Making “my child the teacher” as impressive as “my child the doctor”
When it comes to bragging rights, most parents would still prefer to announce, “My child the lawyer,” rather than, “My child the teacher.”
Would such attitudes change if the U.S. teaching corps became more selective?
The American Federation of Teachers is endorsing an entrance exam for new teachers similar to the bar exam that novice lawyers must pass and the medical boards that newly minted doctors must pass.
“It’s time to do away with a common rite of passage into the teaching profession — whereby newly minted teachers are tossed the keys to their classrooms, expected to figure things out, and left to see if they and their students sink or swim. This is unfair to both students and their teachers, who care so much but who want and need to feel competent and confident to teach from their first day on the job,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
The education debate in Georgia has skirted the question of improving teacher quality, focusing instead on offering escape routes from local public schools. When the topic even arises in the Legislature, the conversation is usually how to run off bad teachers rather than how to attract good ones.
Lawmakers pay little attention to the fact that the world’s highest-achieving education systems, including Finland and Singapore, improved their schools through concerted campaigns to entice the brightest high school graduates to teaching. And they invested in their training.
“The United States has for many years prized cheap teachers over good teachers,” wrote Marc Tucker, CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy, in his Education Week blog. “Whenever there is a shortage of teachers, we respond by lowering our already intolerably low standards. We are constantly assigning teachers trained in one subject to classes in a subject about which they know little or nothing. We not only invest very little in teacher training, but we have for a very long time expected our schools of education to produce budget surpluses for use in other parts of the university that we evidently care more about.”
In its new report, “Raising the Bar: Aligning and Elevating Teacher Preparation and the Teaching Profession,” the AFT calls for a “universal and rigorous bar that gauges mastery of subject-matter knowledge.”
“Teaching has always had a low bar and a wide gate,” said University of Pennsylvania researcher Richard Ingersoll, who studies teacher turnover, teacher shortages and the status of teaching as a profession.
“So, making this a less-easy line of work is all for the good. But it’s really only half the story,” he said in a telephone interview. “You also have to raise the reward.”
Ingersoll sees value in enhancing the stature of teaching because, he said, “The perception remains that anyone can teach, even dummies, which doesn’t make it an attractive choice for bright undergraduates.”
A sheen of selectivity will appeal to top college students, he said. “But those bright students are going to want to know that the rewards are there.”
Historically, raising the bar to enter teaching reduces the supply of teachers, especially males, said Ingersoll. “Everyone can do the calculus. If you make it harder, students are going to say, ‘I can go to law school and get a much higher salary than I can in teaching.”’
When Finland sought to improve the under-performance of its schools in the 1970s and 1980s, it not only upgraded standards and admissions for teacher candidates, it also raised salaries. It’s now more difficult to get into a teaching program than law or medicine.
After gaining its independence, Singapore resolved to produce the best-educated students in the world and began by elevating teaching into a highly paid, highly prestigious profession. Only top academic achievers are eligible for teacher education programs, and they earn salaries as they train, said Ingersoll.
Raising the salary scale in education posed less of a challenge in Finland and Singapore, where education is centralized, than it would in the United States, where nearly 15,000 school districts operate as independent fiefdoms and where local property taxes are a common — albeit inequitable — funding mechanism.
“Singapore could just decide that the whole nation was going to do it. Here, it is hard to have such systemic reform,” said Ingersoll. “You would have to go through one district at a time to raise the reward”
“Given the reward we offer now,” he said, “we actually get a higher quality teacher than we deserve.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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137 comments Add your comment
Beverly Fraud
December 22nd, 2012
12:12 pm
It sounds like what Kitna is doing is more than laudable considering his economic options. But one has to ask how much administrative support does one get (as far as discipline in regard to suspending players for example) when one is able to donate $150k to the school, along with the cachet of being “Jon Kitna”?
Not that he doesn’t deserve the backup; the point is that million of other teachers do as well, and unfortunately they aren’t getting it.
Beverly Fraud
December 22nd, 2012
12:15 pm
And the converse to that of course (especially in places like The Four Horsemen of the Incompetence only such backup comes not from merit, but from what fraternity/sorority a teacher happens to be in.
It’s a story that, for some reason, the AJC has never been willing to touch, (far as I know)
Pride and Joy
December 22nd, 2012
12:18 pm
Beverly Fruad challenges my statement that teachers are paid well, have good benefits and have a good work/life balance and Beverly Fraud claims it must not be true because so many teachers are leaving.
People leave ALL professions, it’s not just teaching.
There is no profession on earth where the worker gets time off of work in the numbers that taechers do. Teachers work 180 to 190 days a yaer and get paid 50K for wokring those days with abbreviated hours.
Most teachers are women and all the teachers I know personally went into teaching because of the hours. My cousins are both teachers. They both have biology degrees and went into teaching because they wanted plenty of time off of work to be with their families and they do…and they don’t complain.
They both work as educated, responsible physical educaiotn teachers and they are very happy with their career choice.
And here’s the thing, Beverly, no one forces anyone to be a teacher. Once you become a teacher you can always quit.
