Teacher quality news seems to be everywhere today
Yet, more news today on teacher quality. (See two earlier blog entries today here on this topic.)
On Tuesday, the long-awaited recommendations from an influential task force — Strategic Management of Human Capital - were released. There is a good story in Education Week.
Among the report’s recommendations:
Raising admissions criteria for teacher education programs, perhaps through higher SAT or the ACT scores.
A tough content test before licensing.
More state funding and support for alternative roads into teaching, such as Teach For America.
An intensive internship experience similar to a medical residency.
A multi-tiered licensing system that requires evidence of effectiveness before granting tenure and use performance-based evaluation systems to drive professional development and help reset teachers’ salary schedules.
End to central-office-forced placements and seniority “bumping.”
In-depth induction and mentoring programs for new teachers.
Ed Week also reports that while teacher unions participated — the task force had four teachers’ union representatives – they’re not happy with the final product. The story says:
But union officials said the report ignored much of the input they offered. Chiefly, said Ms. Lawrence of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, the task force’s recommendations don’t reflect what she said is the need to treat teachers as professional partners in school improvement efforts. Without that, she said, keeping the best people in the profession and enticing them to work in the highest-need schools will remain an unfulfilled goal.
While agreeing with the report’s call for radically changing the way teachers are evaluated, Ms. Lawrence said she was disappointed that the task force gave no nod to the peer-review system that’s been in use in Toledo since the early 1980s. That system, she said, has probably “dismissed more teachers for incompetence” than all of the traditional evaluation systems being used in most urban districts.
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31 comments Add your comment
V for Vendetta
November 4th, 2009
9:03 pm
“An intensive internship experience similar to a medical residency.”
Hmmm, test teachers like doctors–even TREAT teachers like doctors–after expecting them to partake in extensive undergrad and graduate programs . . . .
I wonder if we’ll get PAID like doctors . . . ?
ScienceTeacher671
November 4th, 2009
9:08 pm
Standards for admission to education programs are not very high right now, and there are still shortages in several fields, in part because graduates can’t pass the content-area tests currently in place….and I don’t see anything in here to address the high percentage of teachers who leave the field within 5 years.
All of these suggestions look good on paper, but simply raising standards for admittance to education programs won’t automatically result in a swarm of highly qualified applicants.
SallyB
November 4th, 2009
9:21 pm
IMO, all students who plan to enter a teacher prep program in college should be required to spend some reasonable amount of time with a veteran teacher in the classroom at the
BEGINNING of the program, instead of at the end of the program when practice teaching is usually required.
I once had a group of students who were just beginning their majors in Middle School Ed…THeir college wanted them to spend time in the classroom FIRST to find out if they were well suited to teaching before going on in the program.
Of the 8 students in the group, 5 decided to continue their chosen teacher prep program. However, after spending 6 weeks in our middle school, 3 of them decided they had made the wrong choice. THanks to this early experience, they were able to change programs instead of finding out in their last semester [ when they typically do their practice teaching ] that even though they don’t like it at all, they have spent their money and their time and cannot afford to change.
The “tough content” test before licensing should absolutely be required.
In addition, teachers who teach English to Non English speaking students should , without question, be skilled in speaking and writing standard American English……which, in my experience as an English , Language ARts AND ESL teacher, is far far far from true today!
SallyB
November 4th, 2009
9:32 pm
Caught in the BigBad Filter……again…Will it EVER be adjusted ?????
high school teacher
November 4th, 2009
9:38 pm
Do doctors in residency get paid during their residency? Just wondering. I had to pay tuition to student teach.
To High School Teacher
November 4th, 2009
10:20 pm
Yes, doctors do get paid between 38 and 65 thousand dollars. However, they are also expected to work up to 80 hour work weeks.
SallyB
November 4th, 2009
10:26 pm
AT LEAST 80 hours….many times on duty 24 consecutive hours… with lives of patients in the balance.
And have you checked out tuition, books, lab fees, etc. for medical schools lately??? That’s 4 years …. in addition to 4 years undergrad school. Most docs begin their careers owing loans of $200,000 to as much as $700,000.
