Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

In “What It’s Like to be a Teacher in America”, Emma Goldberg’s reprinted article in today’s NYTimes, she profiles three teachers after an opening series of paragraphs that offers a broad historic sweep of public education and a short overview of how teachers are undervalued in our culture. Ms. Goldberg’s opening paragraphs include this quote:

“Our public education system is a massive hidden child care subsidy,” said Jon Shelton, a historian of the teaching work force at the University of Wisconsin.

The school’s function as a child care center is not news to anyone who ever worked in public education, and that unstated role is too often the source of complaints within faculty rooms— where teachers deride parents for their lack of commitment to supporting their efforts— and in budget forums— where taxpayers complain of the high costs for “failing schools” that “do no more than provide child care”.

As the profiles indicate, teachers do a LOT more than provide child care… and the services and succor they provide is increasingly apparent as the pandemic persists. Reading about the daunting challenges the children of these teachers face is heart wrenching… and its made all the more so because each of these teachers faces their own personal challenges. The members of the public who disparage teachers should read these to see that teachers work FAR beyond the hours they are in the classroom or on Zoom… and the notion that schools are glorified child care centers should die.