A teacher/mom wrote an open letter for her resignation.

[Slirith]

http://www.someecards.com/life/schoo...mpaign=partner

Teacher Wendy Bradshaw recently had her own kid, and it seems like holding a baby that might someday pass through America's educational system lit a fire under her ass to speak out about how terrible that system has become. Bradshaw worked in Florida's Polk County and specialized in younger children, infant through fifth grade. The strict standardization that higher grades have been subjected to for years has been making its way down, beginning to touch even pre-schoolers with test-based learning. This forces teachers into narrower and narrower teaching plans that aren't conducive to actual learning. After sending in her letter of resignation, Bradshaw posted it on Facebook where it has now been shared over 50,000 times.


The letter reads:

To: The School Board of Polk County, Florida
I love teaching. I love seeing my students’ eyes light up when they grasp a new concept and their bodies straighten with pride and satisfaction when they persevere and accomplish a personal goal. I love watching them practice being good citizens by working with their peers to puzzle out problems, negotiate roles, and share their experiences and understandings of the world. I wanted nothing more than to serve the students of this county, my home, by teaching students and preparing new teachers to teach students well. To this end, I obtained my undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees in the field of education. I spent countless hours after school and on weekends poring over research so that I would know and be able to implement the most appropriate and effective methods with my students and encourage their learning and positive attitudes towards learning. I spent countless hours in my classroom conferencing with families and other teachers, reviewing data I collected, and reflecting on my practice so that I could design and differentiate instruction that would best meet the needs of my students each year. I not only love teaching, I am excellent at it, even by the flawed metrics used up until this point. Every evaluation I received rated me as highly effective.

Like many other teachers across the nation, I have become more and more disturbed by the misguided reforms taking place which are robbing my students of a developmentally appropriate education. Developmentally appropriate practice is the bedrock upon which early childhood education best practices are based, and has decades of empirical support behind it. However, the new reforms not only disregard this research, they are actively forcing teachers to engage in practices which are not only ineffective but actively harmful to child development and the learning process. I am absolutely willing to back up these statements with literature from the research base, but I doubt it will be asked for. However, I must be honest. This letter is also deeply personal. I just cannot justify making students cry anymore. They cry with frustration as they are asked to attempt tasks well out of their zone of proximal development. They cry as their hands shake trying to use an antiquated computer mouse on a ten year old desktop computer which they have little experience with, as the computer lab is always closed for testing. Their shoulders slump with defeat as they are put in front of poorly written tests that they cannot read, but must attempt. Their eyes fill with tears as they hunt for letters they have only recently learned so that they can type in responses with little hands which are too small to span the keyboard.

The children don’t only cry. Some misbehave so that they will be the ‘bad kid’ not the ‘stupid kid’, or because their little bodies just can’t sit quietly anymore, or because they don’t know the social rules of school and there is no time to teach them. My master’s degree work focused on behavior disorders, so I can say with confidence that it is not the children who are disordered. The disorder is in the system which requires them to attempt curriculum and demonstrate behaviors far beyond what is appropriate for their age. The disorder is in the system which bars teachers from differentiating instruction meaningfully, which threatens disciplinary action if they decide their students need a five minute break from a difficult concept, or to extend a lesson which is exceptionally engaging. The disorder is in a system which has decided that students and teachers must be regimented to the minute and punished if they deviate. The disorder is in the system which values the scores on wildly inappropriate assessments more than teaching students in a meaningful and research based manner.

On June 8, 2015 my life changed when I gave birth to my daughter. I remember cradling her in the hospital bed on our first night together and thinking, “In five years you will be in kindergarten and will go to school with me.” That thought should have brought me joy, but instead it brought dread. I will not subject my child to this disordered system, and I can no longer in good conscience be a part of it myself. Please accept my resignation from Polk County Public Schools.

Best,
Wendy Bradshaw, Ph.D.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Ya, unfortunately she is 100 percent right.
Education in the USA has become more of a social experiment than an educational one.

I barely learned anything in High School, so much so that I really struggled in my first semester of undergrad, and then years later I still can't find a job because all those hours of research and education spent there were apparently useless! Good thing I spent 80k on that.

At this point, I learn more from curiously browsing the web than I did during my time in education, ESPECIALLY in high school and lower.

The only valuable lessons I gained from that education was the interactions with others. Without that, I would be even less equipped, so that is absolutely the main reason public education must continue.
One of few though.

