A Detroit Charter School Teacher

tells what it is really like to work in a system hailed as a "reform" because the public system was neglected--on purpose--for decades:

It’s very different at the charter, despite the fact that the teachers and staff are doing a lot of preparatory work. It seems we are doing more work and getting less out of it. A much bigger workload gets put on teachers at the charter school. A lot more is asked of us—things that would normally be done by secretarial or administrative staff, such as hallway procedures.

Teachers were asked to develop those procedures after the school year had started. We were asked to come up with bathroom procedures, as well as disciplinary procedures. None of these were in place when school began. How can a school function without those basic rules and procedures in place? If the teachers don’t know what’s going on, the students certainly can’t be expected to.

I can tell you a lot of the teachers feel overworked and unappreciated. The biggest fear among us is losing your job. There is no union, there is no job security. Some of the new teachers have not even signed any form of a contract. Informational packets for new hires are not complete. It sometimes takes a month or so after you start work before you realize things are missing—including documents as important as forms for the health care plan. So some of the new teachers did not have health care for a month, though they eventually got it, retroactively.

You have to realize "reformers" and politicians will merely lower the standards to "teach" kids if they can't find enough suckers to major in education anymore.