I recently had an email forwarded to me that was written last spring by a native of my hometown in suburban New England. She's now a teacher at a Baltimore city school. Here's some of what she had to say about her job:

I am a parent (dealing with children who are abused, whose parents don't make them do their homework, so I need to come up with my own system to get it done), a secretary (completing our cumulative folders, which our secretary should be doing but she quit so we don't have one), a gym teacher (since ours is out on surgery leave with no replacement), a computer teacher (since ours is acting as the secretary), a nurse (since ours is not here full time), a librarian (since we don't have one), a disciplinarian (since the kids throw chairs and tell me they don't care what my white tail has to say) and then the rest of me is left to be a teacher. And, no, at that point, I am not going to be a great teacher, because I am stretched in so many directions. Yes, there are kids that can succeed and go off to college but they are lost in the chaos of all that is going on in this ridiculous system. Perfect example is ... our 5th grade teacher. Has taught for 20 something years. Johns Hopkins grad. Was moved from 2nd grade to 5th grade this year because the 5th grade was so out of control that they needed a good teacher with them. Well, these kids drove her out the door and she is leaving the system after this year. No support, no sensible decisions, no consistency in staff.