By Mark

I was flipping through an old notebook of mine and found a doodle I had drawn during a summer inservice after my very first year of teaching. Since the original had real people's names on it, I recreated that doodle here (click on it to see the text). As soon as I saw it in that notebook, I instantly remembered everything about the situation which prompted that drawing.

When I drew that, I was thinking of one kid in particular for whom I had attended several staffing meetings the previous year. At nearly all of these meetings were all the kid's teachers, her mom, an administrator, and a counselor. The child's social worker and parole officer had also been in touch with some of us. We were all strategizing with the kid about how she could be more successful in school.

What are your goals? Where do you see yourself after high school? What do you want in life to be happy?

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by Brian

On Monday I’m going to Olympia as a math teacher and a member of the Washington Education Association to try to educate the Senate Education Committee about End of Course math exams.  Again.  I went to Olympia last year too, and urged them to support a bill delaying the use of the End of Course math exams as a graduation requirement.  That bill died in committee, and we started this school year knowing that our students would have to take the tests, but not knowing what the tests would be like because the tests hadn’t been written.  They still haven’t. 

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By Tom

As bad as things are in Washington – and they're bad – it could be worse. We could have this guy in our state legislature. Mark Christensen, a state senator in Nebraska, introduced a bill to allow schools workers to carry concealed weapons on the job.

Can you imagine?

In an apparent response to the recent shooting in Omaha, this guy actually wants to have teachers walking around with guns in their pockets.

But first they would need professional development.

"I don't think you can simply just hand out guns like you do keys," he said. There certainly would have to be a great amount of training, a great amount of responsibility. What's the standard of care for having a gun for an employee in the district?" he asked.

"You have to be trained to get a concealed carry permit," explained Christensen. "You take a class, you go through the shooting, the training and learn about the responsibility of the gun. So that's why it's another great thing, it is a trained individual."

Another great thing?

He continues:

"I've never seen a gun escalate a situation. Guns don't kill people, people do."

So the next time you're sitting through a literacy workshop, learning about the intricacies of consonant digraphs, just think: you could be taking target practice, getting ready to de-escalate a situation.

Frankly, I can't imagine a gun not escalating a situation.

This guy clearly has no idea what we do, who we are and why we teach. Every teacher I know or have ever known, the good and the bad, the young or old, every teacher – every single teacher –  would quit immediately if they were asked to take a gun to work.

And thank God.

By Kristin

Think you could find a way to cut $4.6 billion from Washington State's budget?  The League of Education Voters has a nifty interactive calculator that will put you in the power seat.

To fool around and see where you would save (or earn) the state $4.6 billion, click here.

I did it, and managed to cut nothing from early learning.  I managed to save 4.6 billion dollars without making state employees take a 3% salary decrease. I did it without taking away food stamps, health care for poor children, or increasing class size.

I did cut the National Board Bonus, because I don't think times like these merit bonuses, and I think those who have claimed to be leaders need to step up and take a hit.  I did suspend the teacher COLA, for about the same reason, but I kept our annual experience increase.  I'd rather give up a bonus and a COLA than have class size go up, wouldn't you?

And I made up the most money by doing things like increasing ferry rates, taxing cigarettes, and ending the sales tax exclusion on business services and consumer services.  Call me crazy, but I think cosmetic surgery should include sales tax.

To see my budget, you can click here.

I can't figure out why Gregoire – someone who really does value education – would take such a big bite out of programs that help kids and won't increase tax on things that grownups can choose to do without.  Can you?

by Brian

I recently read an article that actually defends the U.S. education system rather than attacks it (a pleasant change).  Vivek Wadhwa says: U.S. Schools Are Still Ahead—Way Ahead.  It's a good read, but what really caught my interest was a link he had to another article:  Why Chinese Mothers are Superior by Amy Chua.