So if teaching is so bad, the question really becomes, then why are so many of you staying in the profession while continuing to blog about how bad it is?
The answer is because you cannot find another job with the pay, benefits and life/work balance that you have with teaching.
It’s an adult choice, Beverly.
If teaching is that bad, teachers should leave the profession.
If teachers love teaching but don’t like the circumstances, then picket and walk-out and protest that which you believe in…
BUT…stayng on Get Schooled, day after day, complaining and moaning and groaning about your job, well,
how do you think it makes your customers feel? How do you think it makes we parents feel?
We feel that you are selfish, whiney brats.
You teachers say you want respect (and some of you DO earn it!) but you cannot get by whiney, moaning and groaning on a public blog.
Private Citizen
December 22nd, 2012
12:19 pm
Children seek structure and discipline / consequences. Many Georgia schools blame the teachers for kids acting out. This means the teachers who have advantage are the ones who can play-act “mom” and use the culture specific “home” control signs upon the students. It is a behavioral subset and has nothing to do with transferring knowledge and has everything to do with play-acting the familiar and reinforcing and perpetuating stereotypes. When kids and culture run the classroom and not the teacher, it is retrogressive and low performance. If a parent wants to “complain,” they should have it out with their player-kid who needs to know the boundaries. If the parent is unable to do so, the school administration should stand up to it like a concrete barrier. Nitwit untrained children should not be allowed to ramp-it-up in the classroom. Seen many times children who do this and use up school professional’s time until they are finally told they are being removed from school and then the kid cries like a baby when they realise they are being removed from their theater of friends. The inefficient part of it is that currently it takes 5 adults and 200 pages of triplicate forms to get to this point of breaking the errant kid’s will.
Private Citizen
December 22nd, 2012
12:28 pm
Schools would be better if there was not a pay differential between teachers and managers. The 100k salaries are a magnet for persons motivated to network as a caste with the priority being the income of their caste. Culture of “executive compensation” creates a hierarchy based solely on income level within the same organization.
bookman parrot
December 22nd, 2012
12:30 pm
those that “test” the best on paper are not always the best teacher.
GrD
December 22nd, 2012
1:04 pm
It’s an easy job to teach children. It takes a special person. School systems simply fill a slot. I agree, half the teachers should not be teaching, but ADMINISTRATORS continues to renew contracts, instead of terminating teachers and support employees who are not performing. Incompetent support staff adds to schools’ problems. They change the dynamics of the staffing as the more support staff at a school site, the less classroom teachers. That’s how school systems organize for staffing school sites. More support, usually means, less classroom teachers, hence larger class sizes, leads to students “falling through the cracks.” Principals fall short in this aspect of education, by repeatedly renewing teachers who clearly should not be in the clasroom, Principals also fall short in that they also fail to terminate support staff who are mediocre, to say the least, always absent, and just simply do not do their job. This problem is prevalent in poorer and urban school settings, Title 1 Schools, etc. Doctors and lawyers are no comparison to teacher….period. Those professions are not confronted with the myriad of challenges a teachers faces daily. Additionally, Hollywood and the media sensationalize the roles of doctors and lawyers as they see nothing interesting or glamorous about teaching. Students today simpy have too many distractions, parent who pay them no attention, and most do not have the desire to learn or participate unless an electronic gadget is involved. Just a quick write this Saturday a. m.
janet
December 22nd, 2012
1:30 pm
Yes, I do think attitudes would change if there was a more selective process for recruiting teachers. But with the more selective process needs to be a higher salary to back it up.
I have to wonder though, if these new highly respected and highly sought after teachers would be willing to put up with the “thug” students and their “I don’t care” parents. We have to remember that even lawyers have a person who deals with these “lowest common denominator” types too. They are called public defenders.
Beverly Fraud
December 22nd, 2012
1:54 pm
“The education debate in Georgia has skirted the question of improving teacher quality, focusing instead on offering escape routes from local public schools.”
Wrong. While true the primary focus has been on escape routes, there have been numerous attempts to “fix the teacher.”
What has been truly lacking is an honest discussion about teaching conditions. As MACE says “You can’t have good learning conditions until you have good teachingconditions.
Say what you will about MACE, but they were about a decade ahead of the curve (read: AJC) when it came to the snake oil of Beverly Hall. Will the AJC be yet another decade late to an honest discussion of teaching conditions?
And when they finally join the discussion, how many teachers like poster Fled, will have already fled, to the detriment of teaching in Georgia?
Michele
December 22nd, 2012
1:56 pm
Go ahead and give up now. There is absolutely no hope for school improvement in Georgia. The governor and all the legislative branch are clueless, and they have no respect for teachers nor education. In this ridiculous Republican state, the citizens are doomed by the lack of support of education by the ruling party. I actually don’t know what their priority is. I think it is singularly self indulgence. In my neighborhood, most of the parents send their students to private school, because the Gwinnett County school they are forced to attend is ridiculously inept. Yet, when election time comes along, the Republican majority continues over the past 16 years to reelect the useless Republican school board member who does nothing to make our local schools more effective. I can’t figure it out. I doubt anyone could.
