By Victoria Phetmisy
Schools in America are facing a catastrophe. I used to think reforming healthcare should be the biggest issue in politics, but I’m starting to realize that we need to be pouring time into our education system.
Because of the recession, a study done at the University of Washington calculated that without a stimulus, there would be 574,000 cuts in school jobs. This makes the latest stimulus package such a big deal.
The stimulus package allocates more than $100 billion towards the reform of education. Added to the Department of Education’s budget of $59 billion for the year, it is a remarkable amount. With that money, the cutting of at least half a million teachers’ jobs won’t need to happen—and in keeping those teachers, our children and their future will be a little brighter.
Think of it this way: through the K-8 education program, studies have shown that a good teacher is what makes a good classroom succeed. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a very prestigious school or in a small hands-on classroom, as long as your teacher is better than mediocre and cares about their students, then the students are more likely to prevail. Teachers who add value to their students’ ability each year are the teachers that will help their students the most.
Take this from teachers a part of the Teach for America program. Most of them teach in rural areas, to kids who would be thought of as “unable to succeed,” “trouble” or “unable to learn.” This notion is not true. Just because most of these kids tend to be from poorer, more rural areas, that fact alone shouldn’t be what excludes them from the learning curve.
Most of these teachers in the TFA program have “looped” their children each year. “Looping” is what happens when the same teacher chooses to teach the same set of students again for the next coming grade year. This creates trust and it also gives these students a chance to stay with a good teacher who already knows their skill level.
One of the sadder sides of the education system, when it comes to teachers, is the fact that most of our best teachers are teaching the privileged students at prestigious schools where the students’ parents are pouring in bags and bags of money for the education these students will get. It is most devastating when in contrast, our most disadvantaged students are mostly being taught by mediocre teachers year after year until students finally drop out.
A program like Teach for America, which is trying to filled the void of educational leaders in rural area continues to practice what they know best—giving all students the chance to prevail with a good teacher that makes them care about their education. The added bonus of $100 billion to the budget alone will save some of our schools from the cuts they don’t need right now. The stimulus package is a wobbly step towards fixing this problem and gives hope to reforming education.
