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A n intriguing bit of news from my home state of North Carolina recently made it into the national media: Susie Shepherd, an elementary school principal in the small town of Goldsboro, suggested that as a way to raisemuch-neededfundsforherschool,studentswhobroughtintwentydollars would be awarded twenty test credits. Students could apply ten credits each to two tests of their choice. The notion that a school would actually reward such fundraising efforts with bonus points on classroom tests created, somewhat surprisingly, a storm of disapproval. Within a few days the principal had resigned under pressure from an embarrassed school board. Interestingly many parents rushed to her defense. She was, they said, an excellent and caring educator. And, besides, it was one way to help teachers who, in this city, were forced to purchase basic school supplies out of their own salaries. It is not hard to see their point concerningthelatter.Withschoolsunderseverebudgetaryconstraints,onemightaskwhat was so bad about trying to give teachers a little extra financial help equipping their classrooms ? As Shepherd noted, last year administrators tried to induce students to bring in cashwiththerewardofchocolates.Thatdidn’tworkverywell.Sothisyearitwastimetotry a more direct approach—increasing students’ test scores through monetary payments. This story certainly provided fodder for the scorn of editorial writers who pointed to the educational travesty of the principal’s behavior. It also provided material for late-night comics,whogotlaughsoffoftheapparentunseemlinessofpayingfortestpoints,asifschool were just another business. M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 15 by Svi Shapiro CashforCredits: EducationinaTimeofHardship Svi Shapiro is professor of education and cultural studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he is director of the Ph.D. program. His recent books are Education and Hope in Troubled Times (Routledge), and Losing Heart: the Moral and Spiritual Miseducation of America’s Children (Erlbaum). FLICKRCC/COMEDY NOSE Our classrooms are meant to be “catalysts for imagination, the joy of understanding, or the search for meaning and purpose,” the author writes. But once education is seen as primarily about acquiring credits or test points, “then why not simply go out and buy them?” Yet,intheverysameweekthatthiseventwasreported,theNewYork Times carried a story about the lucrative business of teachers selling theirlessonplansontheInternet.Accordingtothearticle,thousandsof teachers “are cashing in on a commodity they used to give away, selling lesson plans online for exercises as simple as M&M sorting and as sophisticated as Shakespeare.” The article, “Selling Lessons Online Raises Cash and Questions,” goes on to note that while some of this moneyisusedtobuyclassroomsuppliesandbooks,someofitisusedto supplement salaries and pay for mortgages, credit card bills, and food. Tellingly,onecriticofthispractice,RobertN.Lowry,deputydirectorof theNewYorkStateCouncilofSchoolSuperintendents,questionedthe ownership of these lesson plans and whether districts should be sharingintheproceeds!Themoneygeneratedfromthispracticeisnot negligible.Oneoftheonlinesites,TeachersPayTeachers,hasmorethan 200,000 registered users, according to the Times, and has recorded more than $600,000 in sales since it started in 2006. A top seller, a highschoolEnglishteacherinCalifornia,hasmade$36,000insales.A retired teacher in North Carolina earns an average of $750 a month (which has enabled her to remodel her kitchen). Private Wealth, Public Penury Howshouldweregardthispractice?Oneprofessor,JosephMcDonald,decries the way online selling of lesson plans “cheapens what teachers do.” It undermines the culture of educators freely exchanging teaching ideas and plans. His point is well taken. Yet again it is hard not to feel compassion for sorely underpaid teachers who, under increasing financialpressure,areattemptingtousetheirknowledgeandskilltoaddsomethingtotheir monthly income. Which of us may point the finger at these employees in this time of extraordinary economic pain and suggest they have no right to find ways to augment limited salaries? It is hard to be too critical of a behavior that might add a few hundred dollars to teachers’ income at a time when the public purse is being used to ensure hundreds of thousands , if not millions, of dollars in income for bankers and Wall Street traders. As the expression goes, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Of course here there is hardly any parallel in the likely incomes of teachers or public employees and those on Wall Street. When greed on an unparalleled scale shapes the behavior of those who sit atop...

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