Lee
December 22nd, 2012
1:56 pm
Private Citizen / December 22nd, 2012 / 12:01 pm
Hey Lee, I find it notable that you do not expect rural areas to produce their own dentists, doctors, and civil engineers. So everyone sits on their backside expecting Jesus to show up in the form of an outside corporation XYZ setting up shop or some yankee doctor to treat grandma for her heart arythmia? Sounds like rural Georgia is filled with a bunch of vacant lazy slobs. Add to that “player” school administration and there you have it. And some arrogant racist teachers who have little vision for their charges. And then add Arne with his righteous cognitive dissonance forced confusion and a couple nitwits at the top of the state to sign it all into law. But that’s okay because the one or two doctors in town enjoy feeling like Gods looking down their collective nose at the literally dumb peasants. I have a friend whose (deceased) father was one of these rural royalty Georgia doctors. To this day, he still thinks they’re royalty or something. Somebody called Georgia a bunch of be-knighted ^$%$% and they’re right.”
Wow. I don’t know how you got from my post to yours, but it certainly would be interesting to see what’s going on in that skull of yours.
Chris Salzmann
December 22nd, 2012
2:03 pm
Good luck with that over here. In Scandinavian countries, teachers are extensively trained, required to be at the top of their class to be selected for teaching programs, and after they are trained, are extremely well paid. Resources provided to teachers are extensive and varied. As a result, teaching is a profession that is very much sought after that only the best can aspire to. Indeed, over there, to be a teacher is considered on par as being a doctor or lawyer.
Over here, teaching is left to either the extremely dedicated who are poorly trained or to those who cannot succeed anywhere else and have to “settle”. They are are comparatively poorly paid and have very limited resources. Class room supplies have to be provided by teachers out of their own limited paychecks. Not surprising in a state and country where teachers are viewed essentially as glorified day-care workers who keep children occupied while the parents work.
When one invests so little in our children, is it any surprise that we are falling further and further behind other industrialized nations?
A Teacher, 2
December 22nd, 2012
3:00 pm
I shall never forget the look in my mother’s eyes almost 40 years ago when I told her I was majoring in education rather than pre-law. That hurt look has been replaced with pride many times through the years. I became that teacher that everyone in town wants their kid to have. I am more popular in town than the doctors and lawyers. When I soon announce my retirement, many will be concerned over who will be left to teach their kids. People in town regularly tell my mom how much I mean to their kids.
I doubt that mom even remembers how she felt that moment I abandoned the job of prestige and riches that she envisioned for me. Instead, I felt the need to become the best I could be, just like she had taught me all those years. I am the better for it.
I am richer than all of those doctors and lawyers in town. I have the satisfaction of having made a difference for thousands of teenagers through the years. The current politicians and much of the public choose not to understand the true calling to teach, and to teach well. Money will never buy it, nor can those without the calling “learn” it.
I will leave not embittered, but thankful for the opportunity to do what I was supposed to do, and do it well. There is no higher calling!
Fled
December 22nd, 2012
3:04 pm
Beverly is correct to assert that school administration on the whole attracts some of the worst of the worst—and that goes double for aspiring educrats who join the Superintendent’s staff and then write drivel about how all children are “loved and cared for” in Fulton Schools: not a word about educating students to an internal standard of excellence, of course. Teacher as social worker. Teacher as nurse. Teacher as parent for students with sorry parents. Anything but teacher as educator.
I was speaking with my greatest, and the child has some interest in teaching. This is understandable because the teachers this one knows are all well-educated, well-paid, and valued as professionals. Should some parent come in complaining about the asinine sorts of things that routinely get teachers called on the carpet by graduates of Lincoln Memorial University (anyone ever heard of that one before?), the admins at my child’s school would probably say something like, “I’m sorry we did not meet your expectations. I hope your next school will be more to your liking.”
I would not object to my child becoming a teacher in a private international school. Such a job has plenty of challenges, to be sure, but having to deal with ill-educated, power-hungry, incompetent school admins is not one of them. My children’s school does not have any problem recruiting a top-flight faculty because teachers know it is a great place to ply their craft. A NASA scientist might actually want to work there because they hire people to teach and then expect them to teach.
Great school. Great teachers. Great students. Just about the opposite of Fulton in every way a real teacher might care about..
Beverly Fraud
December 22nd, 2012
3:32 pm
“and that goes double for aspiring educrats who join the Superintendent’s staff and then write drivel about how all children are “loved and cared for” in Fulton Schools:”
When this
prime example of what ails educationsuperintendent of Fulton was given a chance to do some PR in the AJC, didn’t anyone at the AJC realize this is the same guy in charge of a system that allowed a student to physically assault a school resource officer, only to be let back into the school in order to help hospitalize another student?Hello?
And the AJC gave this guy space to spout about school safety? Really? What’s next, a guest editorial from Kathy Augustine about the ethical use of statistics? Credit card advice from Courtney English? School construction advice from Crawford Lewis?
