Former Public School Teacher

Non-renewed, forced out.

This means that you are made to feel so uncomfortable in your position that you look for another job and you are unable to even get an interview at another school in one of the 15 largest districts in the country. So you move to another district, lose the "tenure" and then are non-renewed due to budget cuts and mostly disagreement with teaching fuzzy math.

I taught at one of the states way down there on the list of funding. I think it's 49 or 50. I was doing fine until I had a daughter. Then I started looking at every kid like she was my own. I'm not proud of that fact, but at least I finally saw the light. That's when things started going wrong. It also coincided with Everyday Mathematics being adopted by the district. I saw gifted kids in the 6th grade who couldn't multiply and divide. Kids who should have been able to move up to algebra in the 7th grade. I had work to do. I had to re-teach them everything from 4th and 5th grade and do 6th and pre-algebra so they could be where they should be.

When I was anonymous at school I wasn't bothered, but I got so excited by the changes that I started talking about it. The beginning of the end was the first week of October 2006.

I wish that I had quit first instead of them "quitting" me. I am starting to realize that I don't want to work in the system anymore. My daughter does Kumon, because I want other teachers for her besides me. Her Kumon teacher is from India. We will begin ALOHA abacus training, another teacher from India, next month. I hope to begin teaching abacus in the near future.

I know that the emotion and frustration you are reading here are not very productive, but I have been dying inside for a long time.

Signed
Former Public School Teacher

This is an atrocity.