I would honestly like to get into a cage match with every First Lady who has backed "No Child Left Behind" and other educational programs of the like. I am sick and tired, up to my elbows, and fed up every other metaphorical way I possibly can be with this educational system. One year and one month is all it has taken for this girl to see what a corrupt, self-serving, greedy, ignorant educational system we have. The processes, the methods, the ways and means, are, simply put, wrong. Children will always rise to our expectations, and our expectations are alarmingly low. They are being taught be English teachers with no English degrees, who have never read Shakespeare or Twain and cannot tell you the difference between good and well. The state, the government, wants the educators to indoctrinate kids on procedural literature and expository texts, but leave out the Hawthorne and Melville. I cannot and will not stand for that. Recently, I was severely chided when I "broke district policy" and required my students to read on their own individual level. Levels were determined by a well respected reading program that was both vocabulary and sentence complexity based. I didn't feel as if I was one to argue with the test, rather my job was to assure that the kids were pushing themselves instead of reading "Twilight" for the 22nd time. When the Language Arts TEKS change at the end of this year, students will be lucky to have read 4 novels by the time they get to 12th grade. Apparently, incompetency is the new trend in hiring. I want so badly for my students to read the classics, not only in order to pass the AP test but to be well rounded students who are prepared for college and life in general. It is a proven fact that frequent reading raises intelligence and builds neurons; reading physically makes your brain able to react faster and more effectively. Why are we shunning this so much? I am but one measly teacher; I cannot take on the state or the government and change educational laws. My option, if I wish to keep earning a paycheck, is to sit back, change my policies, lower my expectations, and keep my mouth shut. It's a bit like laying down and trying to hold your neck off the ground for an entire week-painful and damn near impossible. My expectations are high and it is my intent to push kids out of their comfort zone every day. If they are always sliding by, they will never learn anything. Maybe this is an issue that begins at home; too many kids are sqeaking by and not being held accountable for their actions and reactions. If I had shirked a responsibility growing up, there were serious and immediate consequences. I was taught to hold myself accountable for not only the things expected of me, but more importantly my own expectations. Maybe I should be ranting to parents who can't take the time to sit down with their kids and teach them how to be adults; maybe I should be talking to parents who believe that every experience a child should have must be positive. I would suggest to those parents to go buy a "Calvin and Hobbes" comic and promptly ask your child to do some hard labor; I imagine it would help.

I am but one measly teacher, but my love for my kids and investment in their future is not now, nor has it even been anything but tremendous. I want the best for those kids, and I give my heart every day making sure that's what I'm doing. I am being cut off at the knees, my efforts thwarted by elitist parents and the drones that work higher than me. It's suffocating and I don't know how much more air I will be able to gulp on my way down.

The Open Sign

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215340

Every month, a privilege fee comes from the paycheck that I earn teaching five foot six conglomerations of body odor, hormones, peach-fuzz, and poor music choices that you civilians call 8th graders. I spend a multitude of hours researching, reading, lesson planning, and generally immersing myself in cognitive theory and amateur literature in order to prepare for and successfully execute my days. Roughly 16.5% of my monthly income pays for the privilege of having health insurance, and almost a whole other 20% goes to paying the deductible and medical bills accumulated despite my "great" health insurance. Despite what feels like sky high prices, I am thrilled that I receive the privilege to buy myself health insurance; I work hard for that privilege. Recently, the health care debate has been on tongues and front pages everywhere, and I had not taken a particular interest until I read the NEWSWEEK article linked above.
Irving, TX is a hotbed of immigration activity; in the past two years, Irving PD has gone on several raids of workplaces for the sole reason to flush out and deport illegal workers. Irving is almost a full ten years ahead of the curve on the minority/majority switch. According to NEWSWEEK, it would be beneficial for the citizens of Irving and other residents of both DFW and the state of Texas to pay for, through taxes, the health care for those illegal individuals. Right now, the citizens of Irving already pay for the countless accidents with uninsured drivers, the ever mounting fees to send illegal children and children of illegals to school, county taxes to keep Parkland hospital open, which serves mostly uninsured illegal immigrants and their families, and additional taxes to house illegal immigrants who wind up in jail. If you are not in this country legally, you cannot get a drivers license or insurance (in theory); if you have neither, what happens when you are in an accident? You get to walk away, taking no responsibility whatsoever for your mistake, no responsibility for the people you have hurt. Children whose parents are illegal immigrants are going to school for free. If you get paid cash and rent an abode, you don't pay property taxes and thereby you don't pay school taxes. Furthermore, in situations where multiple families reside in the same tiny house or apartment, even if taxes are paid, they are not paid proportionately for all the children living in the home. Someone has to take up that slack, and it falls on the other property owners-many of which are immigrants who have taken the time, effort, and steps necessary to become an American citizen. How then, will the school system, the education system, ever improve if there are more children than we have resources? What happens when an illegal worker falls off the roof he is working on and breaks his leg? With no insurance, the hospital has to absorb the cost of the doctors, x-ray techs, nurses, medications, casting supplies, needles, IVs, etc...The quality of medicine everyone else in that hospital receives has just diminished because money had to be spent on treating someone who isn't even legal be in this country. We have already seen crime rates climb to Everest proportions not because of race or the country of origin of these immigrants, simply because there is a distinct connection between a low socio-economic status (which most illegal immigrants have)and a high crime rate. If you don't have food, you may get the notion to go steal some. If you can't get a job legally, you may get the notion to engage in the unfortunately lucrative and thriving drug trade. High crime rates mean crowded jails; crowded jails means that that there are more bodies to provide 3 squares to, more bodies to stitch up and clean up, more beds to buy, more sheets to buy, more water and electricity that tax payers have to dish out for. What happens when that jail becomes too crowded? A bond election is issued to buy a new jail; voters are asked to approve the local government to take more of their money to pay for all these extra expenses.
I don't know about you, but if there were a country that provided free health insurance, a free education for my children, a welfare program that guaranteed food and a Wal-Mart shopping card, and left me able to spend my cash on movies, electronics, alcohol, and other cush items, I may just pack up and immigrate myself. We, as a nation, are providing an open invitation to come on it and sit a spell. Earn our money, take our jobs, and hey, send all your money back to stimulate your own country's economy while using our resources freely. If we were to follow the pundits at NEWSWEEK, all we would be doing is turning a flashing red, white, and blue neon sign that said 'OPEN.' Maybe in theory insuring illegals would be a practical economic move, but in practice, the government taking on a small cost from the taxpayers wouldn't even come close to off-setting what we already pay in terms of money that goes to illegal immigrants. Don't turn on that 'open' sign, don't invite more people here that you and I have to pay for. I'm all about America being the land of opportunity, a land founded by immigrants, but there is a moral and ethical and considerate way to become an American. We pull our boot straps up and earn our living, earn our privileges every day; I want to continue to keep earning my privileges. I'm done paying the county, paying the city, paying the country, to take care of the needs of a people who aren't my fellow countrymen, who aren't starving, hurting, suffering American families. I say to NEWSWEEK, maybe you should check your facts, check with the people who live it, check with the people of Irving, TX or San Diego, CA, or Newark, NJ, or Miami, FL. Check with Americans before you write about our lives and what we should be doing. We might all appreciate that.