Valley Chronicle Commentary

My following commentary was printed in the Valley Chronicle. April 1, 2011 Recently, there has been much disagreement over whether or not a verbal agreement was made between the Hemet Unified School District and Hemet Teachers Association over how many teacher layoff notices would be issued in any given year. HTA claims they were assured no more than thirteen teachers would be let go while the district claims no such promise was made. Consequently, much anger has been expressed by HTA members, to which I am one, over the recent issuing of 86 RIF notices as well as who received them. The problem is not whether or not a promise was made and subsequently broken, but rather what happens to our children now that the notices have gone out? If this district loses 86 teachers before the start of the next school year, we can expect the following to happen. First; we will see larger class sizes. Data can be skewed to show anything but 27 years of teaching tells me when you increase class sizes, learning decreases. It’s basic math. There simply becomes less time for teachers to work with students who struggle with a subject. Why would our school district choose this route at a time when our children are expected to master concepts never expected of our decision makers, especially when they have not eliminated all non essential programs? Second; we will see a continued drop off in teacher and student morale. Kids are already burning out at an earlier age thanks to the inhumane pressure we place on them. While this is happening, teachers are burdened to no end to improve test scores by administrators who fear the loss of their own job should they fail to reach district expectations. Next, our children will become unhealthier than ever. This will happen because the district will again rely on increasing PE classes to try and keep down the numbers in Math and Language Arts because those classes mater in the state’s eyes. While we expect more from our kids academically, we fail to hold them accountable for their increasingly poor fitness scores. But then, what do you expect to happen when PE classes often have more than 70 students in them? Student health will continue to decline as our school district removes Behavior Health classes from the high school curriculum. Who needs a class that helps curb teen suicide, pregnancy, STDs, and violence? As long as the kids score well on their state exams, nothing else matters. Our students will also be more ignorant of the world they live in thanks again to a district that has removed Geography from the high school curriculum. Our young men and women do not need to know what’s going on in a world that suffers from war, famine, radiation fall out, or global warming because they will have mastered the art of taking standardized tests. We do not live in a standardized world and can no longer afford to fool ourselves into thinking we can cut back on teaching and improve learning at the same time. The Hemet Unified School District needs to pass a resolution to never layoff one teacher or eliminate any course before they can show they have eliminated all nonessential and extra curricular programs. It’s time they put education first and eliminate the real waste.