[primalmatter]

Private or home school anything else is screwing your child's future.

Military high-schools are a good second choice if you can't afford the first two.

[Ripster42]

NCLB is abysmal even ignoring how they effect class disposition. In what world does withholding money from poorly performing schools make those schools better? Coupled with vouchers for private schools and it basically sets public schools up to fail. 2nd worst thing Bush did to this country.

It just creates incentive for things like the Atlanta Schools Scandal.

[Alefnir]

We live in a society that wants to make mechanized processes of everything for instant gratification, and all of our mindsets and habits, no matter how much we dislike what is happening, are a part of the problem. People want progress? This is progress right there above. This is the same mindset that demands the constant technological improvement that we all want and take advantage of.

[Bushtuckrman]

Wow America what is going on with your education system? It's in shambles.

[Socialhealer]

[url]
On June 8, 2015 my life changed when I gave birth to my daughter. I remember cradling her in the hospital bed on our first night together and thinking, “In five years you will be in kindergarten and will go to school with me.” That thought should have brought me joy, but instead it brought dread. I will not subject my child to this disordered system, and I can no longer in good conscience be a part of it myself. Please accept my resignation from Polk County Public Schools.

Best,
Wendy Bradshaw, Ph.D.

as a parent that is disgusting, to think school is so cruel to these children that she wouldn't dare put her own child through it and would give up her career, a bright one at that to give it up, and undoubtedly home school her daughter.

[Gen4Glock21]

Welcome to common core standards.

[Demona3]

Polk County FL is one of the worst school districts in the state. When I graduated from Haines City High School, they had a 50% dropout rate, granted, I graduated in 1995, but holy hell, I hated living in that area and the school was just beyond pure suck. I honestly couldn't wait to get the fuck up out of Polk County. Once I graduated, I left for the Army and never looked back.

I wanted to add a bit more, so edited beyond this point. Sorry, it's a bit long winded, and I could seriously write a book about it. I'm sorry, but I felt like I should give a few reasons why I stated that Polk County is one of the worst school districts in the state.

I was forced to live in Polk County with my sister after my parents had died. I went from living in a nice house (4bdrm, 2bath), to a run down trailer in Davenport FL. I was 13 when my parents died. The school I was attending at the time was Neptune Middle School, which is close to St. Cloud, FL. I was living in Kissimmee, FL at the time. The school was brand new, only 3 years old when I lost my parents. I was in 8th grade at the time. At that particular time, it was the end of the school year and we 8th graders had a ceremony planned for us as we were "graduating" into high school. The school was above average at the time with the curriculum, teachers, and equipment (computers, field equipment, etc), most likely because the school was new. Then it happened, my parents were taken suddenly from me, and it was decided I needed to live with my sister, who was married and had a daughter of her own.

So off I went.. Davenport, FL. I had to finish out the rest of the school year at the middle school there, to which, was such a horrible experience, I can't even remember the name of the school. The teachers seemed uncaring. No ceremony planned for the 8th grade students leaving. The school was run down, the equipment in horrible condition. The school hallways.. I remember them being open, but with a chain link fence on one side, to keep you from walking on the grass. My first day there, my backpack got stolen from the lunchroom. I reported it to the office to which the reply was "well, perhaps you should always keep your things with you at all times, or padlock your locker". I didn't even have a locker, it was my first day! So this suggested to me that things got stolen frequently....

I spent a whopping 3 weeks there, as it was the end of the school year. During those 3 weeks, I witnessed students fighting each other (and sometimes the teachers too!) with teachers just standing there watching. 1 teacher made a move to stop it, but thought otherwise, police were called. Police were always called to this school. I saw several students arrested. Liquor removed from backpacks, etc.

Finally, the school year ended and I thought.. well, hopefully high school will be better. Yea, I thought wrong. The next 4 years were pure hell. It felt the same, there were a few teachers that actually cared, but they were few and far between. I remember I tried to get into the after school police program, but got denied because other students "voted me not worthy". It was a "cool kids" club and I guess I wasn't cool enough. Like seriously its a fucking after school police academy club program for students to further their education by means of learning law, how the fuck do I get voted to not get in?? And then told by the cops who run the fucking program that the other kids didn't like me, so I didn't get voted in? I still think about it from time to time and just come to the conclusion that the entire school and the programs were just beyond fucked up. Any student that wants to join a club and seeks out an after school club should be able to join it, no questions asked. I never made any problems, I never fought with anyone, I just couldn't figure out why I got rejected.

