VPerspective

Teacher’s Choice is an educational necessity

by Karen Alford

Jun 29, 2009 9:48 AM

Teacher’s Choice, supply money, is valued and necessary because every cent goes directly to students. It has contributed to the improvement in test scores that the city is excited about. Thank heaven it received a last-minute reprieve in the budget just agreed to by the mayor and the City Council.

It isn’t a huge sum of money — $150 per teacher for the current school year, reduced from $260 during the 2007-08 school year. But it is extremely appreciated and always well-spent. Had the city not restored this crucial funding, next year teachers would have had zero.

Which means they would have had to reach into their pockets even more.

That would have been a shame, since they already spend their own money on kids, even with Teacher’s Choice, because you and I know that the average New York City public school teacher would rather go without than deny their students needed materials that make learning interesting and clear.

And when it’s time for students to sit down with those test papers in front of them, that game or workbook or manipulative they connected with is going to translate into higher test scores.

Think of what zero Teacher’s Choice money would have meant to our kinesthetic learners, who have to use their hands, have to build things to understand a concept.

Think of what it would have meant to Janet Galante’s students at PS 156 in Brooklyn.

She told me she already spends hundreds of dollars in addition to her Teacher’s Choice money, that “if something will make my day go better and benefit my students, I buy it.”

For Janet, that has meant everything from crayons to notebooks to school uniforms.

“If a child is the only one who doesn’t have a uniform, because the parents are too poor, I make sure that child does,” she said.

One time Janet will buy art smocks and another time something else, so she has built up her classroom over the years.

“I’ve been teaching for 31 years and am in a financial position to buy something. Most teachers are new, and aren’t in that position. They need every cent of that Teacher’s Choice money,” Janet told me.

Think of what zero money would have meant to the reading scores of Amanda Green’s students at another Brooklyn school, PS 8.

Amanda is a librarian who uses her Teacher’s Choice money for all kinds of incentives and awards that encourage kids to take out a lot of books and read them.

Not to mention that she spends her own money on award-winning fiction that her students love, and reference materials like atlases and almanacs.

While the chancellor, the mayor and the Department of Education celebrate the improved test scores, they must never forget that those scores went up when we got the budget restored last year, and that when you have a budget that supports schools, in particular funds that go directly into the classroom, you tend to see higher test scores.

As a teacher and a parent, I receive a supply list from my daughter’s school each year. It’s not scientific, but it seems when there is more Teacher’s Choice funding the list is shorter, and when budgets are tighter the list grows.

Each September, the supply list I receive from my daughter’s teacher ranges from tissues to crayons.

I understand that even when I send in these supplies, the teacher still reaches deep into her pockets to purchase other supplies: stickers, treats, money for class trips that parents can’t afford, bulletin board borders, trade books, puzzles, supplemental instructional manuals — and the list goes on.

Even though the school should provide basic instructional supplies, often teachers still have to purchase myriad supplies and books. With a budget shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars, schools will be hard-pressed to provide teachers with even the basic supplies.

Yet teachers purchase the needed materials because we care and we want our kids to succeed.