[Tsuwabuki]

I'll tell you what it is primarily tilted towards. Kids showing up. That's it. I know people who went to court for being absent. This is because the schools lose funding per absence if they stack up. All while they teach nothing. It's mere and simple bureaucracy to warehouse kids.

I was in school from 1988-2001. K-12. I was in college from 2001-2006 (I was a Music Education major, changed to English, changed universities, lost about 18 hours of credits and I worked too, hence five years). I moved overseas in November of 2007.

I didn't know anyone who went to court for being truant. I am aware that schools lose funding for absences if they stack up. I learned A LOT in my classes. I realise now I could have learned a lot more if I had paid more attention. I never felt warehoused, especially when it came to music and English, which I loved. I also took several AP courses because I wanted to, but even my regular classes never felt inadequate. If anything was inadequate, it was my sense of personal responsibility.

Then like I told you, you either have been away for quite a while or are looking/remembering through rose tinted specs. Maybe things went to hell since you left? There are always good and determined teachers. I observed it myself. There was at least one math teacher who I had some year. He left after one year, probably much like you did.

Left November 2007. So it wasn't that long ago. I don't think the system could completely collapse in two years... And believe me. It's pretty impossible to look back at my own academic experiences with rose colored glasses. As I said, I was pretty miserable. I don't think I was ever genuinely happy about much at all until I moved to Japan. That covers a lot of different career attempts (journalism, the navy, politics, public relations, marketing, did a few month selling shoes...) as well as my education background.

I do know that even in the US, I loved teaching, and would have been quite happy to stay if I could have found a job paying about $28K a year, which is what I needed to pay off student loans, get an apartment, pay for my car, etc. Obviously, I'd need benefits at well.

They're working in a flawed and failed system, so it doesn't matter. You make it seem like magnificent teachers are lining up for every school in the country. That's a laughable image. I told you there are well meaning and individually skilled teachers, but nobody can do anything with a garbage system alone. The filler isn't good teachers. A good teacher to enter a crap school district is pissing in the wind. The weight of the mediocrity is unsurmountable. The only possible solution is to dismantle entire school districts-- everything except the buildings, and rebuild them with a system that works such as charter schools. It won't be done in time, if ever, and that is what sucks.

There are good teachers lining up to work at any school that will pay them a living wage. We can't work, if it means racking up more debt. The fact of the matter is that the low-income school problem is self-refreshing. Low-income schools have low tax allocations. Low tax allocations mean less money for teachers and equipment and facilities. This in turn means larger class sizes, less individual attention, more students fall through the cracks. They end up living in the same are, contributing to its low-income tax allocation. A vicious cycle.

The answer, I believe, which will get the states' righters up in arms, isn't charter schools (which there's nothing wrong with, I like charter schools), but a nationalised system that allocates federally collected tax money to each school equally. Regardless of tax income of the area. Add onto that federally mandated tests, federally mandated goals, federally mandated textbooks, etc. It'll never happen because of the US political structure. So we have to do the best we can with what we have. The answer is not to blame the teachers, but to support them.

Doesn't matter what the buildings look like if the system is flawed and does not work. Although the ones that are falling apart are simply a double whammy. Both a waste of time and depressing dumps, not to mention sometimes violent; at least mine weren't, and that's the only positive thing I can say about them.

Seems like this got dropped when I split the post... I can't remember what I said, but I think it was a return to the vicious circle mentioned above. Especially in regards to violence. Also, violence happens in Japanese schools too. Last year a student (one of the ones that failed out) threw a desk at a teacher. And I live in the middle of nowhere.

You do American youth and future a disservice.

Why is that? If you say because I am teaching in Japan and not the USA... I would say you're right. And yes, I do feel guilty about it. If you say it because I refuse to stand by while you paint American teachers with a broad brush, then I'm sorry. Blaming the teachers is not the answer.

I never said there weren't cliques in all schools nor that socializing isn't important. I said it shouldn't be the main reason to be there nor the only one, as it often is.

I agree that it shouldn't be, I don't agree that it often is.

Well that's probably because you have standards there. Here they would have sent him/her to court and forced him/her to attend, just so him/her could show up and not affect the farce of a system that only rewards the schools with attendance records and not anything else.

Oh believe me. Japanese junior high school is quite compulsory. We made them attend anyhow. Doesn't mean we could force them to do any work.

Is that a fact? I guess someone forgot to tell that to the French teacher I had in 10th grade. He was a sub who stayed the whole year because the regular teacher had left on maternity leave. Yeah, he was a real magnificent teacher, not just some guy telling kids to open a book and read while they chatted the whole class. It also only happened that one time in my special case school, not anywhere else in the area. An aberration, really. Except for all those other crappy teachers who basically did the same thing most of the year.

Substitute teachers are not trained teachers. Anyone can be a substitute as long as they have a degree. This is fine, as long as they only fill in for a day or two. You're telling me they let him stay the whole year without him at least gaining alternative certification or undergoing supervision with a certified teacher??? That's outrageous! You had every right, and I mean every right, to complain all the way up the chain on that one. I would have. In fact I wish I knew what school district this was so I could read them the riot act. You are absolutely right. That is atrocious. It should never have happened, and I apologise for it.

Even substitute teachers? That one in French was the only one I knew of for sure, but others felt just as bad. Who's to say? I didn't have access to the teacher's qualifications.

See above. Subs are only supposed to fill in for one or two days. They are not supposed to be teaching, they are merely supposed to be supervising. What your school did is unforgivable. I am also fairly certain it's breaks all sort of State Education Board policies in Texas. I'll see if I can pull up the relevant statutes. That's... I believe you. I certainly believe you. But I'm appalled.

This paragraph alone is quite telling. 3 years in several schools, eh? Same as every other new teacher with high qualifications who starts up in a crappy school they don't like. They leave, as they should.

...that was my school career, not my teaching career. My parents moved a lot. My mother was already a librarian, but my father retired from the Air Force, then got a degree from one university, his master's from another, and has changed jobs twice in the last ten years.

Well I would imagine so because it would be quite a worthless achievement if it was in an American public school. Much less in Texas. where George W. was governor for a long time, and then voted for president twice by most. And later same for Palin as VP.

It was in a public school in Texas. One that you would probably term a "yuppie school" I suppose. High income, high tax allocation. And I'll have you know that Travis County (Austin) and Harris County (Dallas) went for Kerry and Obama. So did at least one other country (Brownsville's maybe?). I never voted Republican. I didn't have to tell you that, but I'm telling you anyway.