Smartdawg
December 22nd, 2012
4:08 pm
I can assure you that the parents of the educators at Sandy Hook Elementary say with pride, through their tears, “my daughter, the teacher!”
Hillbilly D
December 22nd, 2012
4:22 pm
How ’bout we start judging people by what kind of person they are, rather than their occupation?
paulo977
December 22nd, 2012
4:30 pm
Lee ….”ROFLMAO. Maureen, you’re too much….
_______________________________________
Well ,very well put Lee
paulo977
December 22nd, 2012
4:43 pm
Lee “In summary, to stay in teaching and to make it a career, I think you must love the kids and love helping them”
and also SBin F
Well said …….Those who keep slamming teachers need our understanding …..they have no idea what teachers are involved in !!!
For a teacher ………..
“Work is love made visible ”
Kahlil Gibran
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
December 22nd, 2012
5:06 pm
Maureen-
AFT is billing this as comparable to a bar exam. Haven taken a bar exam, they do not know what they are talking about. I have the report but it is similar in purpose to the Linda Darling-Hammond report issued by SCOPE and the IN Tasc Model Teaching Standrads. It is a compliance device. It tests very little knowledge and is a performance assessments.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/coercing-teachers-to-be-social-and-political-saboteurs-what-can-be-done/ is the story I wrote on the Effective Teacher evals. Then I read the AFT document klast Saturday. Professions do not create frameworks circumscribing what is to be believed which is exactly what Randi did in that document.
They are walling off education decisions to anyone who has not been properly indoctrinated. And I mean that. That post explains that pedagogy was recreated around what the Soviet psychologists were using. It’s in a UNESCO document from the early 70s. Laying out exactly what constitutes the Learning Sciety.
And I have a family gathering. Not time to talk about education for a while.
Pride and Joy
December 22nd, 2012
6:48 pm
Why does teaching merit a “prestigious as a doctor” reputation?
Why not police officers? They put their life on the line every day.
Why not the military? They put their life on the line every day and have to endure separations frm their families in foreign, desolate, hostile countries such as Afghanistan?
Where is the prestige for them?
Teaching is less dangerous than all of the above-mentioned occupations AND the occupations mentioned above pay LESS than teaching and have far fewer benefits. Cops and the military don’t get three months off during the Summer, all holidays off and work daytime Monday through Friday hours.
If we are going to try to bring some fairness into the world of professions, let’s start with the most deserving ones.
Private Citizen
December 22nd, 2012
6:51 pm
The way things are going, the realpolitik of any US teacher’s test would be navigating the fine points of being brainwashed. Walling off the un-indoctrinated is exactly correct. Lord knows how the USA got this way but it sure has progressed quickly, the regimentation, and not in a good way.
‘Had a thought while driving today. Why is it that government school teachers have to play along with all of this extra meetings and paperwork and indoctrination? Why can not government school teachers work in a manner similar to private school teachers?
Beverly Fraud
December 22nd, 2012
7:55 pm
“AFT is billing this as comparable to a bar exam.”
Bar exam? Who knew AFT was diversifying out into becoming a comedy act?
“That post explains that pedagogy was recreated around what the Soviet psychologists were using.”
Given the fervor of conservatives, I’m surprised this hasn’t been discussed more, if indeed true.
Tech Prof
December 22nd, 2012
9:33 pm
If anyone thinks that increasing the entrance requirements for teacher prep progrms (or any higher program) is going to happen in Georgia, then think again. Governor Deal’s Higher Ed brain trust is going to start funding higher ed institutions based on the number of graduates. Gates will not be narrowed. The gates will be removed altogether and standards will be lowered so that everyone entering the institution gets a degree. That may be a good rationale for this teacher “bar exam”. The degrees will be worthless, so we better make them pass the mother of all certification tests before letting them start teaching!
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
December 22nd, 2012
9:57 pm
Beverly-the report I referred to had been in accessible for years. I knew of it by name and references to it but had never been able to locate it. And I am a good searcher. A few weeks ago I was responding to someone in Australia discussing their version of the Common Core. When I went to doublecheck the name I found the full report on a pdf now. Of course it took me about 10 hours to plow through it. But yes it was quite graphic.
There’s an interesting part of that AFT report where they want the reader to know the comment is from Al Shanker in 1986 but the footnote goes to a 200 AFT report citing the same speech. It would be mysterious if I did not have a copy of that 1986 report as well. That’s not a pdf though and for about the first month after I managed to get my hands on it the book smelled like it had been a a moldy book room since the late 80s. What we endure for the sake of accuracy.
Here’s the quote from the AFT 2012 report “Raising the Bar”: “teacher education programs provide ‘coherence and connection’ for pre-service teachers–that is, they must establish a conceptual framework around which to weave course learning and clinical experiences, avoiding fragmentation and encouraging internalization and application.”
