<p>On the whole I think we all value the education and experience of the professionals that we interact with while raising our children.</p>
<p>But unlike my mothers generation when the child manuals were Dr Spock who found it pretty lonely on the child development shelf, by the time I had my first there were whole bookstores ( And in Ballard!) devoted to parenting advice.
Also unlike my mothers generation we are pretty involved with our kids daily lives right through graduation from college, so it isn’t unusual to expect people on a college opinion/reference website, to have closely held opinions depending on their own families experience with those professionals that have crossed our path.</p>
<p>Since most people have some experience in the public education system, either as a student or as the parent of one, thats what we keep coming back to in discussion.</p>
<p>Quality of other public servants work ( except for politicians) 
isn’t as heated because how often are we going to have need for the services of a firefighter , or a police officer? We have opinions about social workers and DSHS in general, but teachers are still the workers we have the most contact with.</p>
<p>Articles like this show me that districts vary all over the country- and in Texas even more than most places
[Teachers</a> say HISD paperwork prevents real work | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle](<a href=“http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5293312.html]Teachers”>http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5293312.html)</p>
<p>Some of the teachers in my daughters previous school, didn’t have a written lesson plan for the year, let alone for every week. (which was tragic when a teacher was on leave for months at a time)Principals dont turn in their budgets on time making the entire district late to submit requests to the state ( and costing them grant money)</p>
<p>Principals can have much to do with attitude at the school, not only with students, but with teachers. IF there is high principal turnover &/or if the principal doesn’t show leadership, the climate is not fun for either teachers or parents.
In my daughters former school, I did know several very strong teachers who behaved professionally, and were interested in furthering their profession. Unfortunately, for the most part, my D didn’t actually * have* those teachers in the classroom.
Some are no longer there, and some are no longer even in the district.</p>
<p>I can acknowledge that some teachers deserve more respect, more pay and more support. Certainly, her current school is weighted as far as I can tell, with some very strong hardworking professionals who do a difficult job.</p>
<p>But… the experience I had in her previous school, where I quit my job so that I could spend that time in the building during school hours as a volunteer in the classrooms, and after school hours as part of the Parent Group that organized and ran special programs, left a really bad taste in my mouth.</p>
<p>When I heard teachers talk about their summer trips ( some traveled extensively every year & no it wasn’t on their spouses dime, they were all divorced with teen age kids), I was envious because we are lucky if we get to go car camping locally ( This summer we didn’t)</p>
<p>When I hear from teachers, that parents aren’t doing enough, that we need to get our employers to underwrite their pet projects, when some of the projects involve things like all new video cameras and newer computers, when the ones that they have in the building, are a heck of a lot newer than anything the parents have at home, it makes me wonder what their reality is, that they think that parents who make $10-$20 an hour( without medical ins.) are going to have a lot of impetus to get the teachers their wish list, especially without a detailed plan as to what they are doing to do with it.</p>
<p>The focus can really be shifted away from the kids, and I beleive that every decision in a building or district needs to reflect how it will affect the students.</p>