The Time of Your Life

I went to the National Mall today. Bright and early this morning, actually. I saw Michelle Obama give the commencement speech at the George Washington University graduation ceremony. When I graduated, our pompous, retiring university president declared himself to be the commencement speaker. Pissing off an entire class of alums was a brilliant last act. Our consolation prize was that Wolf Blitzer received an honorary degree and also made a speech. I guess that is all $200,000 gets you these days.

Doctor Obama (she received a Doctorate of Public Service) gave an expectantly eloquent and entertaining speech this morning. At least 80% of my reason for standing to applaud was in gratitude for her presence. The other 20% may have been to do with the heat and my desire to catch a cool breeze.

My friend who graduated today began her time at GW three years after I started. I think I had a lot to do with her choosing the school, yet we each had wildly different experiences. I hated my college experience. I hated the type of students (and families) my school attracted. I hated that I felt like a customer of a business rather than a student at an institution of higher education. I spent as much time off campus as possible and after some unsuccessful early efforts, I got involved as little as possible. In contrast, my friend loved her time at this school. She got involved, stayed on campus a year longer than I did, joined a sorority, made lots of friends, studied abroad.

I felt a little sad today.

I didn't go to prom in high school. At the time I was pretty okay with it. Most of the time I am still pretty okay with it. I hate being told that I missed out. That it was some major life event that I failed to experience. It creates a tug on my heart and my memories that I don't naturally have. This is how I felt today. I hate being told that college is supposed to be the best four years of your life. Why does it have to be? That almost seems counter-intuitive that so many seemingly happy people look at their life and consider the peaks to be back at senior prom and the four years they spent in college. I like living my life looking forward. I had a wonderful childhood, and I do have many good memories from my college years, but I still hope that my best years are ahead of me. Otherwise, what is the point?

United We Stand

I am not in a union. Nor am I in a career field that would ever need to unionize. I have seriously considered becoming a teacher at some point in my life, but until then I stand on the outside. My parents come from opposite perspectives. As a nurse in a large city hospital, my mother has been a union member for over 30 years. My father spent much of his life in management for the MBTA, regularly frustrated by the perceived cushy jobs and protections of his unionized employees.

In my life (which is really still in the upswing, so I can't claim to have it all figured out) my opinion has swayed both ways. I have been frustrated by teacher unions preventing needed changes to this country's educational system and I have been frustrated by management cabals that focus entirely on their profit margins instead of the employees that keep them in business.

There was recently an article in the New York Times that talked about the union policy of laying off the most recently hired teachers first. Due to financial mismanagement, up to 8,500 teachers will soon be laid off in New York City Schools. The idea of 8,500 of the freshest minds with the longest teaching careers ahead of them losing jobs, while so many average teachers are protected, upsets me. I think I have said it before, but I am entirely unimpressed with the education I received from K-12 in public schools, as well as, the four years  I spent at a very expensive private college. I was rarely inspired. I had far more average to awful teachers than excellent ones. So it seems quite unfair that seniority would be the sole determination of whether a teacher gets laid off and even worse that it is used to prevent  the replacement of truly ineffective teachers. I think job performance should matter. A lot.

With all that said, I believe that seniority is something earned and something that should be rewarded. The people most likely to disagree with that statement, of course, are employers. I think there are several industries in which seniority is a particularly important career benefit.  I mean this specifically for occupations that don't have a set career ladder to climb (assistant -> junior associate -> senior partner -> CEO). In jobs like that, your salary increases with your rank. In other fields, such as teaching or nursing, you are not receiving regular promotions, only raises.

Of all those who go into the field of education as a teacher, 90% will retire as a teacher. Of all those who are hired as young nurses, 90% will retire as nurses. Relatively few people start in these positions with the intention of moving  into educational or healthcare administration and this is a good thing. We need more teachers and nurses than we need principals and nurse managers. What this kind of career creates is a group of people who are all doing essentially the same job but are receiving vastly different salaries based on their years of service.  (Yes, many people get the requisite raise without doing the work to earn it, but that is a different problem and a different post.)

My problem with a system that does not allow for seniority benefits for those whom have dedicated their lives to a job is that when management needs to make staff cuts, it's most effective to cut those making the most money. Fire one senior teacher and you save the same amount of money as firing two junior teachers. Financially it makes sense, but basic social justice says people shouldn't have to worry about losing their jobs for making money that they have fairly earned.

Although my expectations are low, I hope that the teacher's union in NYC can negotiate to remove the "rubber rooms" and ridiculous policies that create these situations and find a way to combine seniority benefits with performance benefits so that students and upstanding employees will be served first.

Everything I Learned in High School Could be Learned in Three Years

After reading this article in The New York Times, and pondering my own high school experience, I am convinced that one of the best  and quickest ways to reform this country's educational system would be to reevaluate "high school" as we know it.  While I would never advocate putting children in "career tracks" or in any way limiting their preparation for all future opportunities, I believe that providing a choice beyond "personal finance or computer programming" can benefit all students. Whether students have the intellect, tenacity and financial support to leave high school a year early, or choose to complete all four years for academic or social reasons, everyone can benefit from a change to the system that allows this choice. This panel of experts came up with a much more comprehensive list of the pros and cons for this change than I will, but I am going to list my reasons anyway:

1. Everything I learned in high school could be learned in three years.
2. If I had left after three years, every senior year class would have been less crowded by one student--giving those who stayed more attention.
3. Young adults who are ready for responsibility could take advantage of the opportunity, and those who need more time learning or maturing would have less crowded classrooms to achieve that growth.
4. I could have traveled, joined AmeriCorps, held an internship or begun college early.
5. I could have held a full-time job that year and paid for much of my college education myself. No loans.
6. Because of NCLB, students are already being tested in 10th grade. No additional testing would need to be developed or implemented. 
7. Instead of spending money trying to keep kids in school for all four years, funding could be provided for vocational and career training programs to be taken during that "4th year" of school.