I could go on and on about that County School district. This woman, I have no ill will against her, nor do I blame her for quitting. The school district is not properly funded, they run off the common core, and they are just down right... in a word, pathetic. If they shut me down from joining an after school program, I can't possibly imagine how they are treating the kids today.

[Axphism]

Pretty shocking stuff. It's too bad the people in charge let it get so bad there.

[Ripster42]

Pretty shocking stuff. It's too bad the people in charge let it get so bad there.

Any poorly performing, or middling school only gets worse under our current system.

[Frostweaver]

Interesting story indeed. I feel lucky that our schooling system in EU is so diverse and still basic education gives you more then enough information about world and everything else you would need to move forward with your life.

[PosPosPos]

Just send your kids to Singapore or Hongkong if you can afford it.

[breadisfunny]

Just send your kids to Singapore or Hongkong if you can afford it.

.......most people that can do that aren't in this position are they now?

[Dragon Claws]

Can confirm on the garbage tier education system. I graduated back in '05 and before then, I was shoved into Special Education with a few others who just couldn't "keep up" in the overall scheme of things.

Teachers just couldn't work with me or do much else. It was always "rush rush rush!" and at the end of the day, everyone suffered for it. I remember one student asking why were we rushing and going through everything so quickly. Our math teacher said in a tone that still to this day makes me shake my head.

"We want more funding."

And the few people, like myself, who weren't able to keep up were put into Special Education which was a trailer in the back parking lot that only teachers parked and students had little reason to go back there. Basically out of sight, out of mind. The classes themselves were just basic stuff. Easy stuff. Middle School stuff that anyone in Highschool could go over with little to no thought put into it. With all the kids like me rounded into a class room in the back, our test scores didn't overall matter in the school average. Sure they got their funding, but at the cost of a few kids and their education.

I spent most of my time playing my Gamecube since I was allowed to bring it. I was either sleeping or playing my Gamecube. We weren't motivated to better ourselves or much else. The teacher in question didn't really care and spent most of her time drinking coffee and reading 'Chicken Soup for the Soul'. I was playing Metroid Prime (or Smash) while people within 50 yards were learning. You couldn't get out of Special Education. From 10th to 12th grade I did the same schoolwork as the year before. Outside of that, it was also gym, Drivers Ed, and A/V.

After all was said and done, and I knew I was going to graduate, I went to the counselor and just poured my heart out over all the mess that happened in Highschool, what I did, what happened, and the whole mess about Special Education and shoving all the folks like me into it. She was aware of what was happening and was lobbying behind closed doors and wanting to use SPLOST (A Georgia tax involving using local sales tax as capital to fund projects) to help students, and even went so far as to bring it up to town hall meetings about how the education system was souring where I was going, and where I lived. She got fired the year after I graduated and the only reason I found out was because my Aunt, who is the secretary in that office, told me.

I essentially got my diploma for nothing. I didn't earn it, I didn't work for it, and by the end of the ceremony, I was disgusted with it.

My sister graduated two years later from the same school and I asked if they ever improved the teaching there. She shoke her head. I have a few cousins going through the school system and they're always talking about how they're being rushed, or pushed into learning things faster. Two of my cousins graduated two years ago and I told them everything I went through and they both said, "Wow that happened to us too."

So it's still happening and nothing has changed.

"No Child Left Behind", indeed.

[Oktoberfest]

What that teacher just said was " I am going to Homeschool my kid and get her away from the creepy out of control Big Brother lunatic Bureaucracy of the Progressive Left"

[ItachiZaku]

In other words, teachers and students are shit compared to Japan and other parts of the world? Not sure what the story is here...

[GennGreymane]

Wow, the kids are literally crying over typing? Yeah I feel this letter is a bit exaggerated.

[haxartus]

In other words, teachers and students are shit compared to Japan and other parts of the world? Not sure what the story is here...

It's a cultural issue, you just don't value education.

[Demona3]

Wow, the kids are literally crying over typing? Yeah I feel this letter is a bit exaggerated.

I invite you to go up and read my comment as well as Dragon Claws's comment. This isn't exaggerated at all, I can assure you I know this for a fact because I was a part of that school district. It's amazing the amount of funding difference between this area and Osceola County / Orange County areas.