Ruining the school system....the Rick Scott way...

Let me start by saying that I am in college. I am in a very specific field, and I don't get much contact with fresh-out-of-high-school students. I'm not too far removed from my high school days, although much further than I'd like to be, age wise. The little contact that I have had with these college freshmen has been, well, disheartening.

I am not a teacher, have never had any urge to be a teacher, but there are those, some of my friends included, that do it and love every second of it. They don't enter the field because they think they are going to make amazing salaries. Remember in the board game LIFE, how the teachers made the least amount of money? Yeah, well reality isn't much different. But they do it anyway, because they want to make a difference in the lives and education of children. On top of that, most teachers I know use this money to purchase supplies for their classroom and to have additional enrichment activities to supplement the topics that they are expected to teach. It's called being a good teacher.

So back to the high school graduates entering college. In my experience, and yes this is from one tiny little college in Lakeland, Florida, these kids expect the answers handed to them. If it involves some critical thinking or using of the logic, they panic and drop the class. What? There is homework involved, and I am expected to turn it in on time? Deadlines, what are deadlines? I'll just tell the teacher a sob story and all will be fine!

That being said, there are times when life gets in the way. I'm not trying to degrade those experiences and say that you have to be an automaton about school. But when I overhear students telling other students that they are going to make up an excuse to get the deadline extended, I fear for the future of these kids.

So who gets the blame? Obviously these students know better, but they are willing to go with the flow, if it means passing. And teachers, who are under more and more scrutiny to produce results, are throwing their hands up in frustration. They don't have the resources to teach these kids and they get more and more frustrated with their lots in life. So they start teaching the students EXACTLY what is going to be on the test. And again, this isn't universal, but it is happening. I have family members in the school district who tell me that they are teaching their students specific words to use in the written portions of the FCAT.

For those who don't know, the FCAT is the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Testing that is given at certain grade levels, a barometer for the progress of the students at each school. It includes both multiple choice and essay questions, and the results of these testings are released and each school is given a grade based on the outcomes.

So certain teachers and certain schools are teaching key words, long vocabulary words and their meanings, specifically for the student to use in the essay portion of their test. But why would they do that? Why limit kids to these specific words? Because they want to have their students score higher than other schools, so they know if they teach a handful of words that are worth more points, they will get those higher scores.

Wait, you say, don't the people who grade the tests notice that all the essays have the same key words? Yes, but the schools didn't figure that out until the following year when they taught the kids the exact same words, but their testing came back lower. So now, they teach new key words each year....but still the same handful of words to all kids in that year. They do what most people call "teaching to the test." And it happens all throughout classrooms, not just for standardized tests.

So the schools are sending out students that expect to be taught EXACTLY what they will be tested on. Then they enter college. If they are lucky, they will get a college professor that feels the same way. If they aren't so lucky, they will get one of my professors from last semester. Granted, he was tough and taught a tough subject, but he knew the disaster that teaching to the test can cause. He and I discussed it frequently and he admitted that there were a few professors that had been fired BECAUSE they taught to the test. He refused to do it and for those that stayed through the duration of the semester, we knew the topic more in depth than probably any other class in the same subject. He pushed us and we struggled, but when we go out into the real world, we can realize that life doesn't just hand you the answers.

Teaching to the test doesn't work, it produces students that can't think beyond what is in front of them, students that won't study any additional material because they won't be tested on it.

So now we get to what is going on in current legislation. The Merit Bill. Making teachers salaries comparable to their success rates.

Imagine you make birdhouses for a living, and you only get paid for the birdhouses that come out perfect. The sides have to be straight, the roof must be at the correct angle, everything has to be within a correct range for someone to buy your craft.

Now imagine the boards that you use are all different lengths, sizes, shapes, and colors. You can do some trimming, some staining, some manipulation, but no matter what, the pieces don't fit together like they should on the blueprint. You do your best and get them together as uniformly as possible. When you go to pick up your nails to hold the pieces together, some of them are bent or blunt, and some of them are screws, and all you have is a hammer. But you know you will only make money on your birdhouse if it comes out the way the blueprint shows. So you go around the manufacturing and you buy a rough birdhouse from a few towns over, bring it home, sand it, and repaint it. It matches your blueprint, but you weren't the one that built it. Still, you take credit for it, get paid based on how it looks now. But what happens when the person who bought it takes it home and it falls apart? You weren't actually there to build it, so you didn't know that the real builder used cheap materials. Good thing you have a no return policy clearly posted.

Teachers get students from all walks of life, from all economic and family backgrounds. Every person in a classroom learns differently. Excellent teachers have the ability to teach a topic in a variety of ways so all the different learning types in the class can absorb. But what happens when they hit speed bumps? Students do fall through the cracks. With a merit system, it will get worse, not better.

You think teachers teach to the test now, wait until their pay is at stake. No one liked working for and having a school that had a low grade, as assigned by FCAT scores. Now the teachers within the school will have their salaries based off of how well their students are doing. It is counterproductive! Sure, students progress reports may jump up, but their ability to function in society is in extreme danger. School is not only supposed to teach subjects like Math and Science and English, it is supposed to teach study habits, deadlines, responsibility, and life skills that will be used in the real world and the workforce. If a teacher's salary changes to be based off of their student's performance, they will just run out and buy a passable birdhouse, slap some paint on it, and hope it waits to fall apart until after it has left their classroom.

Thanks Rick Scott, for ruining Florida, one industry at a time. You say this can only help retain the great teachers and provide better education to the students. In fact, the great teachers are going to take their Master's Degrees to private schools and colleges, and the students are going to fail, in college or in the workforce. Glad you are so in touch with the constituents of your state.

Nothing like a two year hiatus...

I know, I know, it's been a long time. But really, what blogger hasn't gone long periods without posting something new?

Although, if I'm being honest, I completely forgot this blog even existed. It wasn't until I was posting a comment on someone elses blog (to win a freebie, no less) that this name came up under the email address I put in...and I had to go back and read what I had already written.

It is also interesting because I am about to create a NEW blog, but for business purposes. But it is always nice to have a personal blog at hand. When you can remember to post to it.

Looking back, this blog is a whole lifetime away, even though a little under 2 years has passed. Both Husband and I are back in school full time, we've gone places and done things we never thought we would, and now we are embarking on a new challenge. Business ownership.

Husband has been taking photography classes and I'm proud to say that he has been aceing them all. Top grades on his photos, top grade in the class. His work is really spectacular and we work together to make unique pictures. Pair that with his extensive Photoshop and design knowledge and why wouldn't we want to make money doing something like that? We have been starting off slow, building our portfolio, but so far we are getting great feedback and have already booked a couple jobs. It's an exciting time and I'm so proud of Husband for his hard work. He really seems passionate about what he is doing and it shows!

I, on the other hand, am going to college for Medical Transcription. It's a strange field, and sometime soon it will be changing, progressing with technology and this whole healthcare reform thing. But it is something that does interest me, something that I can ultimately work from home doing, and something that I seem pretty good at....as Husband says, I type like the wind anyway so why not use it to my benefit. My ultimate goal has changed since I joined the program, I intend to go back after I've graduated to pursue nursing. I really enjoy the medical field, and the human body is just so damn interesting.

All of that aside, our real goal is to get the heck out of the town we live in. It really does not suit our style and we're here because we've got a great setup going housingwise. But with our new careers we can relocate where we want to and still continue our work, so that's super!

Alright, enough of catch up, I do intend on updating more frequently than before and hopefully getting some of my own giveaways and specials on my blog. Since I'll be the social media contact for the business, I'll be on here quite a bit anyway....