The Domino Effect On Education - (3rd Paper) Final Draft

Michelle L. Jones

Dr. Sonia Begert

English 99

11 August 2011

THE DOMINO EFFECT OF EDUCATION

     The educational system is a pathway to a students' education, which is the importance of an individual being able to follow his or her dreams. Lately, one thing leads to another, such as country-wide budget cuts, and we watch this disaster continue to spiral out of control. The public school systems' self-worth declines, and just like a domino effect, teachers are being laid off, classrooms are becoming overcrowded, and teachers are overworked. Disruptions begin with classroom curriculum and frustrations mount between teachers, students and parents.

     Major budget cuts occur and teachers continue to be laid off. A layoff is the temporary or permanent removal of a worker from his or her job, usually because of cutbacks in production or corporate reorganization; dismissal of a job or responsibilities; a less severe form of involuntary termination. It is no hidden secret that the United States' public school system is struggling to stay afloat. This all leads to teacher/student ratio problems and classrooms becoming overcrowded. Teachers can’t provide the one-on-one time with students, especially those who need that little extra push.

     Each year we hear rumors of teachers having the threat of layoffs. This is hard on all teachers: the ones laid off worry about seeking other teacher opportunities and the teachers that remain go through changes as well. With the economy in decline, we are seeing more and more teacher layoffs in our educational system.

“Though many of the warnings may not be acted upon--school systems, their budget outlook unclear, routinely overstate likely layoffs at this time of year--when layoffs do occur; they cause a chaotic annual reshuffling of staff members. Thousands of teachers are forced to change schools, grades or subjects, creating a chronic instability that educators call “teacher churn.” (The New York Times, March 30, 2011) According to Michael Casserly, the council’s executive director, “The churn caused by layoffs can be extremely disruptive and hurt student achievement.” (The New York Times, March 30, 2011)

     When teachers have above average teacher/student ratio, it makes it a difficult task to have one-on-one time or to be able to figure out each student’s individual needs, weaknesses and strengths; which doesn’t allow the teachers to provide proper education to the students when the classroom is overcrowded. Having to manage all of these children at one time would be a hard task, but then you have to also factor in a teacher being able to control all the students, managing bad behavior, learning all the students names, and talking with overcrowded classrooms as well.

     Overcrowded classrooms not only affect the teacher, but the students as well. There is no way a student can concentrate inside an overcrowded classroom. The government needs to realize that the education budget cuts are affecting the students’ futures. In an overcrowded classroom you will have misbehaved classmates that, in turn, make the other students miss out on part of the daily curriculum. Even well-behaved students have distractions and students cannot concentrate when there is so much going on while a teacher is trying to teach his or her lessons. Now let’s factor in extended lunch periods that also take away from valuable learning time, not to mention the lack of supplies, hallway space, and limited locker availability. As an example, Michael Moore stated in “Idiot Nation”, “Almost 10 percent of U.S. public schools have enrollments that are more than 25 percent greater than the capacity of their permanent buildings. When we bundle all these factors into one, we see an increase of failures.

     Let’s try to imagine being a teacher in today’s society. With drastic budget cuts, teachers eventually become overworked and what once would have been a job for two individual teachers has now become the duty of a single teacher. There is already limited time in each subject with a normal everyday schedule; but when layoffs occur, more duties are being assigned to the employed facilitator. Teachers have to pick up the slack for numerous duties in the classroom and are underpaid for doing all this work. How can a teacher possibly be overworked? Think about all the teacher’s responsibilities in the classrooms on a daily basis: remembering all the students’ names, maintaining an overcrowded classroom, preparing class curriculum, parent teacher conferences, piles of papers to grade, tests to prepare, juggling extra-curricular activities, such as art, music, etc. Even in “Idiot Nation” Michael Moore wrote, “In New York City almost 15 percent of the eleven hundred public schools are without full-time custodians, forcing teachers to mop their own floors and students to do without toilet paper.” Teachers run around like chickens with their heads cut off throughout the week, but they do all of this because they love children and want to make an educational difference in their life.

     This also causes the student (s) to be affected as well. The morale has now dropped in the classroom causing an explosion of tension between teachers and students. In “Idiot Nation”, Michael Moore again states, that when you walk into a school, “the halls are packed with burned-out teenagers shuffling from class to class, dazed and confused, wondering what the hell they’re doing there.” You must consider what negative affects this has to our children’s education. After all the students must remember they are not the ones that started this tenacious situation.

     A student’s normal class schedule consists of reading, English, math, history, science, music and/or gym. Sometimes there may be a student (s) that struggles grasping a certain subject. The student (s) are then pulled out of the classroom during normal class curriculum and placed in a LAP program. This is the beginning of the disruptions.

     Today this seems to be the routine as students continue to be pulled out of the classroom during normal class time for special education, speech, and IEP programs for math and reading. Some children have learning disabilities and that is what the services are provided for, but how are these students receiving proper education in all subjects? For instance, there were students in Kitsap County that attended fifth grade last year that were having reading comprehension problems and/or not grasping the math lessons prepared by the teacher. The students having struggles were having class time disrupted during normal class curriculum and were not required to have history or science classes. Reading Recovery fell during the history lesson and Math IEP fell during the science lesson. Why can’t the classes be rearranged so that reading class is going on during Reading Recovery and math in the classroom be the same time as Math IEP classes? When the parents met with the teacher and principal, according to them, parents were not supposed to worry, because history and science for elementary students is a brief overview for them and it would be revisited in junior and senior high school.

     In addition, these children are spending more time moving from class to class, verses staying in their normalclassroom getting more out of education with everyday class curriculum. Yet again, we have to ask ourselves, are these students receiving full opportunity, let alone a fair education? For teachers, this is also a disruptive event. Not only is this process disruptive to the other classmates, but now the teachers have a hard time instructing when students are being pulled out of class each day. With all things we do, time management is the main key. So maybe teachers should have extra training in effective classroom management to help reduce a child from missing out on so much regular class curriculum throughout the week.

     Teacher frustration, from being overworked to having numerous class disruptions, overflows to the students. This frustration, in turn, overflows to the parents, then back to the teacher again, creating a vicious cycle.