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A Texas Teacher's Cry for Help

Ohanian Comment: I get similar cries for help from teachers across the country. They are desperate and they are frightened. They ask for anonymity because they fear for their jobs. We have become a country where teachers think they can't speak up.

I teach ESL at a large, suburban high school in Texas. My students in regular English class used to read 15 novels. Now they read two novels. We spend over 6 weeks testing. We just gave our first TAKS benchmark test. We will give 2 more this year. My ESL students took the benchmark, even though some of them have not
yet learned the alphabet in English.

I am supposed to meet with every one of my 10th grade, regular English students and tell them which question they missed on the benchmark and find out what I can do to help them not miss that type of question in the future. I think reading Captain Underpants would be more productive.

I wish someone could help me get out of here. I love teaching, kids, learning, working with students but I did not take this job to do micro administration of each test question.

The system is irrevocably broken and we can't fix it. Our schools have become the new Tower of Babel, with every parent wanting an individual program for their precious sweetie. We cannot teach 30 students in a class and expect all students to get the attention that they need. Our prisons would not be overcrowded, if our classrooms were not.


— anonymous Texas teacher

2003-10-


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