Echo
November 4th, 2009
11:03 pm
The rules about hours per week Dr.s work during their residency have changed, many are limited to 100 or less. The hours vary with the specialty or rotation. Many residents do not work 80 + hours or have “patient lives” in their hands.
Don’t count on teachers ever getting the same $$$ as Dr.s…unless they become a stuporintendant.
ScienceTeacher671
November 5th, 2009
6:15 am
Paid like a medical doctor BEFORE or AFTER health care reform?
jim d
November 5th, 2009
7:23 am
I’m afraid I just don’t get it.
We start with new teacher wannabes–meaning once changes are instituted we are looking a minimumof 4-6 years befor these wannabes get into the classroom and start making a difference.
At the same time we have teachers that are currently employed that will be there for another 20-25 years that will continue doing what they are doing.
Appears to me that we continue down the same road without significant change for at least another 20 years. The only positive outcome of this method of improving schools is that politians will be able to claim great achievements in education. Don’t get sucked in!
Bobb n Cobb
November 5th, 2009
8:07 am
Until we have better professors in education programs at colleges we will be dealing with less than stellar teachers in the classroom for the foreseeable future. Kennesaw State for instance has had their whole program lose certification, is dealing with bad leadership and still has trouble with substandard professors even in their masters program. We will be paying for the dumbing down of the degree programs to accommodate minority students and professors for a long time to come.
Reality 2
November 5th, 2009
8:12 am
jim d
The problem with those entrenched teachers isn’t limited to what they do themselves. They will influence the new ones from doing anything different.
jim d
November 5th, 2009
8:34 am
Bobb,
Dont those professors come from the ranks of teachers that have been trained “old school”??
How do you propose we improve upon that??
jim d
November 5th, 2009
8:37 am
Mo,
check filters please
Maureen Downey
November 5th, 2009
9:31 am
JimD, All are out. From the time I left my house this morning and arrived here, eight of you landed in the filter with perfectly fine comments. I will send a note to the blog czar here, but we use an outside program that is not regulated by us.
Maureen
William Casey
November 5th, 2009
9:43 am
SALLY B: Thanks again for your insightful comments, especially about “in-the-field” experiences at the BEGINNING of a student’s teacher prep work. Too many teachers I worked with just drifted into teacing with little understanding of how much work goes into EXCELLENT teaching. No wonder so many quit within five years or give into mediocrity.
A teacher preparation program for high school teachers should consist of four parts:
1. an undergraduate program entirely dedicated to content area preparation.
2. one semester of an internship with a master teacher in a high school during which the intern is thoroughly grounded in the culture of high school. The intern assists the teacher and may occasionally present a lesson but is NOT primarily responsible for instruction.
3. three semesters of academic work focused on instructional methods, adolescent psychology, curriculum, technology, organization, special education etc.
4. one semester of student teaching
teacher/parent
November 5th, 2009
10:38 am
Once again, I nominate SallyB for President. I do agree with most of your entries, but I also appreciate that your posts are logical and always on topic.
I, too, agree that college students should start spending time in K-12 classrooms early and do so often.
My other concern has to do with the discrepency indicated by some of these suggestions. Do we want teachers who are better prepared, who have spend a great deal of time in undergratuate programs working with students and mentor teachers, learning pedagogy, etc? If so, why are we also promoting programs like Teach for America that bring in teachers with no experience in the class room? Either training is important or it’s not. We can’t have it both ways.
Maureen Downey
November 5th, 2009
10:41 am
teacher/parent, To be fair, there is a lot of ongoing training in Teach for America. And there is a lot of ongoing support given to teachers through the organization, which I think is critical.
Here’s a link to the summer training program: http://www.teachforamerica.org/corps/training.htm
Maureen
jim d
November 5th, 2009
12:23 pm
R2,
I agree, that was a point i made yesterday.
