Anonymous Teacher: Diapers or Supplies

Today we have a heart-wrenching account of a brutal decision too many teachers have to face when funding is cut. When students are pitted against teachers' families, who gets the "short end of the stick?" An anonymous Mississippi teacher shares a shocking look into her classroom.

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I don’t know how I am going to do this. We are supposed to be following the curriculum map, and next week we have a math lesson where we are “highly encouraged” to engage the students in a hands-on activity involving marshmallows and toothpicks. I don’t have any marshmallows or toothpicks in my classroom.

Yes, I had an Educational Enhancement Fund (EEF) procurement card. I received that in October. I bought face paint and fabric to make costumes for my first graders’ holiday program. This performance allowed them to meet CCSS Speaking and Listening standards. I bought more crayons and glue because most of my students are burdened by poverty and didn’t bring in their supplies at the beginning of the year. I purchased poster boards so that my students could participate in the Red Ribbon Week poster contest where they were able to write for an audience, which is another CCSS standard. I could go on with this justification of where I spent the funds allotted to me on the EEF card, but I digress.

It is now February. The EEF card is empty. If I do not go purchase toothpicks and marshmallows, my students will be the only first graders in our building who do not get to participate in this hands-on activity. Because I am a good teacher, I know that this hands-on lesson is really the best way to teach the concept. I don’t know how I am going to do it.

You see, I have two young children, both still in diapers, of my own. My husband’s had to face a cutback in hours at work, but not enough for him to keep the kids and us to forgo the weekly day care payment. I am going to have to run to the store this afternoon. After paying bills this month, I have less than $25 left to get me to pay day. I could probably buy enough diapers with that. There wouldn’t be anything left over though. I guess I am going to have to either choose the diapers or choose the materials for my class. Well, I guess what I will really have to do is put it all on a nearly maxed out credit card. My own children can’t go without diapers, and if I don’t do this lesson with my class, I might get into trouble and receive a poor evaluation. I need to keep this job.

Fully funding education would not only make a huge impact on my classroom, but on my personal life and the lives of my own children as well. What kind of message are we sending to families in this state when we don’t fully fund our schools? That quality of life doesn’t matter? What kind of message are we sending to the rest of this country? That we are satisfied with this status quo?

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What about you? What is your story? Are you a public school educator in Mississippi with a unique perspective you would like to share? How does funding affect your students and your goals to educate them? First year teachers and veterans, administrators and support staff, writers and non-writers, celebrities and anonymous submissions alike, fresh perspective is what we're looking for! Let us know if you'd like to impact Mississippi education! 

CALL TO ACTION:

Email showandtellms@gmail.com for more information! 

Check out the guidelines for writing here.

Make your voice heard! 

Disclaimer: The blog entries shared here are individual works that do not necessarily represent the ideas and opinions of the Show and Tell administrators. 

Mississippi 2001 Teacher of the Year Renee Moore: Mississippi's Shame

Today we have an insightful analogy and a haunting image of the lengths to which teachers must go to get much needed resources. Take a moment to ponder the questions posed from Cleveland, MS.

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Imagine I need to renovate my house. After careful study, I know I need at least $50,000. I hire a highly qualified contractor, but I only give her $35,000 to do the project. Oh, but I still want all the features included in my $50,000 design. To make matters worse, I come back periodically during the project and add more requirements, but not more money. The professional insists I haven’t provided enough funds even to bring the project up to code, yet I accuse them of gouging. My project ends up unfinished, and I publicly rail about the contractor’s incompetence.

Mississippi’s schools find themselves in a similar scenario with our state leaders’ annual refusal to fully fund districts across the state—based on the formula the legislature itself put in place (Mississippi Adequate Education Program – MAEP). Tragically, we’re not talking about a fictitious project, but rather the very real lives and futures of Mississippi’s children.

Despite designing what is a relatively innovative (among states) and accurate way to determine school funding, the Mississippi legislature refuses to follow the law. MAEP has only been fully funded in two (non-consecutive election) years since its inception, even when there were sufficient state revenues to do so. Economists declare Mississippi now spends “less per student than before the [2008] recession” (MEPC). To compound the misery, as the Legislature continues to under-fund the schools, it distorts the MAEP formula to allow for even lower allotments, meaning schools, especially poor ones, never catch up with their minimum requirements.

