Submitted by LARRY RETZACK (not verified) on March 13, 2008 - 09:14.
As a 34-year veteran educator, I'm unsure if teaching is 10 times more difficult than administering, but it's no longer the fun it once was. When I was a first year teacher @ Corcoran High about 1965, California's Education Code was maybe an inch thick and fairly static. Now it's what? 6" think and growing? As if that didn't make things difficult enough, ever since Jarvis's Prop. 13, this state has provided education on the cheap and it shows. After being a teacher-librarian in Japan for 31 years, I returned to the States and subbed here for a couple years before landing a fulltime job. I was non-plussed to learn that all the temporary classrooms weren't due to poor planning but rather to traditional policies to plan for such when considering new school construction. Sounds like more of the death of common sense.
Schwarzenegger may be a terrific physical specimen and a superior action movie star, but like most actors turned politicos, he's sure not my choice for a leader. At the conclusion of my contract next summer, I'm permanently returning to my Midwest roots in Wis. and with the draconian educational budget cuts putting more jobs on the line, I think it's a good time to exit. Like neighbor Arizona, it's clear that California is in a fiscal race to the bottom. How sad.
Teacher or Administrator
Submitted by LARRY RETZACK (not verified) on March 13, 2008 - 09:14.
As a 34-year veteran educator, I'm unsure if teaching is 10 times more difficult than administering, but it's no longer the fun it once was. When I was a first year teacher @ Corcoran High about 1965, California's Education Code was maybe an inch thick and fairly static. Now it's what? 6" think and growing? As if that didn't make things difficult enough, ever since Jarvis's Prop. 13, this state has provided education on the cheap and it shows. After being a teacher-librarian in Japan for 31 years, I returned to the States and subbed here for a couple years before landing a fulltime job. I was non-plussed to learn that all the temporary classrooms weren't due to poor planning but rather to traditional policies to plan for such when considering new school construction. Sounds like more of the death of common sense.
Schwarzenegger may be a terrific physical specimen and a superior action movie star, but like most actors turned politicos, he's sure not my choice for a leader. At the conclusion of my contract next summer, I'm permanently returning to my Midwest roots in Wis. and with the draconian educational budget cuts putting more jobs on the line, I think it's a good time to exit. Like neighbor Arizona, it's clear that California is in a fiscal race to the bottom. How sad.