8/11/05
FOLLOW THE TEACHERS' LEAD: THEY'RE
MOVING TO THE ‘BURBS, TOO
Footnote to Wednesday's blockbuster
announcement by Go Big Ed of a plan to deconsolidate the Omaha Public Schools
to come up with six moderate-sized school districts in the Omaha area, instead
of one big one with lots of problems and five small ones with lots of money:
Guess what? That's what the TEACHERS
want.
Urban teachers are leaving behind
the troublesome budgets, instability, and so-so management of big inner-city
districts for brighter horizons and easier-to-teach pupils in suburban
districts. It isn't really for higher pay, despite what the unions say.
Take a look at today's story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Urban teacher
exodus swells":
http://www.startribune.com/dynamic/story.php?template=print_a&story=5554292
That just makes the idea of
deconsolidating OPS even more attractive. We could keep these good teachers in
the inner-city classroom if we'd split up a lot of OPS among the five suburban
districts that surround it. We could give inner-city teachers more financial
resources backing them up, more stability, and better management techniques.
They would no longer be "stuck" in a
monopolistic bureaucracy with hard-to-teach student populations. Instead, we
could use teachers more like pitchers in major-league baseball. Nobody does it
all, game after game. You use a lot of relief pitchers and specialty pitchers
and so forth.
Well, teachers are kind of like
"pitchers" of knowledge and skills. So we could assign those who are willing to
serve short stints in inner-city schools, just a couple of years, and then give
them "relief" by reassigning them to a suburban school where the teaching load
is lighter, so they can restoke the fires of commitment and all that good
stuff. If everybody takes turns and is in a "tough case" school willingly,
things will get a lot better for kids fast.
And to the extent that we could
carve into the overspending at OPS, and pare down the bureaucracy, we would
free up additional money to give teachers a pay raise, to boot. I think "battle
pay" for teachers in low-income schools is a must, to keep them enthused and
chipper.
Most of the teachers I know, though,
like teaching in the same general vicinity where their own children attend.
They feel they can keep an eye on things well, they know their child's
teachers, they know their child's peers, and they don't have to drive all the
way across town to work, or do extracurricular activities to make extra pay and
so forth, yielding them more precious time with their families.
I'm thinking of my daughter's
softball coach. He is soooo busy in the fall, with 30 or 35 games in just about
eight weeks, plus a full teaching load. If OPS takes over our suburban district
and he winds up getting reassigned, say, to South Omaha, and has to drive 45
minutes one way to get to his job, do you think he (1) will keep teaching, or
(2) keep coaching? I really doubt it. And he's the coach of the defending state
softball champs, plus a popular and skilled teacher. What a loss that would be.
It's just nuts.
The whole idea of education is how
to meet the needs of the students better.
But I'd say meeting the needs of the
teachers is a close second.