What does this perennial, intentional neglect look like on the ground – especially in the schools serving the already poverty-entrenched Mississippi Delta?  It’s not pretty. It means our children have to do without many things students in other places take for granted. Things like school nurses on site, functioning computers, science labs, seats……and teachers. These deprivations at school compound what those students face at home. Consequently, we send those who most need encouragement and educational opportunity a doubly negative message.

God bless the poor parents trying to use candy and doughnut sales to help make up for the state-sanctioned shortfalls. Thank God for heroic teachers and administrators struggling to provide the best education possible under the circumstances, often purchasing out of their own pockets, or begging for teaching materials that should have come from their and our state taxes, or, as I and my co-workers did one fall, dumpster diving for textbooks.

But why should those who teach the most impoverished students have to do so much more than our counterparts just to get what the State of Mississippi itself acknowledges is the minimum we need to do the job? Can schools that were set-up to fail, truly be labeled “failing schools”? Ultimately, it is the children who pay for decades of cumulative neglect.

Where is our conscience? Where is our common sense? The least the Mississippi leadership can do for the least of these is fulfill its promise of minimal support.

Renee Moore is a National Board-certified teacher in the Mississippi Delta. In 2001, she was named State Teacher of the Year for Mississippi. She has served on the Teacher/Administrator Licensure Commission in Jackson for ten years, is a proud member of the Mississippi Association of Educators, serves on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Board of Directors, and was one of the original members of the Teacher Leader Network- now the Center for Teaching Quality Collaboratory. She blogs at TeachMoore. (We've purposefully linked to one particularly provoking post about Mississippi.)

Gussie Farris: Why 42 Matters to Coahoma County

Today we have a piece written by Gussie Farris of Coahoma County describing the importance of having the assurance of stable funding. 

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All of us have budgets, we try our best to plan and stay within them.  They are an unfortunate fact of life for all of us. We worry and sweat over our jobs, because without our jobs, we can’t pay our bills. We want a vacation, but we must plan and save to afford it. Plan, plan, plan; we need to know that we have a stable source of income and then plan accordingly.

A school district has a budget and we plan and plan to spend our money wisely. We try to make every penny count. We need to know that we have a stable source of income or a budget just won’t work. Every year we wait breathlessly to see our funding allocation. It is like going to the Casino and gambling on the Roulette wheel. Where will it stop, nobody knows!

That is no way to ensure a solid education in this state for all children. From year to year, it might be feast or famine; though it’s been famine for so long, I don’t think any of us remember what a feast looks like. Education in this state can only move ahead when we have a stable and consistent source of funding. Uncertainty is toxic for proactive planning. To be able to plan for the future, we need to know that we can take care of the present.

Our present funding mechanism is broken and it needs to be fixed. We need stability and certainty in our funding, so that we can plan for the future. I have no problem with strings attached to more money. I totally agree that too much money is spent on people not in the classroom. We don’t need more  non-licensed people on staff, so that we can employ the community. What we need is stable funding to hire more highly qualified teachers, to conduct more intense professional development, and to fund adequate technology in every classroom. I would love to see 42 passed and the money allocated to those three areas.  Then and only then, will we have a stable base to move our education system forward into the future.

What about you? What is your story? Are you a public school educator in Mississippi with a unique perspective you would like to share? How does funding affect your students and your goals to educate them? First year teachers and veterans, administrators and support staff, writers and non-writers, celebrities and anonymous submissions alike, fresh perspective is what we're looking for! Let us know if you'd like to impact Mississippi education! 

CALL TO ACTION:

Email showandtellms@gmail.com for more information! 

Check out the guidelines for writing here.

Make your voice heard! 

Disclaimer: The blog entries shared here are individual works that do not necessarily represent the ideas and opinions of the Show and Tell administrators. 

Anonymous: Science Resources Just a Dream in Mississippi

Today, we have a piece written by an anonymous middle-level science teacher in Mississippi that tells a haunting tale about how Mississippi students lack even the most basic science resources. 

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Teaching science concepts to youngsters is not easy.  What helps me though, is having a fully-equipped science lab to run experiments with my students. We finish our book studies in the “classroom” side, on paper-strewn desks. Then, we grab a clipboard and enter the adventurous hands-on zone. Armed with safety goggles and curious minds, we see science come to life!  With so much potential at my fingertips, I can’t help but to have high expectations for myself, and I start to eat, breathe, and sleep science education.  