Sounds more like a catechism to me. This is what you are to believe and do. That’s rather the antithesis of the knowledge that grounds genuine professions. That’s not maligning teachers. Most I have talked to hate the theoretical turn that makes no sense that is in the way of what they know works and what they know students need. In fact the Soviet angle makes perfect sense to them. It’s like the explanation that diminishes the extent of the fog.
irisheyes
December 22nd, 2012
10:58 pm
I don’t know, my parents are pretty proud of the fact that I’m a teacher, regardless of the fact that I could have probably done whatever I wanted to. (Graduated near the top of my high school class with a 30+ ACT score many years ago.)
It’s good to see that we’re back to denigrating those individuals so many are willing to entrust with their kids’ lives.
susan
December 22nd, 2012
11:48 pm
People who don’t understand that elected officials make the decisions for education in this state. I would never ever encourage my child to become a teacher in this state. Whether you are a good teacher or not, we are lumped together. There is no respect for teachers anymore by the public or the elected officials who cut funding. They are allowing us to teach more with less, creating situations in which local districts are having to furlough teachers , and increasing rates in health insurance. You’re dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t. I’m trying to keep a good attitude about the profession, but it’s getting harder and harder.
susan
December 22nd, 2012
11:50 pm
Let me “correct” my first sentence. People “don’t” understand that elected officials make the decisions for education in this state.
Atlanta Native
December 23rd, 2012
12:58 am
The question has within it the answer, yet no one has seen it here, it is so simple. How to improve TEACHING quality? IMPROVE THE TEACHING OF TEACHERS! In other words, we need to radically change the teaching methods that are taught in professional education classes. It’s obvious, through multiple research studies, that the ordinary, accepted methods of teaching students in today’s classrooms are outdated and not up to expectations; yet the teaching colleges keep churning out teachers who are using the same old hackneyed teaching methods. There is no room for innovation, no expectation for out-of-the-box thinking, and a sorrowful lack of emphasis on basics such as Phonics, which was successfully used for many years before the psyches got a hold of their idiotic theories about “brain-based” learning and such nonsense. They even told teachers (and sadily, the teachers ate it up!) that it was perfectly okay for kids NOT to understand the words of texts, but to simply “figure it out” based on context. HUH? So, it is senseless to look at things like increased pay, smaller class sizes, and vague terms like accountability. What teachers are taught is the undercut to improving education. Their own education textbooks have unproven and unworkable ideas in them, so toss them out and look around at the methods of schools that are making headway in student interest, students’ enjoyment of learning, and their ability to stay motiviated and graduate. Let’s start innovating where it counts, in the very substance of education, not in areas that are ancillary to the quality of education itself.
JH
December 23rd, 2012
1:53 am
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… You are kidding right… What is the incentive for teachers to really teach our kids well? Nothing. What’s in it for the teacher unions to dumb down the kids so that they grow up to liberal mooching democrats? Everything… Teachers get paid whether a child turns out to be a genius or dumb as a bag of rocks. Teachers and schools hold a virtual monopoly on the content of and the delivery of education. Until the funding and underlying structure of education are changed, everything else is academic…
Private Citizen
December 23rd, 2012
5:04 am
Atlanta Native, As long as you are summoning Jupiter, Geronimo, and you might as well throw in Hank Aaron, since you are a native Atlantan, has it occurred to you while you are blaming teachers for lacking innovation, that there is little state support of materials to do the job? In other words, what I am saying is that you are doing a bully routine of invent! create! innovate!. Teachers are expected to produce all of their materials and methods? Do you have any idea how time consuming and inefficient this is? It’s like asking the worker on the car assembly line to do the autocad designs and operate the wind tunnel, too. Anyway, what we need is some comparison of teaching schools with good curriculum compared to teaching schools with questionable curriculum for the teachers. Also, Atlanta Native, how did you start out critiquing teaching schools and quickly turning it into a slam-dunk to blame teachers?
Do you work for somebody, are you a propagandist? Because this sounds like generalised propaganda: Let’s start innovating where it counts, in the very substance of education, not in areas that are ancillary to the quality of education itself.
Did you just appropriate “education itself?” Where did you learn to communicate like this? Not to be tacky, but it is bullying, as your target is “teachers.” What exactly are you promoting? If you are promoting prosperity, you are going to have to be a little more specific. -Still trying to figure out where you got the “Boo-Rah!” Do you attend football games?
Private Citizen
December 23rd, 2012
5:08 am
Atlanta native, re-reading your post, I see you are concerned about the integrity of language instruction, vocabulary in particle. I certainly agree with that, and it seems the same sort of confused methods has been applied to a required method for the teaching of math. The real question is who is forcing these methods on teachers? There’s a power structure setting the tone for government schools.
kate
December 23rd, 2012
7:06 am
Actually make teachers major in a degree program, not education. Yes, the BOR says they do now, but they don’t, not really. Many BOR-schools created watered-down STEM “degrees” for ed majors instead of making them actually get a real STEM degree in order to teach it. Math ed is NOT the same as as a Math degree!!!! Until that stops (there’s even a broad ’social science’ degree that was created), not a lot will improve GA K-12 teacher education in our state. STOP all the “how to teach” classes that are little evidence-based and don’t matter anyway when we (mistakenly, in my mind) make all teachers obey cookie-cutter lesson plans anyway and don’t let them actually teach creatively. But a class on how to get kids to do art? A few days worth of that content, okay, I get, but at my institution, there are TWO required 15-week classes in that and only 1 in STEM content for P-3 teachers. That’s out of balance. I think most P-3 kids can figure out painting and such on their own, but subtraction and addition, not so much.
