Why Are the Really Good Teachers in Dallas Resigning?

Dallas and the surrounding cities are wonderful for great fun, dining, and shopping opportunities.  The cost of living is to be envied.  In what other major cities can you feed your family of 4 or 5 on $20?  But something really important is missing, rather leaving Dallas in numbers previously unheard of or ever before seen.  An alarm should be sounding somewhere.

The Really Good Teachers are running up out of Dallas and taking their awesome talents, gifts, tried and true methods that work, highly valued experience, and what’s left of their sanity with them to the surrounding cities or are resigning from teaching in Dallas altogether in order to pursue something else.  Notice that I didn’t say “quit”.   I purposefully said “resign” to show that Really Good Teachers never ever quit- they just transform that teaching skill set in ways that continue to benefit the world.  Many have opted for early retirement.  Others have resigned mid-year.  All have stepped right on into a new life made possible for them by the overbearing bullying entity known as Dallas Independent School District.

The suburbs are snatching up this talented pool and welcoming these Education Refugees with open arms.  The Really Good Teachers are flourishing in their “new country”.  No tyranny, no tyrants, no tirades, no (or at least greatly reduced) unjust tests, no threats.  Just regular old good learning taking place with Really Good Teachers afforded the freedom to get this- TEACH!

If the outside world were to peak inside the lives of the Really Good Teachers in Dallas they would see nothing at all that resembles or models best practices for educating our future. All that book learning and practical application the Really Good Teachers learned while in college means nothing in the La-La Land of Dallas education.  If John Q. Public spent a day in the life of the Really Good Teachers, he would wonder why the Really Good Teachers haven’t taken up pitchforks and run the powers that be out of town. Really Good Teachers are constant students themselves and spend their personal time away from school seeking out new and better ways to get those babies to not only learn stuff, but to MASTER a skill set.  Really Good Teachers always want the kids they serve to excel.

The Really Good Teachers in Dallas are tired.  They are tired of being mistreated.  They are tired of being disrespected.  They are tired of not being valued.  They are tired of being yelled at.  They are tired of being unappreciated.  They are tired of being ignored.  They are tired of being made the scapegoat for things beyond their control.  They are tired of catering to a model that has no proven educational value.  They are tired of being taken for granted.  They are tired of being overworked with no respect for their personal life. They are tired of mandate after mandate after mandate after mandate.  They are tired of powers that be making decisions that hinder their ability to teach.  They are tired of the lack of discipline running more rampant than it should (I don’t necessarily mean the discipline of the children- some of the adults are totally out of control.)  They are tired of their pleas for sanity, care, common sense, and order falling on deaf ears.

So, the Really Good Teachers in Dallas resign. It doesn’t have to be like this.

Dallas will have to listen to Really Good Teachers to start making positive changes.  It will take a number of years for Dallas to reclaim the progress it was making only 4 or 5 years ago.   If you want to take a peak into the world of Really Good Teachers, go here, here, and here. I’m a Really Good Teacher and I stand by what I’ve said in this blog.

T. Battle

6 thoughts on “Why Are the Really Good Teachers in Dallas Resigning?”

  2. Here’s a comment left by a teacher on the DMN Blog: I threw in the towel. I gave up on my career as a classroom teacher, a job I loved. I left on December 19 because I could no longer fight the so call reforms of Miles and the discipline problems in the school.. I began to feel inadequate, I began to question myself and my teaching abilities. I dealt with being called a fat a** by students I had to teach daily. I was told f**k you, I am not doing what you say. Students walked out of class whenever they wanted to. Teachers were told don’t write a referral unless you put it in exceeds. Management is your problem and if not done directly to us as administrators we are not dealing with it. I was robbed in my classroom ( my purse was stolen from a secured area) I had continue to teach the student who did it. Students would come to class 20 minutes or more late. Let them in. Reading all the different post about how principals are mad about the ACP scores. WHY??? No discipline no learning. I received a call from one of my former co-worker who told me that I got out at the right time. That’s sad. The teacher was referring to the anger expressed about a test that represents only 10% the grade. I am considering starting an organization that will fight Mike Miles on behalf of the Dallas teachers. Law suits filed just might wakeup the BOT.

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  3. Johnny says:

    “I’m a Really Good Teacher and I stand by what I’ve said in this blog…”

    Of course you are. And thats the problem. EVERY teacher thinks they’re a Really Good Teacher. When you read a horror story from a parent about how her child was told by a teacher, “You’re an idiot and you’ll never amount of anything”, THAT teacher sincerely believes she’s a Really Good Teacher. Trusting the teachers themselves to tell us whether or not they’re Really Good Teachers is absurd. There has to be a way to measure them as objectively as possible. Let the principals decide? After all, they know their teachers. Sure. And yet every single teacher who is released says “the principal didn’t like me”, or “it was politics”. Again, not an objective solution. I’m not crazy about a testing system that puts teacher’s jobs in the hands of parents and kids who may or may not care about their education, either. But I’ve also yet to hear a better way to weed out the ones who think they’re Really Good Teachers (which is all of them) from the ones who really are (which isn’t).

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