Reply #57: For this teacher, the damage is done [View All]

This is my 4th year of full-time teaching, and my last. I had three good years before this one at three schools where the kids, the parents, the principal, and my colleagues all liked and supported me. (New teachers are often moved around a lot due to changing staffing needs in their districts, but that's a different story.)

This year I had the misfortune to be assigned to a school where the principal and parents did not like me and did not support me, and my colleagues either didn't know what was going on, or didn't care to make themselves targets by coming to my defense. In fact, there was no one to come to my defense. Our union is overwhelmed by suffering teachers, many of whom are in worse situations than mine after many, many years of successful teaching, glowing evaluations, teaching awards, etc. My union rep told me repeatedly that they had so many grievances to process that they had to "pick and choose" the ones they felt they were the most likely to win and let the others go (grievances are formal complaints that the district has broken the contract - not simply "so-and-so was mean to me" variety gripes).

I went from a principal last year who gave me so many compliments it was embarrassing, to this year becoming a pariah. Yes, now I'm a "bad teacher." I've suffered incredible accusations and outright lies about my performance with no opportunity to answer any of the complaints. Parents made accusations that I wasn't teaching their children and they were accepted at face value. This from people who never once spent a minute of instructional time in my classroom.

I'm not going to go into defending myself here - my point is that the political climate has turned teachers into targets and professional victims. We're not even allowed to defend ourselves. Teachers have always had fewer rights than many others, that's the nature of the job (free speech? um, no), but in this atmosphere of "teachers are bad, lazy, incompetent, greedy, etc.," any complaint against a teacher has the explosive potential to blow up into a witch hunt in the hands of a malevolently motivated parent or two (and/or administrator). Keep in mind the unifying power of a common enemy...

The new mantra I hear repeated most often these days is "public education is dying." I hate to say that, but in the minds of many, public schools are quickly becoming a dog that just won't hunt. And what's worse is I have no idea how to overcome that perception. I'm too busy building my life raft for the flying rat-leap I'm about to take. Sorry.