We talk about cost in monetary terms all the time. No one talks about opportunity cost. Education should start now. This is definitely a very little thing with BIG implications for turning around schools.

Opportunity cost is the opportunity you give up when you or your employees work on something else. Teachers have a certain number of hours to work in a day. There is a finite limit to the number of hours they have. Do we ever consider the cost of what we’re asking teachers to do?

Here are some examples:

• When a teacher spends one hour completing paperwork that no one will read.
• Attending a meeting that no one wanted to have and no measurable outcome was attained for a person who justifies his existence by having meetings.
• Putting lesson plans in an extensive format that have no measurable improvement in how the lesson will be delivered in the classroom.
• Paperwork that no one will read.
• Having teachers file paperwork.
• Forcing a teacher to use a system (like a word wall) that they don’t feel applies to their curriculum and takes them away from their focus.
• Did I say PAPERWORK THAT NO ONE WILL READ, USE OR EVEN LOOK AT EVER AGAIN?
• Constantly shifting priorities into opposite directions causing a complete overhaul of classroom systems and pedagogies.
• Causing a teacher to wait incessantly for approval to move their furniture or gain approval for improving their own classroom in even small ways.
• Paper work? (Let’s just call it Paper waste, shall we?)