Notes from my old metal desk.
It has been two months since I accepted a position with one of Minneapolis' middle schools. During that time, I have played my role as librarian, technical repair, maintenance and troubleshooting, and taught my first class on media technology.
All-in-all, it's been good, but the obstacles and hurdles... Oy!
From what I have heard, this school's library and computer labs I run used to be staffed with five full-time people. Today, after four to five years of budget cuts, there are two: my assistant and myself. We are both, technically, part-time. In reality, however, we each put in a full-time effort. Although I am listed as a "point eight," which means thirty-two hours a week, I can't recall a week where I have worked less than forty. I am not complaining. My work is at a place where I can do good and I sleep well each night knowing that what I do will have benefits for our society somewhere down the road.
If I have any complaint, it is that my poor library and media center have been stuck in a time bubble. With year after year of budget cuts, we have lost our ability to keep our book stacks and magazine racks -- the latter is a meager selection at best, these days -- updated. Our computers are between three and five generations old; some are beginning to fail after years of intense use.
On my drive home, I flip through the radio dials and, all too frequently, wind up hearing some ignorant, bombastic blowhard railing against my school district in particular or against public schools in general. Of these mooks, our semi-homegrown resident right-winger Jason Lewis tends to raise my blood pressure the most. To him, I am a some kind of socialistic, lazy, inept, wheedler of his and Minnesota's tax dollars. Well, to address his concerns, I am most certainly not lazy (I think I've lost five pounds since I started this job), nor inept (heck, I feel like an army cook who can make Spam look and taste like it came out of the kitchen of a five-star restaurant). Hell, Minneapolis is getting one heck of a deal with me on their payroll; paying me for thirty-two hours when I easily put in forty to fifty each week. Technical assistance from the private sector runs anywhere between fifty and one-hundred and fifty dollars an hour. My school gets my know-how for a song in comparison.
(What's that? I didn't address the "socialistic" part? Well, you can figure it out for yourself.)
Now that I have settled into a general pattern of my varied and constantly shifting responsibilities... maybe "pattern" isn't the best term to describe things... I should be able to carve out a little time to put some life into my poor, little, comatose blog. Please hang in there, all three of my dear readers. Yowling should be yowling away soon.
Technorati Tags: education, minneapolis, minnesota
6 comment(s):
Yay! We've been missing you!
By Tild, at Friday, March 30, 2007 2:50:00 PM
If you are under paid, you should find a better job.
You know that teaching follows the rules of supply and demand; there are too many people willing to do what you do for the small number of positions that are available. Your pay is most likely higher than a free market would pay with this large of an over balance. You can than the NEA for overcharging Minnesotans for your job.
I'd suggest that you find a better paying job, but we all know that you won't as you like the perks of being a teacher way too much.
Also, please point to a year when Minnesota actually cut spending on education. There have been a never ending stream of increases, some bigger than others, but we have never actually cut the budget. If you worked in the real world, you'd understand what a real cut was.
By Tracy, at Sunday, April 01, 2007 10:46:00 AM
Tracy, teaching does not follow the laws of supply and demand - Gawd, save us from people with one or two poorly-taught one hundred level econ classes who think that's all there is! Teaching is a profession that reaches to the best in all of us. The "perks" are psychic, not monetary, if you can imagine such a thing.
Too bad you seem to have no interest in those more complex economic theories involving the complicated dynamics of analyzing why people do things that don't earn them cash. Now those are the interesting ones, the ones that look beyond dollars and examine real value.
Mr. Moses is a far richer man than the likes of those who simply acquire larger incomes, more property, greater wealth. It's very much a real world.
I do hope that your children have such good people teaching them.
Not that you'd notice, though. Pity.
By MNObserver, at Sunday, April 01, 2007 9:09:00 PM
Tracy,
"Nobody goes into teaching for the money." Every teacher knows this, yet does it anyway. Why? Because there are some things that are more important than making money.
Still, teachers need to pay their mortgages, fill their gas tanks, and feed their Fangs, Miros, and other critters or non-critters, too.
I used to work in the "real" world... around and about the commodities and stock-trading industries, no less. You know that that is about as knock-down, drag-out, cutthroat real world as it gets.
At least in teaching, I get to go home with my soul intact. (In contrast, I'll bet the managers of those sub-prime loan market industries are worrying about their own.)
Ciao.
By Moses, at Monday, April 02, 2007 6:41:00 PM
P.S. - Hi, Minnow! Thanks.
By Moses, at Monday, April 02, 2007 6:42:00 PM
Do not listen to Mnob…it’s *all* about the money.
You are simply not following the EdMN play book closely enough.
Take a hint from Saint Paul's mathematics teachers who last year herded a RECORD 68.98% of their 10th grade classes into the "did not meet basic requirements" (aka failed) category of the new and (EdMN) improved MCA II!
Now the union has the ammunition it needs to bilk, er, coax..I mean convince, the stakeholders that the district needs more than the half billion dollars (a measly $11,900 per student..pah) to make something (not necessarily an improvement in academic achievement of course, but “something”) happen.
And how is the Democrat party going to keep it’s ranks filled with high quality morons like Mnob and Tild if you and your ilk don’t keep up with the flood of kids (60%!) that are managing, somehow to graduate the public school(Inc.)?
If you are not more diligent in the dereliction of your duties you are going to find yourself swamped with well educated, well adjusted, successful people (aka Republicans).
So do indeed spend more time whining about your salary, slick. I mean what do people expect from you?
Teaching?
Bwahahahaaa that's a good one!
By Swiftee, at Tuesday, April 03, 2007 2:23:00 PM
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