Letters to the editor:
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Teaching with Passion

I read with interest two articles in [the Aug. 17 issue of] your publication: Jesse Fox Mayshark's assessment of Superintendent Lindsey's first year, and Nick Kostra's article "Don't Teach."

I am an English teacher at Fulton High School, thirty-three years old, and nowhere close to retirement or leaving the profession. I believe passionately in the value and purpose of public education. I believe passionately that all children can and have a right to learn. I believe through education lies an improved society. And I believe and know that teachers in general are some of the hardest-working, most dedicated, most necessary people in our society.

Teachers have a hard job. I knew it would be a hard job when I chose it. I like to work hard, and I did not become a teacher in order to get glory, praise, or recognition. I did and do expect, however, support and credit for the job I do. I don't know how the teachers of Knox County are expected to make our students internationally competitive without an internationally competitive budget. Though people get tired of teachers complaining about money, the sad, tired truth is that more money would do more than attract quality educators. More money would also lower student-teacher ratios, get counselors and mental health experts in contact with children who need support, and make sure every child has quality, internationally competitive materials to take home and to use in the classroom.

The teachers of this town deserve better support and credit. Knox County has no school on the state's "hit-list" of schools most desperately needing improvement. We are the only major metropolitan area in Tennessee where that is true. There is evidence in Knox County that we are raising standards and taking seriously our accountability to our students and their parents. How much stronger could we be with better funding?

Every time a new educational policy, practice, or procedure cycles down to us in the classroom from the lofty halls of wherever-it-is-that-generates-such-things, some brave teacher in the introductory meeting asks, "Will there be any additional funding so that we may have the time and materials necessary to implement this new policy, practice, or procedure?" This question always generates sarcastic laughter. The answer is always, "No," followed by "but,...if you work really hard in spite of that (as you teachers always do) and do a really good job in spite of that then maybe, after we've proven ourselves, the funding will come." That's a lie. It doesn't. It hasn't. It won't.

What happens instead, is that we get more—more policies, procedures, and practices.

There's a lot of talk cycling down to us now about "standards" and "accountability" in education. What that means, in practice, is test scores. The legislators of our town and state need some means of proving tax dollars are hard at work improving society. I understand that, and I agree test scores are one way to assess standards and accountability. Test scores are also a very easy way to assess performance. They come in numbers and percentiles. They measure precisely in their objective, black-and-white, yes-or-no style.

So what is Knox County getting now that we've improved our standards and accountability? Not more support, not more credit, not more money—more tests. And not more tests from teachers, more tests from legislators. The beloved TCAP is on its way out, soon to be replaced with the Gateway (to graduation) program. My understanding is there will soon be a 9th grade English pre-Gateway, a 10th grade English Gateway, an Algebra Gateway, a Biology Gateway, and a U.S. History Gateway. All of these, new reliable objective and standardized tests will come from the State Department and beyond. They will be in addition to and at the expense of some of the old, presumably unreliable, subjective indicators teachers use like essays, projects, and teacher-made final exams.

As a classroom teacher who works hard every day to set a high standard and to be accountable for my students' learning, sometimes at the expense of time with my family and out of my own paycheck, I am insulted by this apparent lack of confidence in the ongoing education, training, and practices of classroom teachers.

What should legislators do instead of requiring more tests to insure high standards and accountability? They should do the hard work. They should come to our schools. They should sit in our classrooms. They should know about the tests we write, the lessons we plan, the essays we grade, the experiments we supervise, and the calculations we illuminate. They should come, they should come many times, and they should sometimes come unannounced. I would welcome it. Parents, principals, supervisors, superintendents, school board members, and City Council men and women—they could see for themselves our high standards; we would be immediately accountable for what was taking place in our classrooms.

There are many reasons not to teach. For some of us, though, the call to teach is stronger. And for those of us who will remain in this profession, the time has come for us to end our own oppression. In Japan, it was the teachers who said no to too much unnecessary testing of their students. The time has come for teacher-led educational reform in Knoxville and across the United States. I hope there are other teachers who agree with me. I'm ready to get to work.

Anne Thomas-Abbott
Knoxville