"Our schools cannot do better than our culture allows them to do."

Jay Bookman writes Georgians will be left behind until education valued.

I find myself sitting and waiting for my students to stop talking about nonsense so that I can teach. They don't stop. I wonder how many I will be forced to fail. Way more than I "should" and yet, as many as I have to. This means some will not graduate. Do they really need to when they are unable and unwilling to conform to societal norms for an hour and try to learn something?

I have kids tell me to stop interrupting them. That they are working while they blather on. Can't possibly. They haven't learned how to do the work.

They disparage the teacher they had last year. They will disparage me next year.

I cannot move on to higher level work when they cannot comprehend why their grade would drop when their last test grade was a 40. Let's see, when did we teach averaging?

I am discouraged.

And then I have HighMaintenance ask me if I understand statistics. Better than my students ever will.....