Due to Uncertainty.....

Don Brunell:

Student loan companies say the federal takeover will cost 35,000 private sector jobs, a figure proponents dispute. What will actually happen? No one knows for sure, and that’s the problem. Federal takeovers of private industries create uncertainty, and uncertainty kills the prospects for an economic recovery.

WashACE:

I-1098 would lead to years of uncertainty that could irreparably harm Washington's ability to thrive in challenging economic times.

Business Week:

Uncertainty is everywhere: taxes, health care, jobs, stimulus, cut-backs,… How do you invest if you don’t know where you are going? With all due respect to Simon & Garfunkel’s Seven O’clock News (44 years ago), Uncertainty is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S.

It's with great sadness that I have to announce that, due to uncertainty, your kids won't be getting much of an education this year.

With the potential adoption of the common core standards, what the kids will be tested on is going to change, again. With the rise of tying test scores to teacher evaluation, I can't be certain that what I'm teaching is going to be what's tested, because we've decided that my classroom assessments aren't authentic enough.

With the uncertainty around what test will be used to measure the kids--the WASL, the MSP, the NWEA, the DIBELS, AIMS, or the MAP--and the way the cutoff scores change from year to year, I can't be certain if I'm really targetting the right kids for remediation or not. They get Title support based on how they do on two assessments, but we don't really know if those assessments are correlated to success or failure on the state tests.

I'm uncertain why our science scores were terrible, and I'm uncertain that the LASER kits are in any way good enough to get us where we need to be. I'm uncertain how I'm going to buy the supplies to teach science, because I'm paying $730 a month out of pocket for health insurance this year, and that's on top of what the state kicks in.

I can't be certain what I'll make next year, because of LID days. I can't be certain if my school district will have counselors, librarians, art teachers, summer school, or intervention specialists. I'm uncertain that we'll have levy equalization, class size reduction money, or full day kindergarten for our poorest schools.

And I'm uncertain why the uncertainty of the business community is more important than the uncertainty being forced on the public schools. And I'm uncertain how I'm supposed to do more with less, when I'm working like mad to even do the same with less.

Certainty would be nice. For everyone.