A group of teachers and members from Frankfort Education Association were in attendance at ISTA’s Red for Ed Rally at the Indianapolis State House this past Saturday. The teachers, sporting their red union shirts, carried signs that highlighted the issues they’d like to see addressed: chief among them, costly, ineffective standardized testing, low teacher pay leading to high turnover, and the huge funding diversion of public monies to private, for-profit voucher and charter schools. Students are losing many hours of classroom instruction to expensive and flawed standardized testing. Students deserve maximum quality instruction time, not hours spent filling in bubbles and checking boxes on a screen. Indiana ranks near the bottom for teacher pay. Half of teachers leave the profession in the first five years, and often because they can’t make a living off the salary or must work 2, 3, or even 4 jobs to make ends meet. High teacher turnover is damaging for students and results in a diminished educational experience. We need to keep the best teachers, so our kids get the best education. As our schools continue to stretch dollars to make ends meet, our kids continue to suffer from high stakes standardized testing and high teacher turnover. Every kid deserves a champion, and all kids deserve dedicated teachers who make a career out of teaching. Frankfort Education Association members will continue to work for the betterment of schools for the success of ALL students!
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