Power to the Teachers

To the casual person, it might seem redundant, Teachers have plenty of power, they can do whatever they want, Right? Wrong. Teachers have as much power as us students, if not less. The administration at my local high school has an untapped supply of power that I thank the higher powers they don’t know how to use it. At this school, the classes aren’t for learning; they are for reviewing the same material over and over again for 175 days in order to for the students to take a five hour test. Amazingly, the scores are the lowest in the district.

So what is administration’s motive? The oldest one in the book, cold hard cash. The more students that pass, the more money the school gets, the more money the school gets, the more they can put into their own pockets. Although I’m not saying all the money goes to administration, some goes to educational programs, but which ones?

All the money, aid, and grants go to the higher, AP/IB students. Basically it’s a case of the richer get richer. I have nothing against those advanced classes, just the way administration treats them. The AP classes have very few students, so it’s easier for administration to micromanage them and to use them as the face of the school, while there are students who are truly struggling, and don’t get any help because all the education money is going to the AP students. Tutoring at my school isn’t really tutoring, 95% of the tutoring classes are students who ditched too much and have to do hours of tutoring in order to get credit for the classes, 4% go to finish their homework because they, for some reason, can’t at home, and 1% actually needs help from the teachers, but the teachers are more occupied in making sure the majority of the class doesn’t sneak off, text, or do anything remotely fun for the hour and a half.

These students really need the money, the AP students have enough, and if administration keeps spoiling them, the AP students will soon lose the challenge and the motivation to learn. But what can anyone do about it? The struggling students have parents that don’t care, and definitely would not get involved. Those students who have parents that get involved in school matter are AP students, so the few parents are inclined to supporting the expansion of AP. The only people who have power in the system are the parents, because who is paying the salaries? To Administration, Parents are not people; they are tax dollars with will. And if something upsets the parents, they switch schools, and the tax dollars go to a different school district. But the majority of parents are apathetic, and do not want to reform the curriculum.