Today marks another significant change in my lifetime. This Tuesday evening I got the call from the Baltimore County Superintendent of schools. Well yes it was a call and a recording and it was for my daughter, but none the less it was the mark of yet another school year for my daughter who teaches in that system. Her 5th by the way. But this year is different. For she got married this summer and isn’t here to hear his words. Nor is she here for me to see the new outfit she got for the first day of school. Nor is she here to give a big hug and kiss to and wish her well.

But I digress, this is about teachers, who people always make a fuss over in a number of ways. I wish people had the ability to look at it from both the parents and teachers perspective. I’ve learned allot from listening to her stories. I’m looking back at how we interacted with teachers for our own children. We got better as they progressed but in the beginning I think we probably hovered a bit more than we should have.

In thinking about teachers and the work they do, its beyond me how we got to this point. But I can see it because both sides are so strong. What I mean by getting to this point is that I think that the gap between teachers and the public has grown to an unhealthy state. Parents are concerned about bad teachers. Yes I’m sure there are a few. Maybe more than a few. But I can attest to the fact that a great majority are wonderful people who most should consider blessed to have in front of their children every day. Then you have the teachers unions which really protect the teachers but also protect the bad ones.

So how do we get this done. We can’t have the general public picking our teachers and police and fire people at will. There isn’t any job consistency in that life. I think the system is more than capable of policing itself if it was allowed to. I think some general change of standards, based on the kids performance can be really unfair to disadvantaged areas where teachers are not only have less tools, they have more problems outside the school that the kids are dealing with that sometimes make school seem like small change. To me those teachers have to be graded on some kind of curve but there still needs to be accountability on every level and area. But not taking social inequity into account could damage those areas even more.

All I do know is that education is very important. We have and continue to fall further behind other nations in education. It’s not our teachers faults. Its our systems faults and if we don’t correct it soon we will not be the strongest nation in the world. Because knowledge is the true power. Its something we used to know and pride ourselves on. Now we can’t get our asses off of Facebook and Twitter and other mindless games and crap.

So lets all help and step up and make this a discussion and point that this country turns around quickly. Keep in mind, while Howard County has one of the best school systems in the country, we are bordered by some week ones also. Those are our neighbors. Were in the State of Maryland where we all need to be strong. Lets think about how we can share the wealth.