MrX
November 5th, 2009
12:48 pm
I agree fully with the idea of spending time working in a classroom with a veteran teacher. I moved to a new school after my first year teaching because I could not deal with the incompetent administration anymore. At my new school I co-taught with a veteran teacher all day and learned much more than I ever did during my undergrad, student teaching, or my first year teaching by myself.
teacher/parent
November 5th, 2009
12:50 pm
Marueen-I’m for ongoing training for all teachers, but I was referring to pre-service training. The Teacher for America website reference a 5-week program including trainees teaching summer school. I’m not going to defend our current teacher programs, but 5 weeks is nowhere near the amount of training pre-service teachers SHOULD have. BTW-Their classroom experience is in summer school, which is NOT true preparation for the regular school year.
Again, either it’s important to train teachers or it’s not. If not, drop the grandstanding of requiring more rigorous college entrance requirements for education majors, etc.
AlreadySheared
November 5th, 2009
1:40 pm
Recipe for Gypsy chicken:
1) first, steal a chicken…
ScienceTeacher671 – what you said, exactly. If there are already not enough candidates for certain fields, raising standards and increasing training requirements won’t increase the number of available teachers.
The first step is to make teaching a job that more people WANT to do. THEN, raising standards and increasing training makes sense.
oldtimer
November 5th, 2009
5:40 pm
I worked as a supervisor with GA’s Alternative Teacher Prep program for two years. It is amazing how well many of these people do even with a very short summer program. They are mature, responsible, and dedicated. There enthusiasm was a joy to see. I saw new ideas they brought from a previous life. It just seems, sometimes, that good teachers are born and not made.
Peabody Jones
November 5th, 2009
5:42 pm
Tweak teacher education programs all you want . . . but until someone makes these kids shut up and behave, our schools will continue to deteriorate.
oldtimer
November 5th, 2009
5:42 pm
their
Current Ed Student
November 6th, 2009
7:32 am
Re: education majors’ in-service requirements
I’m a junior in my college’s brand-new Bachelor of Science-ECE/Spec Ed. degree program. We have three practicums, one each semester, prior to our “student teaching” semester. Each practicum requires 100 hours of classroom observation on top of our regular coursework. I don’t know about anyone else, but I average about 10 hours a week in my placement classroom on top of carrying a full academic load in what is essentially a double major: early childhood education and general special education.
From what I understand, more Ga. Education schools are requiring the dual certification of students and 900 in-service hours prior to taking the GACE certification test.
If you want to look at what our program is, you can find it at Gordon College’s website: w w w dot GDN dot edu. I’d be interested in hearing some of your professional opinions on our program.
Thanks.
Come on, Peabody!
November 6th, 2009
7:46 am
Peabody, you must be kidding. Isn’t that (classroom management) a part of teaching???
jim d
November 6th, 2009
8:34 am
Peabody,
Cant happen as long as NCLB is the law of the land. (sorry)
Peabody is right.
November 6th, 2009
10:02 am
Word. They need to be getting a better quality of students, not teachers.
Sarge
November 9th, 2009
8:21 pm
Jonesy, you hit the educational nail square on the head! Previous generations were brought up, in the home, the schools, and in society in general, with the firm knowledge that their actions, their behavior(s), held a direct tie to consequences…the carrot and stick approach to leadership. More-recent generations, out of pc-orientation, are all but guaranteed the carrots, consequently, they see no point in altering and controlling impulsive natures. Bottom line…generations of kids who have absolutely no inkling of the meaning of self-discipline. This situation is made worse by the mindset, flipantly expressed by one of the commenters, that because this is simply a classroom management situation, student misbehavior must, somehow, be the sign of bad teaching. It must be nice living in the ideal Alice in Wonderland world. (Perhaps when, as young adults, these kids are fired for stupid behavior on the job, they can sue their “bad” teachers)
Rural Education
November 9th, 2009
8:31 pm
The truth is we continue to create one educational reform movement after another because the only part of education that can be regulated are teachers. If students are unmotivated it is the teachers fault, if a student refuses to do homework it is the teachers fault, if the student will not study for a test it is the teachers fault. As long as it is always the teachers fault, things will never get better.