What with being attacked left and right by politicians across the country, who can blame teachers for being more than a little unsatisfied with their jobs. According to the annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, the drop in teacher job satisfaction over the past two years is a whomping 15 points - from 59 percent in 2009 to just 44 percent in 2011.
Targeting one of the most dire inequalities facing our nation - access to quality education - the Occupy Movement is holding a national day of action focused on education. From Albany to Sacramento, students, parents and educators across the country are staging walkouts and marches to departments of education on behalf of equitable funding to provide all students with an equal opportunity to learn.
Earlier this week Tanya McDowell, the Bridgeport, Connecticut, mother accused of fraudulently enrolling her son in a Norwalk school, was sentenced to prison and must pay $6,200 to the city of Norwalk for stealing a better education for her son.
The case parallels a similar one in Ohio.
This insightful infographic from the Children's Defense Fund lays out a child's access, or lack thereof, to full-day kindergarten in every state, breaking down early childhood education programs by availability and whether the programs are funded by the state or out of pocket by parents.
While the Schott Foundation is pleased that Kentucky legislators are reviewing its data to address the alarming low graduation rate of African American males, we are concerned that they are considering the wrong solution to the problem: charter schools. The opportunity gap that has led to the persistent achievement gap between students of color and their White peers is a systemic problem.
The following is a press release from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform concerning their new, must-read guide to teacher quality in educaiton reform. You can download the PDF of the guide here.
A recent research report by Sean Reardon of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University has received much publicity, including a major article in the New York Times.
Advancement Project
www.advancementproject.org
Vouchers – as well as state-sponsored tax-credit programs that support private schools – are not the answer to ensuring America’s children have a fair and substantive opportunity to learn. These programs divert resources from public schools, affect a limited number of students and, most studies show, don’t improve children’s educational experiences.
It’s a simple fact that schools must be safe environments for teachers to teach and children to learn. But harsh discipline policies that are pushing out students for minor infractions defy common sense.