dcb
December 23rd, 2012
7:15 am
First, I’m sorry but simply throwing more money to attract “better qualified individuals” to the teaching profession is not going to work. We’ve tried that after the study “A Nation at Risk” hit a couple of decades back. What “might” work better from this retired school head’s viewpoint is to force our teacher training establishments into the twenty-first century. Until they teach the true integration of technology into the teacher training picture as the major tool necessary to meet the classroom needs of our current generation’s techno-crazy learners, stepping into an elementary or secondary school classroom of today will provide an experience no different than those who attended the same schools in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s ….. which isn’t cutting it. Students still need teacher direction, of course. But they have become more self-learners with the laptops and kindles and smart-phones and other tech-related tools that are part of their every day lives from an early age. Those are not being incorporated into the classroom experience to the degree they need to be – in part because the tools were not even around when most of our teachers completed their college Education Department’s training degree. But even currently, because the industry is slow to change. And truth be known, a change as drastic as this is a generational thing. There is no quick fix.
Pride and Joy
December 23rd, 2012
7:20 am
irisheyes you say that “so many are willing to entrust with their kids’ lives.”
WILLING?
Hardly.
Most people have NO CHOICE other than to send their kids to public school.
I am killing myself financially to put my kids in private school and I was darn lucky to find a school with room to take them.
There are waiting lines in parochial schools, even for solid, attending, tythe paying members like me.
The best private schools are so crazy expensive that almost no one can afford them — including you. Woodward is 18K per year per child for basic tuition — there are more fees and other expenses. If you have two kids, that’s 36K AFTER TAX DOLLARS, which is what you earn for an entire year…and most private schools here cost that much.
So NO we are NOT WILLING to trust our kids to you. We have no other choice and that is why the charter school amendment passed by a landslide — we Georgians want OUT of the public school cesspool.
Private Citizen
December 23rd, 2012
7:38 am
STOP all the “how to teach” classes
Can we start collecting money for billboards? I’ll donate the first $100.
Private Citizen
December 23rd, 2012
7:45 am
teach the true integration of technology into the teacher training
Would not that require coordinated resources provided to teachers? My experience is having to provide practically every stick of resource material myself and source it from the internet or using a scanner. I have literally spent thousands and thousands of dollars of my own money making materials for students, materials to teach with, and spent hours and hours doing same, all of this while being told “how to teach” but roving crooks with $100k salary.
haveyouthoughtaboutthis
December 23rd, 2012
8:13 am
Too many educators (administrators for sure) receive advanced degrees from schools that are at best mediocre. If you went to UGA undergrad; why are you are attending Argosy University for your masters degree? The degree means nothing. Politics drives promotions. . . (somewhere in there should be performance and influence IN THE CLASSROOM).
peachpits
December 23rd, 2012
8:15 am
No teacher I work with has the “summers off”, as most work another job to make ends meet. We are required to work 42 hours a week in the school, but that does not account for the additional nights and weekends of planning and paperwork required to keep a classroom running. The media does nothing but highlight a few bad apples, lumping us in with them as equals. No wonder we get no respect. BTW, I have a master’s, plus a year long, unpaid internship and passed a national assessment to obtain my degree, so thank you for insulting my intellect by calling my job a cakewalk.
8th Grade Math Teacher
December 23rd, 2012
8:16 am
1. Repeal No Child Pushes Ahead/Race to the Middle
2. Give teachers more autonomy
3. Fire the ones who stink, regardless of how long they’ve been there, and provide cash incentives to the ones who perform well
It’s not so difficult, except for the Federal Government mucking it up with all of their obsession with standardized testing. All we have accomplished is to make sure that teachers are no longer concerned with advancing the best and brightest; the entire name of the game is meeting quotas.
8th Grade Math Teacher
December 23rd, 2012
8:31 am
One more HUGE problem that people who aren’t in the profession don’t see is the one concerning discipline.
As teachers, we have to deal with students whose parents don’t teach them respect or common courtesy. Good lessons can curtail this some, but there are some students who are constant disruptions no matter the level of teaching.
These students are sent to the office, and here’s where the real problem occurs. Students see no real repercussions for their actions, because under these stupid No Child Left Behind/Race to the Top (which are laughable descriptions for what they really are) guidelines, our schools receive poor marks when we remove troublesome students.
So what happens is that the students who have no business being in school (and make life more difficult for teachers as well as students who actually WANT to learn) hang around and hang around and never see real consequences for their actions.
The secondary effect of this is that kids who would otherwise toe the line for fear of getting in trouble see that these other students never receive any real consequences and so then they become disruptive. After all, what does it really matter? The worst we can do to them is pull them out of class for a bit and call their parents.
