The Amazing Amount of Non-Teaching Stuff

First, I want to say that I know every job has stuff that you hate to do, you feel has no real bearing on your performance and is a waste of time. That being said...

Let me shed some light on some of the things teachers have to do when they should be teaching kids how to read, how to add and how to write their names:

* Test every single kid who is below grade level (in some classes, that's every kid) every week to see if they are improving. Keep in mind that there are 5 days in a school week and testing that many kids is going to take time. When do you do it? During class time of course. Instead of running a small reading group or teaching handwriting, we have to take time every week out of our instructional time to test every single kid. Do you think a kid will make any significant gains in 4 days? No...but we still have to do it.

* Link the state standards (the stuff the govt says we have to teach) to our curriculum to prove we're actually teaching it. Like we're idiots. This is going to take me all year to do: even though a committee linked everything 2 years ago, we just got a new curriculum so I have to do it myself. I have to take every lesson I teach and write it down on how it applies: even something like "writes legibly." (yes, that's writing standard 1.3). I feel that should go without saying, but who am I to argue with the district or the state?

* Enter my miles and miles of testing results into different computer programs that will analyze it for me. I need to enter reading data every week, writing data, math data and decide what I should be teaching in order to fill in the gaps....hmmmmmm. Aren't I supposed to hit all the state standards? (see above) Didn't realize I had a choice about what to teach! (don't forget I'm taking that much time away from my instruction in order to give these tests every week!)

* Meet with the administration for 40 minutes every week to discuss our testing results. Okay, I'm over this already! Please trust me and leave me alone to let me teach the kids!

* Clean my room. Yup, the custiodian vaccums but that's it. What other profession has their staff dusting, washing down the sinks, disenfecting the tables, desks, computers, water fountains, etc.? I'd love to walk into a dentists office or a marketing firm and see the staff cleaning their sinks instead of working.

There's more of course, but you're getting bored: heck, I'm getting bored with it. Couldn't we just all agree that teaching is a profession: just like nursing or being a lawyer and we should let the professionals have the final say in how it's run because they just might have the kids' best interests at heart? I know that the public has a right to say what they think because it's their tax dollars being spent and their kids, but really folks:

Is it better that I'm spending about 5 hours per week (of class time) administering tests, grading tests, entering data for tests and discussing the data around the tests or would that time be better spent actually teaching the kids how to read?

I think George Bush and the No Child Left a Dime act has decided that question for all of us already.