Have teachers past acts of charity instead of fighting for supplies and proper school funding lead

[CK_John]

to the charter system?

I think so, the idea of a good teacher was paying $400 out of pocket for their students.This let the bean counters design the cash cow system of charters schools.

Mega million ripoff because teachers were a risk adverse easy mark. Now no tenure and more than 5yr out of university it's time to hit the road, no pension.

[femmocrat]

1. Teachers are a bunch of pushovers.

Everyone is so afraid to lose his or her job that they will put up will any kind of sh*t the admin's throw at them. I admire those who are willing to speak out, but they do it at their own peril.

And it seems as if the unions are starting to roll over too and accept the "reforms" as inevitable. It is a sad state of affairs.

[Igel]

2. No.

Not being able to hold students responsible for their actions--which includes failing--and holding parents accountable for their students, are the root problems.

Parents need to blame somebody. At the very least, they declare their darling offspring to be uncontrollable, and duck assigning responsibility to anybody at all. In rare occasions the cause of miscreance is beyond the parents' control, but usually cause and effect apply just fine.

Children also need to be made responsible. If a student misses a test s/he has to make it up. If she says, "I'll do it tomorrow after school" and fails to show or give notice, give her a 0. Thing is, if you try that in many schools the principal will pitch a fit and fight to get the student to pass, because a failing student makes his stats look bad. And the parent will argue for irresponsibility on the part of his kid because he don't want her to fail.

You get a school that's 40% like that and the responsible parents of responsible kids will want their kids to go elsewhere. Easier than facing the problem and fighting over character. Other parents will blame the school for their and their kids' shortcoming and send their kids elsewhere because the root cause, they believe, is the school. Either way, just retreat and start over elsewhere--esp. when the charter schools repeat the failed promises and let you start all over again.

Some charters are all Yes and KIPP. Rigor, discipline, focus, commitment, etc.

Others are places to warehouse kids and have them get As and Bs for not committing arson too many times in a semester. You can't mix the two kinds of charters in your stats.

Teachers spend $400 (or more, in my case ... I get to pick up $60 in lab supplies in a few days) for a bunch of reasons. Some teachers spend a lot more on supplies. I know a teacher who could run through $3,000 in supplies in a year and do a great job. Others wouldn't have that many projects and labs, and do a great job.

Some depts. spend more on supplies. Chemistry really has a fixed supply need. Chemicals, labware, infrastructure. In Texas 3 years ago the # of physics more than quadrupled. They could have spent $40k each of the last three years to just get to the equipment and supply level they were at 4 years ago--equipment for 10 classrooms instead of 2. But next year the number of students is likely to drop again, so it would have been wasted money. The supply budget just couldn't keep up, esp. during an economic downturn. (One in which even more money had to be spent from general revenues on SpEd, 504 accommodations, training teachers for new state requirements, technology for the classroom, etc., etc.)

Sometimes students help out and bring in supplies. Some don't. Depends on the school, the class. For a lab in my class I asked students to bring in 1/2 to 1 cup of dirt in a glass mayonaise jar. I gave them 2 weeks' notice. Most students couldn't "afford" a jar they'd normally throw away and some dirt from their yard or the side of the road.