We should be able to send the disruptive students to alternative schools WITHOUT PENALTY for the schools doing so, and make these students EARN the right to come back with the general population.
Some principals do this, but they are always removed for having too many “discipline problems.” How backwards is this? The message to teachers and administrators is that disciplining students is the “problem.”
The job becomes impossible when teachers are expected to teach, babysit, and parent all at the same time.
Dad of future teacher
December 23rd, 2012
8:41 am
I completely agree with the lack of encouragement to enter teaching. My daughter is a college freshman and has wanted to teach for several years. She finished #5 in her class at a North Fulton high school. She is a high achiever. We have people respond with “she could so much more” when they hear elementary education major. Unfortunately our materialistic society focuses on salaries. The only difference between a CEO at a successful company and a teacher of a successful classroom is the age of those the inspire.
Good timing
December 23rd, 2012
8:43 am
Actually, the push to raise teacher qualification standards is not a bad idea considering the current status of the American workforce: where else can you get benefits, a stable income, long vacation time, and a more-or-less set workday schedule? (note: I teach – and a break from students and parents during the summer, whether or not I choose to seek other employment in June and July, is still a vacation)
TeacherMom4
December 23rd, 2012
8:56 am
My education classes were easy and fairly useless, particularly since I was in undergrad during the “Whole Language” era. These facts do not mean that I am stupid, or incompetent, or a bad teacher. Educating future teachers needs to change. There should be more content based classes. Since so many of the methods classes don’t really help, the internship should be a full year. Most of what I know about how to run a classroom has been OTJ training–with me as trainer and trainee. If I had more mentoring, the first few years would have had less of a learning curve. The problem is, when you start teaching, your mentor teacher is busy with their own classroom. They aren’t there to guide you when you have a problem; they can only listen to the story after. My “mentor” my first year teaching in GA asked me periodically how it was going. That was it….and she got a stipend for it. No advice was offered, no suggestions for how to approach teaching a specific skill or topic. I was too proud to ask, or maybe didn’t know how much I didn’t know. Anyway, I was terrible my first couple of years, and I feel bad for those students. Was I unintelligent though? No. I just had little support in an environment very different from New England, where I grew up and went to college.
Revamp the education programs for sure. Make them more rigorous and wash out the lazy who are looking for an easy program. But I really think the training/mentoring that happens within the school would make the biggest difference in success/failure and retention of good teachers.
guitargodnl
December 23rd, 2012
9:27 am
@ pridecand joy:
So, give the really good teachers a $20K bonus for teaching to the test? Do you realize how easy it is to teach to the test? You don’t even need a teacher; you’re looking for a computer. $20K bonus or regular per annum pay scale? Do you realize how very low that is in comparision to business bonuses?
Let’s talk $100K per year, improved benefits, an office, and secretarial help for each teacher. Your proposals indicate one more time that we just do not value education. $20K ? Not hardly(colloquialism). Let’s talk some real money, and you’ll see things happen. We can’t do it with property taxes!
Beverly Fraud
December 23rd, 2012
9:29 am
“The only difference between a CEO at a successful company and a teacher of a successful classroom is the age of those the inspire.”
Sadly @Dad of future teacher, you are wrong. Very, very, very wrong. What the CEO has, that your daughter will never have is authority. The CEO will have accountability but with it the authority to make changes that will or will not lead to success. You daughter will have accountability, but be tasked with things that are destined to fail, then be blamed for failure.
Your daughter has a high degree of probability of being stuck in a systemically stupid situation with people who, for their own selfish ends, think in systemically stupid ways. If she is as bright as you say she is, she will no doubt find the lack of intellect do be frustrating, if not downright debilitating.
Please, please for the love of God encourage your daughter to do two things:
1) take colleges courses that will allow her, if necessary, to go back and have a good “plan B”
2) encourage her to save, save, save it’s amazingly empowering to be able to someone (and mean it) that you are financially, and strategically prepared to walk away, no hard feelings.
If you don’t want to dissuade her from her dream, fine. But encourage her to be prepared if the dream turns out to be a nightmare. There is no downside to that, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Please direct her to this post, and other posters like Fled. Maybe private schools or overseas schools are an option, that will allow her to provide service, if that’s her hearts desire.
Dennis
December 23rd, 2012
9:38 am
The put down of teachers and public education is, and always has been, to serve one purpose – keep taxes low. Student achievement is secondary to that. The proof of that pudding is evident in our governor’s lead to establish for profit charter schools.
Let’s anyone wants to challenge that, the bottom line of the corporate charter school business is money, not student achievement.
And while not all of the brightest go into teaching, not all of the brightest go into business.
But, let’s evauate across the board. Let’s make things even.
Not the brightest and best go into politics, either, and maybe that’s the root of our educational problems.
So, let’s have a midterm evaluation of our politicians and if they aren’t performing up to snuff, let’s turn them out in the same manner we want to turn out “bad teachers.”
