Transparency in School Districts

When thinking back to my days growing up in the Newark School District, I remember the overhead projectors some of our teachers would use in class.  Teachers who used the colored markers on the plastic sheets versus the teachers who were still on the chalkboard and eraser deal.

Then I wondered about the white board teachers and compared them to the teachers that would show us videos that seemed as prehistoric as the subjects they were made to convey to us, contrasted with the powerpoint presentations by some of our technologically savvy teachers.  Though some of these avenues were outdated or advanced respectively, they were only half of our path to an education, because there was nothing a good lecture couldn't teach us.

Though every teacher has a different method, their ultimate goal is the same: To try to transfer the knowledge they possess to us, by any means available to them by the powers that be.  

As we get older we get to put names and faces to these powers, till one day, we find out who our principals' bosses are, and who they report to, and so on and so forth.  At the same time there's the board, there are the parent-teacher relationships, and there are parents who are extremely active with the ASB and different groups and organizations on school campuses.

When I see the teachers protesting, I know that they aren't the ones getting paid six-figure incomes to actually educate us, or the six-figure army who manage those who are educating us.

I remember the teachers who would actually spend out of their own pockets to make sure we would have not just the bare minimum 7 or 8 crayons, but the huge box with every color you could imagine and then some.  

The teachers who would go out of their way to make sure we went on awesome field trips, my fifth grade teacher at Schilling, Ms. Chang who taught us the importance of recycling, planting plants and trees, to maintain and take care of the world was quite literally ours,  made sure to teach us it was our responsibility to keep the world as green as possible.

How do teachers like these get evaluated?  I doubt that they get the recognition they deserve, and are about as quiet of any of my friends involved in the Pre-IB and IB programs, who worked ridiculously hard to adhere to a higher standard just to have it fall apart in front of us before we graduated. The teachers and counselors who made it their personal goal to make sure we as students were not only educated, but also happy and were rewarded by a Sun Microsystems computer system, a new wing, and a new gym, new computer labs, all the while we are still handing out pink slips left and right.

All this while decisions are being made by six figure armies behind closed doors in offices, forcing parents and teachers to do the same in peoples houses, except the teachers are out protesting in the open.  Who is really in control, and where is the transparency?