There is a lot of concern about achievement gaps for many groups of students, but one demographic that no one is worried about is Asian-American kids.  They do well.  Amy Chua says that for Chinese children it's not some genetic advantage, or good schools and teachers; it's due to Chinese mothers like her.  As I read her description of some of her expectations and tactics, I was taken aback.   She effectively dismisses most of what I believe to be good parenting.  But in this era of high stakes testing, maybe she's right.

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By Tom

I was standing in the faculty room one morning, waiting for the coffee to brew. Two colleagues were talking about principals they’d worked with, and one of them said to me, “Tom, you would be a great principal. I would love to work in your school.”

She should have waited until I had some of that coffee. I would have been a lot less blunt. “Really? because the first thing I’d do would be to fire you.”

Choosing to believe that I was speaking facetiously, she laughed nervously and hurried off.

(Fun fact: the word facetiously has every vowel, in order, including Y!)

Actually, I wasn’t kidding. If I really was a principal and she really was on my faculty, I really would fire her. She was a bad teacher. Ineffective. Weak.

But it would have been difficult.

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It is very easy to do nothing. I challenge you, if your inclination is to do nothing, to instead do one thing.

Not sure how to make your voice heard in this legislative session, considering that there are about two billion dollars (~$2,000,000,000.00, or 2×10⁹ dollars) in proposed education cuts? You don't have to do everything, but every one of us ought to do at least one thing. Here are two easy ones:

1. Consider visiting the Washington Education Association Advocacy Headquarters website for ideas. There's even a super quick "click here to tell the Governor and your Legislators to protect our students" button that takes you to a quick and easy form that will guide you to make contact.

2. Set the tone for positive and productive discourse about education by expressing your voice to your local news. Again, WEA has a great portal to get you in touch. 

Seriously: they make it easy. So easy that not one of us has a good excuse to do nothing. Check out the setup at these links above.

By Kristin

Today Washington's governor, Chris Gregoire, announced she would like to streamline education.  Currently, she says, “We don’t have an education system in our state … we have a collection of agencies that deal with education."

Her solution?  To group all of the educational agencies into one single, cabinet-level Department of Education, headed by a Secretary appointed by the Governor rather than our current, elected, Superintendent of Public Education.  To see the clear difference between what is and what might be, look at pages five and six of the policy brief.

What might this entail?  What might educators think about this?  How might it affect us?

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by Brian

This is the 27th January of my career, and I think all of them were happier than this one.  Tomorrow school will begin again, and there are 4 weeks left in the first semester.  I was in my classroom today, getting ready for my students, but also preparing for an important meeting.  In less than 2 weeks the State Legislature will convene, and begin to negotiate a budget that will surely cause serious problems for educators in our state.  So tomorrow my department has invited our Representatives to visit our school and hear our concerns.

Here's a few of them:

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By Tom

For some reason, teachers tend to pair up. Maybe it’s because, like cops, we need someone to back us up. Maybe. Perhaps the two of you have the same teaching style and you love to plan together. Or maybe you started teaching at the same time in the same school and you’re the only two from “that generation.”

Ot it could be that your principal assigned the two of you to work the same grade level five years ago and you’ve been stuck together ever since.

Whatever the reason, most of us are lucky not to have to go it alone. We’ve got a partner.

Last week, the better half of my partnership received some bad news from her oncologist. She’s having some major surgery next week and will be gone from her classroom for a long time.

So what does her partner do? A lot:

• Offer – no, insist – on working with her sub to plan lessons and assessments.
• Stay in touch. Daily.
• Get her students to write cards
• Donate sick leave
• Bring food
• Be there when she gets back to help with the transition

We’re not in this alone. We need each other, sometimes more than ever.

And while I’m at it, today is the second-best day of the year to do something about your half of the partnership. Teaching, done correctly, is not a sedentary profession. We’re not exactly stevedores, bricklayers or centerfielders, but we don’t just sit there. At least we shouldn’t.

So get healthy. Stay healthy. Do it for yourself, your family, and your students.

Do it for your partner.