Vee
December 23rd, 2012
9:41 am
For those who chide teachers for having 2 (some ridiculous person said 3) months off:
So, you want teachers to work– and children to go to school–246 days out of the year? (I’ll let you figure out I how got the 246 out of 365.25 days.) What’s funny is that you’re probably the same ones that complain about the children returning to school in late July/early August.
For the person who felt that police officers, millitary, etc. deserve more than teachers because they “risk their lives everyday”:
Are you serious?! Honey, teachers risk their lives in ways that you cannot even imagine. Physical threats aside, a child’s lie can ruin a teacher’s career and livelihood. Just ask those teachers and administrators who were suspended without pay and had to fend and prove their innocence because some child lied about them “touching” him/her. Just ask that teacher from Macon who was fired for defending herself when a parent decided to assault her. At least, police officers can arrest those that do not follow their commands. What can teachers do, besides writing an office referral (only for the child to be “warned” and sent back to the classroom, in most cases)?
As for the topic of this blog:
I would be proud to say “my child, the teacher”. My parents are proud to say I am a teacher. My grandmother was proud to call my mother a teacher. Teaching–in this country–does not get its due respect and will not until the demonization of and the egregious demands on teachers cease. However, I know that despite the aforementioned cons of teaching, it takes special people to teach and to do it for more than 20 years. When I console abused children, inspire children who get no support from their parents, and have former students (some who thought I was so “mean”) that visit my classroom, invite me to their graduations, and call me on my birthday, I realize that my teaching is not in vain.
Private Citizen
December 23rd, 2012
10:00 am
8th Grade Math Teacher, you’re saying a lot right here:
“We should be able to send the disruptive students to alternative schools WITHOUT PENALTY for the schools doing so, and make these students EARN the right to come back with the general population.
Some principals do this, but they are always removed for having too many “discipline problems.” How backwards is this?”
______________________________
This “New World Order” education agenda seems to contain a lot of unworkable reverse logic. Punish the teachers and principals for governing their schools. I think you’ve clearly identified what is one of the core dysfunctions.
It appears that in the current political climate there is nothing we can do to alter this except abandon ship and re-purpose our own time and dedication.
Tiffany
December 23rd, 2012
10:02 am
Many others have posted the same sentiment, and I must agree: the entire system needs revision, not just “qualifying teachers.”
It is not about having expert teachers, who know more knowledge about A, B, C; teaching is the skill of conveying information in a way that another person can comprehend it. Instruction in that skill was present in only two of my undergrad in education courses. One can be an expert, but if they can not convey their expertise, there is no place for them in education.
Our classrooms should be designed around students’ learning styles and abilities, not around “the same education for everyone.” This includes accepting the reality that some people do not test/write/speak well. Far greater assessment can be gained from dialogue and debate (in the later years) and application of material that students need to master. This reality frightens some people, but education does need to look the same for every student – a child’s strengths and skills should determine which topics should be emphasized and HOW from age 10 and beyond. (I can hear the tirade now!)
Most effective teachers (on the high school level) I know are trying desperately to meet their students where they are at; unfortunately, the reality of social promotion means that the high school years are a huge obstacle for most kids. They have been told for several years that they need to “pass,” but there is no real consequence when they do not. (Thus, the extremely high ninth grade failure rate.)
In addition, those students who have been socially promoted do not value education, nor do they see its purpose. (Whether you like or it not, this is a FACT that stems from the home/culture/society, NOT teachers or the school system.) So many students are there to meet the compulsory attendance laws (for driver’s licenses, for example), but the fundamental flaw of the law is that there is no motivation to PASS, just to ATTEND. Sadly, our current system has strayed from its original intent of offering education to everyone who WANTS the opportunity to achieve.
And that is another issue. Teachers should be the FIRST voice for new legislation, guidelines and curricula. Far too many of the decisions about education are made by people who have NEVER really seen how a classroom functions. The material in textbooks is created on profit margin, not what is best for students. Standards and testing are set by people who know little to nothing about what children should actually learn or HOW they learn. Even teacher evaluations originate OUTSIDE of the classroom/school.
Further, if a child has a natural talent or ability, that should be nurtured, not put on a back burner until they can learn a myriad of other things that will be test-requirements. That child does not understand why their natural ability in Subject A is being minimized while they must also master Subject B, which they may not have a natural inclination for, in order to pass a test. Their strengths in Subject A should become the focus of their education paradigm. All the other subjects are essential, but not to the same degree as their subject of strength, and certainly not the detriment of that strength or their education as a whole. (Please note this similar to our current special education philosophy, so it is functional in its application.)
I left public education after my first child was born and I won’t be returning. While there were many aspects that I enjoyed, the system is simply broken, making it ineffective for the masses. (Again, we need experienced teachers to tell us how to fix the system, including alternatives for those students who do not understand that their education is for their benefit. Such sweeping revisions may look different in each school system.)
We homeschool our children, allowing them to prosper in their strengths at their own rate. The classical education paradigm we employ in our household has long since vanished from classrooms in this country. Our children (and the children we interact with each week) are capable of utilizing their knowledge base in discussion, writing, and application – even in teaching each other.