What The State Of Education Looks Like For Teachers And Parents Right Now
Last Tuesday, I sat at my kitchen table grading 4th grade writing samples at one end, my 12-year-old son Leo slouched at the other replaying his middle school math lecture. A crumb of chocolate chip cookie was stuck to my lesson plan book, his soccer cleats were propped against the leg of the table, and the dishwasher hummed in the background. When he finished the recording, he slammed his laptop shut. “She spent the whole 40 minutes yelling at people for not turning in last week’s project,” he said. “I still don’t get how to do the slope problems I asked about last week. When is she going to actually teach that?”
My phone buzzed a second later. It was a mom from my class, texting to ask if I could resend the link to the permission slip for our spring field trip. She had 14 unread emails from the school district in her inbox, she said, and couldn’t find it among the reminders about lunch fees, fundraisers, and the new attendance policy. I sent it, then leaned back in my chair. I’ve been teaching 4th grade for 11 years, and I’m also a parent, so I get this tension better than most. This is what the state of education feels like right now: a lot of chasing, not enough connecting.
When I started teaching, I spent most of my time planning lessons, talking to kids about what they were interested in, and conferencing one-on-one about reading and writing. Now, I’d guess I spend close to 40% of my work week on tasks that have nothing to do with kids or learning. I update spreadsheets for compliance, fill out forms for every student who misses more than three days of school, answer dozens of non-urgent emails a day, and spend weeks every spring prepping kids for standardized tests that don’t tell me anything I don’t already know about my students. Last month, I had a student miss 12 days of school because his mom couldn’t get a Medicaid appointment for his tooth infection until mid-month. He’s now three reading levels behind where the district says he should be, and my annual evaluation will note that I didn’t get him caught up fast enough. It’s hard not to feel like the system is set up to check boxes, not help kids.
But it’s not all bad, and it’s not helpful to just complain. I’ve made small changes in my classroom over the last three years that have freed up more time for actual learning, and I’ve seen similar small shifts work for other parents and teachers I know. Two years ago, I burnt out bad. I was staying until 7pm every night just catching up on paperwork, and I went a whole month without doing the read aloud time my kids loved because I couldn’t spare 20 minutes a day. So I made three concrete changes that didn’t require any approval from the district, and they made a huge difference.
First, I stopped checking email between the start of school and the end of the school day, and I don’t answer non-emergency emails on weekends. I put this right in my welcome letter at the start of the year: if your kid is sick or hurt, call the office, any other question will get an answer by the end of the next school day. Ninety-nine percent of parents are fine with this, and it’s cut my after-work email time by more than half. Second, I cut all unnecessary homework. No worksheets, no mandatory reading logs that parents have to sign. I tell kids they just need to spend 20 minutes a day reading anything they want – comic books, Minecraft strategy guides, sports blogs, it all counts. If they forget, I don’t mark it down in the grade book, I just ask them what they read last night when I see them. The number of kids who actually read every week went up 30% in the first year, and I got a dozen notes from parents saying they don’t fight about homework anymore. Third, I ask for specific help instead of generic volunteer requests. Instead of putting out a call for classroom volunteers, I’ll send a text to the class parent list: “I need three people to cut out construction paper for art projects this week” or “Can someone bring a jar of peanut butter for our class snack bin? We’re out.” Most parents want to help, they just don’t want to have to bake cookies for the PTA fundraiser or sit through a 2 hour volunteer training. Specific small asks get lots of yes answers, and they free up my time for actual teaching.
For parents, I have one small concrete tip that makes things easier for everyone: if you have a question or a concern, send one specific question instead of a long email with five different asks, and add a line that says you don’t need a reply for three days if that works. Most teachers are juggling 25 kids, a million deadlines, and their own families, so giving them that space cuts down on so much stress. I also tell parents to keep a manila folder in their kid’s backpack just for printed school forms, so they always have a copy if it gets lost. That one small step cuts out 90% of the 8pm panic texts asking for another copy.
Last week, I had a rare morning with no assemblies, no testing prep, no mandatory staff meetings. I spent the whole first block doing read aloud of The One and Only Ivan, then let kids work on their bean sprout science projects for an hour. One of my students who almost never sits still sat at his desk for 22 minutes just leaning over his cup, watching the little green sprout push through the cotton. He called me over and said, “I didn’t know it would grow that fast just from water and sunlight.” That’s the moment that made me become a teacher, that’s the stuff that sticks with kids long after they forget what was on the standardized test.
After lunch that day, I spent two hours updating the district’s new student intervention tracking spreadsheet. I didn’t get to do the writing activity I had planned. That’s just how it is right now. We don’t have big systemic changes yet, and no one knows when that will happen. But we can carve out small spaces, adjust the little things we can control, and hold onto the moments that matter. Some days, that’s enough.
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