<p>[RI</a> Teacher Says"I Quit!" - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBSgchJe2Z0]RI”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBSgchJe2Z0)</p>
<p>Gone, Gone, Gone. Watch the video and you’ll understand.</p>
<p>And this, my friends, is what is wrong with education in America! What a tremendous loss for this teacher’s students and colleagues.</p>
<p>Sounds like the loss of a good teacher. I see aspects of this at our school every day. We need to free teachers up to teach.</p>
<p>My friends & family members who are teachers are mostly counting the days until they can retire. All the federal regulations have hamstrung them so they are not allowed to teach as they’d like and held to impossible standards. The No Child Left Behind law has raised the bar so that nearly all schools in our state are failing–it does not take into account people whose first language is NOT English (at some elementary schools there are 50 primary languages spoken–NOT English). It also expects special ed kids to make the same progress as all the regular ed kids, which just is not happening. So many wonderful teachers are getting badly burned out by “the system.”</p>
<p>Oh so sad for our students.</p>
<p>One could wish for more teachers like this proud man.</p>
<p>You all know what I’d say. So I won’t. ;)</p>
<p>Very sad experience for this man, but honestly not all school districts function like this. I have 27 years of public elementary school experience and currently teach 3rd grade in a large school district in Northern California. While I am expected to teach our state standards, I am given the freedom to plan an active and engaging curriculum largely the way I see fit. Our kids still eat breakfast in the cafeteria before school starts. We have a 10 minute recess every morning, a forty minute lunch and recess break and one more 15 minute recess every afternoon. We have PE equipment, we have assemblies to view class plays and our student band. We have an art docent program and an after school running club. Our test scores are above average for the state, but we are allowed to make time for art, music, pep rallies, field trips, and all of the other activities that make for school memories. I guess the real question might be why are kids in America at the mercy of local school boards? Do school boards really know much about the business of teaching and learning or are they people looking for a politically expedient way to sell a message to their constituents? All I know is that not all teachers work under these conditions. I consider myself lucky.</p>
<p>I wonder what Rafe Esquith would have to say.</p>
<p>Thank you for posting this link. What a sobering reminder of what some face in the public school classroom.</p>
<p>Wow, great food for thought. </p>
<p>I would love to observe HIS classroom.</p>
<p>I worry about a future world run by people who were relegated to classrooms like this. All critical thinking gone. gone. gone.</p>
<p>sad…sad…sad…</p>