years ago and wound up working in the public schools of
> Louisville, KY. The first school I worked at had 93&37; poverty
> rate. The second school I worked at had 76&37;. These
conditions
> make it very difficult to teach. The schools with lower poverty
> rates have very long waiting lists for transfers. The testing
> is ridiculous. As Tom said, parents and students are not held
> accountable and teachers and administrators are faced with
> getting degrading labels and of having their schools restaffed,
> not getting money, etc., if the students are not "proficient."
> Proficient is ridiculous since some of my fourth grade students
> couldn't read on kindergarten levels. Yet I was supposed to
> move them to proficiency in a years time?! To qualify for LD
> the requirements are so ridiculously low that hardly any kids
> qualify and the ones that do don't get the help they need.
> Retaining kids rarely happens so kids just keep getting passed
> along that can't read or write. Also, the mobility rate is
> extremely high, at least where I worked, and by fourth grade
> many students have been to more than four schools, some upwards
> of eight...
>
> Most of the children are disrespectful and apathetic to their
> education primarily because their parents are the same way.
> Every other day it seemed a parent was in the school cussing out
> one or more teachers for things they should have been yelling at
> their kids for and making them accept responsibility for their
> actions. Parents seem really eager to sue and try and press
> charges over nothing.
>
> My experience has been so bad that after only three years of
> teaching and at the age of 27, I resigned. I was getting no joy
> out of the work. It is heartbreaking to see what these kids go
> through, to see how little they care about their lives and of
> taking charge of them, and it became too much to deal with....
> the rude parents, the terrible behaviors, and the overall apathy
> of the students.
>
> If you move here, you will see an overwhelming number of fourth
> grade openings. Don't take one! You will be required to have
> each student write a huge writing portfolio, your students will
> be tested in science, reading, math, and on-demand writing on
> top of the portfolio. Too much work for both the kids and the
> teacher. Especially the teacher. There has been a mass exodus
> of fourth and fifth grade teachers because of testing demands.
>
> My second school was in a nicer neighborhood than the first, but
> the kids were bussed in from the neighborhood I first worked
> in. Kids ride the bus for 30 - 45 minutes, getting in trouble
> by throwing things out the bus windows and breaking
> windshields... Since we have so much bussing, parents are not
> involved because we don't have neighborhood schools and they
> have no transportation or don't want to drive across town...
> Something needs to drastically be done to change this school
> system. It is spirally out of control, in my opinion. Of
> course, this is just my experience. I hope I helped.
>
>
Teachers.Net
Login
More chatboard posts...
34 Subscribers