Scary Estimate by a Sped Teacher

Walking to the gym beside a new special education teacher, she tossed off this observation:

“I spend about 60% of my time doing paperwork and 40% giving instruction. I hoped there’d be less of that here (than in her old school) but it seems to be the same.”

We commiserated over government paperwork demands, a real burden in bilingual education as well.

Eduhonesty: At a certain level, those government paperwork demands begin to impact instruction. Time spent preparing mountains of paperwork cannot be given to planning future instruction. After a long day of paperwork, many teachers just grab an appropriate or semi-appropriate lesson off the internet, minimizing preparation for the next day since the present day is pretty much gone.