That’s all just my dream. My students don’t actually get to learn that way. Money’s tight and other content areas get most of the focus in our state.  So instead, I unravel the mysteries of the universe from the confines of the smallest classroom on my hall. There’s barely enough room for the desks, much less tables for experimentation. There are no sinks or wash stations, so no incredibly exciting activities are allowed, and water has to be transported in from the bathrooms down the hall. We do our best.

So instead of dreaming big with my instruction, my teacher brain is always working on Plan B’s and make-do’s for my students: How can I give my kids real, engaging experiences without the resources? Some say the answer is technology. Where you can’t take your kids in the real world, take them online. And that’s true! Virtual labs are some great new resources for science teachers in which kids can basically watch videos and at least get a feel for what their counterparts in other states are experiencing.

Actually assigning a virtual lab on a regular basis?  Now- that’s difficult for me- I don’t have student computers that live in my room.  I have the option to sign up to use school-wide iPad carts and computer labs. However, as you can imagine, those are in high demand, especially now that state testing is done on computer.  I’ve also found many of the virtual labs and simulations don’t work on iPads anyway, because they run on Flash, which doesn’t work on Apple products. So usually, this is what we actually do: my classes and I watch virtual labs on a projector screen, as I walk them through the process on my work computer. They do their best to imagine what it’s like to do the experiments.

Of course, I could assign virtual labs for kids to do at home, but not all kids have access to the technology they need.  Also, this option requires students to complete their science labs without me present, which can defeat the entire point of learning in a helpful environment.  As our kids struggle to compete with students from other states, I feel like our mission for science education in Mississippi is not “Be the best,” but “Just do your best.” Without full funding, we teachers try to make do, but there’s no escaping the fact that inadequate resources are giving our kids a second-class science education. 

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What about you? What is your story? Are you a public school educator in Mississippi with a unique perspective you would like to share? How does funding affect your students and your goals to educate them? First year teachers and veterans, administrators and support staff, writers and non-writers, celebrities and anonymous submissions alike, fresh perspective is what we're looking for! Let us know if you'd like to impact Mississippi education! 

CALL TO ACTION:

Email showandtellms@gmail.com for more information! 

Check out the guidelines for writing here.

Make your voice heard! 

Disclaimer: The blog entries shared here are individual works that do not necessarily represent the ideas and opinions of the Show and Tell administrators. 

Guidelines for Writers

 Are you a public school educator in Mississippi with a unique perspective you would like to share? How does funding affect your students and your goals to educate them? First year teachers and veterans, administrators and support staff, writers and non-writers, celebrities and anonymous submissions alike, fresh perspective is what we're looking for! Let us know if you'd like to impact Mississippi education! 

Click the image above to open a PDF of the guidelines. 

Here is an example of a post with links. 

Shannon Eubanks: Why I Fight For Education Funding

Welcome to "Show and Tell," an inside view of Mississippi's schools. Here you will find vignettes, op-eds, and insider perspective pieces from Mississippi's own public education community. We invite you inside the walls of your schools to see firsthand accounts of your tax dollars at work. Come with us, make education whole with us- Go with us beyond budget numbers to see how school funding affects the lives of real kids in our dear old Magnolia State.

Today, we present perspective from Shannon Eubanks, principal of Enterprise Attendance Center in Brookhaven. His piece makes a perfect starting point in our conversation because he does such a great job of presenting the case for full funding for our schools, as well as debunking much of the misinformation being perpetrated by those who oppose it.

As Eubanks so succinctly puts it:

The argument about school funding and MAEP is simple: Do you support a chance at a quality education for all students and believe that the purpose of schools is to prepare students to take their place in our society and be a contributing member? Or do you believe in a dual system, for the haves and the have-nots, and that money is wasted trying to educate the poorest, highest minority, economically depressed areas of our state?

Here is Shannon Eubanks' article "Why I Fight for Education Funding," from the website of the Jackson Free Press.

"Why I Fight For Education Funding" 

What about you? Are you a public school educator in Mississippi with a unique perspective you would like to share? How does funding affect your students and your goals to educate them? First year teachers and veterans, administrators and support staff, writers and non-writers, celebrities and anonymous submissions alike, fresh perspective is what we're looking for! Let us know if you'd like to impact Mississippi education! 

CALL TO ACTION:

Email showandtellms@gmail.com for more information! 

Make your voice heard!