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posted by martyb on Friday April 07 2017, @02:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the stifling-curiosity dept.

As teacher resignation letters increasingly go public -- and viral -- new research indicates teachers are not leaving solely due to low pay and retirement, but also because of what they see as a broken education system.

In a trio of studies, Michigan State University education expert Alyssa Hadley Dunn and colleagues examined the relatively new phenomenon of teachers posting their resignation letters online. Their findings, which come as many teachers are signing next year's contacts, suggest educators at all grade and experience levels are frustrated and disheartened by a nationwide focus on standardized tests, scripted curriculum and punitive teacher-evaluation systems.

Teacher turnover costs more than $2.2 billion in the U.S. each year and has been shown to decrease student achievement in the form of reading and math test scores.

"The reasons teachers are leaving the profession has little to do with the reasons most frequently touted by education reformers, such as pay or student behavior," said Dunn, assistant professor of teacher education. "Rather, teachers are leaving largely because oppressive policies and practices are affecting their working conditions and beliefs about themselves and education."

The study quoted a teacher in Boston: "I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me."


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 07 2017, @03:28PM (6 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 07 2017, @03:28PM (#490285) Journal

    Definitions may be required here.

    By serving your country, you are serving your fellow Americans (or whatever, depending on your place on earth). I did NOT say "serve your government", but, "serve your country". If you are Chinese, and unwilling to help your fellow Chinese, then you are a sorry Chinese. Replace "Chinese" with any nationality you care to use.

    Everyone should be happy to serve. Unfortunately, many governments have pre-empted that whole service thing.

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 07 2017, @05:52PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 07 2017, @05:52PM (#490390) Journal

    Everyone should be happy to serve. Unfortunately, many governments have pre-empted that whole service thing.

    I would have said "all governments", but you may be able to point to an exception. If so, I suspect that the exception is temporary, as centralization of power leads those in charge to isolate themselves from the consequences of failure. And a good government will in time be replaced by a bad government, no matter what method is used for selecting the powerful. It used to be said that one king out of seven would be a good king, one would be an idiot, one would be evil, and the rest mediocre. Perhaps the Anglo-Saxon monarchy did better than that, as they elected a king from all relatives of the current king (I think out to cousin). But they certainly had some failures. (None up to Britain's George III, but he didn't start out crazy. OTOH, he was one of those responsible for Parliament gaining power, even if that wasn't his intent.)

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Friday April 07 2017, @07:01PM (4 children)

    by edIII (791) on Friday April 07 2017, @07:01PM (#490443)

    I have many in my family on both sides that have served. I agree with you that service in some form may be better compulsory than voluntarily, and some countries do just that. Isn't South Korea a nation where military service is required? I would have not minded serving 2-3 years and then moving on to higher education. Most of my life I've felt quite patriotic about my country and wanting to make it better.

    That being said..... I would rather just kill my superiors when I get in there. Why should I go suffer and die for some rich fuckers at home? The Civil War was political, if outright avarice and corruption of the power base is political. Vietnam War wasn't even a war. The Persian Gulf was about oil and rich people's money and had nothing to with Kuwait. Grenada was about drugs too, because who really have a shit about a Panamanian dictator? The 2nd Iraq War? Should've been called, "Don't mess with my Daddy!!". World War II and Afghanistan were about the only two places that seemed like we had to go there and do what we did.

    I'm all for everyone serving, as long as EVERYONE IS SERVING, and that we are serving people WORTHY OF IT THAT ALSO SERVE AMERICA. In the Civil War you saw rich sons, who happened to also become the richest men in America later, purchase their deferments by having a poor son of some other American go in their place.... and then die for them.

    Orange Anus himself got how many deferments for being a "tough, tough, guy"? Trump is a cowardly piece of shit that couldn't serve his country, so why should we make military service compulsory so that our children (mostly the poor and middle classes) go die for a man that didn't give two shits about his fellow countrymen? I may not like John McCain for his support of national security theater, but that man served his country with distinction. He has no shame for being a prisoner of war, but Trump thinks the man is a loser. Yet, the fact is that John McCain went and suffered to make sure that Trump could live a good life of nepotism, fraud, and become the chauvinistic mountebank that he is.

    That's my problem with making military service mandatory. We don't live in a representative democracy so it would just become a bunch of poor people being sent off to die for the Owning Classes, and that's not some shit I fucking signed up for. When you can convince me that the people being sent to die are doing so for people that truly serve them, then I will agree.

    Until then..... kill the rich and powerful instead. Or even better, we round up the rich and powerful and send them to bootcamp and 5 years of compulsory service. How about our next surge in Afghanistan be comprised of the rich soft handed mother fuckers donating the most dark money to politics?

     

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    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday April 07 2017, @07:32PM (1 child)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday April 07 2017, @07:32PM (#490471) Homepage

      I like the idea of mandatory service, but what I don't like is our guys and gals dying in bullshit wars for Israel and Saudi Arabia.

      What they should do is be stationed at the border, with orders to shoot on sight any unauthorized crossers.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @08:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @08:47PM (#490514)

        Found one unauthorized citizen! GIT EM'!!!

        Since we're punishing border crossings to harshly how about we punish wrong-think with liberal application of rope and trees?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:43AM (1 child)

      by Gaaark (41) on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:43AM (#490630) Journal

      I bet that if you made it a law that the first people on the front lines are the sons and daughters of the richest people (and maybe the richest people, as well... yes, Mark Zuckerberg i'm looking at you, person of the correct age), (next in line are the next richest and on down), no war would ever be fought again.
      Make the poorest people the last to the front.

      That would be a great law to try to get passed, lol.

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      • (Score: 2) by boxfetish on Saturday April 08 2017, @10:44PM

        by boxfetish (4831) on Saturday April 08 2017, @10:44PM (#491001)

        At one time, I would have said this was true. Now, I am not so sure. Some of these Senators and Reps are such sociopaths, obviously concerned only with lining their pockets (or laying the groundwork for future linings) that I wonder if they wouldn't just send off their "fortunate sons" to die.