Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
But as long as society has deemed it "unacceptable" to show even the slightest respect for public school teachers and their knowledge & experience, then absolutely no one will see it as "worth their time" to see anything from a mere teacher's point of view.
I mean... come on... we're only teachers, right? Easiest 4-yr degree out there... only work half the year, with 6 hour days...
What do we know?
Actually it is one of the easiest degrees to get.
For years studies have shown that education majors have some of the lowest SAT scores out there.
Actually it is one of the easiest degrees to get.
For years studies have shown that education majors have some of the lowest SAT scores out there.
Interestingly, fewer than half of all education majors (or even intended education) majors become teachers. So what you really need to do is to somehow figure out the scores of those who actually go on to work in teaching.
In the 2002-2005 cohort, elementary school teachers’ combined SAT score was over 1000, nearly 40 points higher than the overall mean that Richwine and Biggs use. Secondary school teacher scores in academic subjects are much higher–math and science teachers are above the national average in both, and English/history teachers above in verbal and slightly below in math.
The "best" urban charter schools don't even mess with the worst-behaved students. Imagine how inner-city schools in this country could improve if they, too, had the ability to get rid of 10-15% of the biggest trouble-makers. I don't know where they'd go, but those remaining would have a much better chance at succeeding. It's time for lawmakers, judges, etc. to see this from the educator's point of view and stop catering to the bottom at the expense of everyone else.
You won't believe how hard some ideologically driven nuts in NYC fight to make sure that inner city NYC Charter schools' disruptive kids who sabotage other kids' educations (and its virtually all low income black and Hispanic kid's educations that are getting screwed up - NYC Charters are over 90% black and hispanic) aren't booted out. Because the traditional non-charter public scholls don't boot them out, if they even bother identifying them. Instead of lobbying (and the teacher's unions spends tens and tens of millions lobbying Albany each year) to fix this problem in the traditional public schools, instead they try to insist that the Charter schools serving low income kids, that find ways to eject disruptors, should instead have to keep the few individual kids that sabotage 100s of other kids' educations. ("We've been going along with this crappy system for decades and so you should too! Our Millions and millions of lobbying money isn't gonna be spent on pushing laws to improve kids' majority educations - because we've got our own (unaligned) interests to push!" )
In the end its a fight about ideology rather than a fight to give the most low income kids the best education. Sickening. Sometimes it looks like an NYC middle class white conspiracy against non-Asian minority kids - they have to suck it up. All you've got to do to get the perpetually offended and non-progressive progressives fired up is find charter backers who are linked to wall st (or anyone else with money - but what a surprise since it costs huge amounts to educate, and people's brains fall out their bottoms with fundamental attribution error ruling the day!).
God forbid that low-income parents might have a choice of two different types of schools instead of just the union-interested one type. Only the rich kids should have a second choice (private).
You won't believe how hard some ideologically driven nuts in NYC fight to make sure that inner city NYC Charter schools' disruptive kids who sabotage other kids' educations (and its virtually all low income black and Hispanic kid's educations that are getting screwed up - NYC Charters are over 90% black and hispanic) aren't booted out. Because the traditional non-charter public scholls don't boot them out, if they even bother identifying them. Instead of lobbying (and the teacher's unions spends tens and tens of millions lobbying Albany each year) to fix this problem in the traditional public schools, instead they try to insist that the Charter schools serving low income kids, that find ways to eject disruptors, should instead have to keep the few individual kids that sabotage 100s of other kids' educations. ("We've been going along with this crappy system for decades and so you should too! Our Millions and millions of lobbying money isn't gonna be spent on pushing laws to improve kids' majority educations - because we've got our own (unaligned) interests to push!" )
In the end its a fight about ideology rather than a fight to give the most low income kids the best education. Sickening. Sometimes it looks like an NYC middle class white conspiracy against non-Asian minority kids - they have to suck it up. All you've got to do to get the perpetually offended and non-progressive progressives fired up is find charter backers who are linked to wall st (or anyone else with money - but what a surprise since it costs huge amounts to educate, and people's brains fall out their bottoms with fundamental attribution error ruling the day!).
God forbid that low-income parents might have a choice of two different types of schools instead of just the union-interested one type. Only the rich kids should have a second choice (private).
Ignoring the charter/traditional public school issue for now.
I don't think you're picking up what many of us have put down, that "getting rid of disruptive" kids isn't happening now because of various directives that go clear up to the US Department of Justice.
It's not a matter any more that a kid is disrupting the education of dozens, because of the various metrics used to rate schools/school systems every kid you expel counts against you. That's why school systems have reconfigured their discipline policies.
It's tied to NCLB, RT3, issues of disparate impact, lawsuits filed by advocacy groups and, most importantly, money. Money from the US Department of Education, money from foundations like the Gates Foundation, just plain money.
It doesn't matter what this or that Teacher's Association lobbies for or against.
Interestingly, fewer than half of all education majors (or even intended education) majors become teachers. So what you really need to do is to somehow figure out the scores of those who actually go on to work in teaching.
It's difficult. I don't quite get the fast tracks (here in Canada, it's five years education, or at minimum, two years FT post-degree in education). How on earth are barely trained teachers supposed to handle a difficult class?
I don't think fast-track teaching certificates are the problem. The problem is that many university departments of education simply don't offer or require training in handling a difficult class. In many programs, it's absurdly easy to get a teaching certificate. I've heard that New York State has more stringent requirements, and a more rigorous qualification process, but my impression is that that is rare, nation-wide. And even when doing student-teaching, it's not that unusual for the candidate to not get much, if any, guidance from the teacher s/he's working under. Some teachers feel no obligation to fulfill their part of the bargain when they're assigned a student-teacher.
These programs need to be revamped. Maybe their need to be some kind of national requirements. The system isn't really set up in most cases to train university students adequately. In many states, you don't need a degree in Education. You only need your major/s in your subject field, plus a few courses in Education and your student-teaching. basically an enhanced language or history or whatever major, not an Education degree.
And of course there's also the issue of breakdown in the family structure. If the parents or single parent don't have good parenting skills or worse, aren't available to instill academic discipline in the child due to working two jobs or being on drugs, or whatever, the school ends up with some very raw material to try to work with. Is it fair to expect teachers to work miracles? I don't know.
That addresses ONLY the SAT scores - it does not differentiate between elementary and secondary teachers and it says nothing about the students who *actually* teach.
Remember SAT scores only actually tell us who will do well in the first year of college and not much else. It does not take into account which educational institution the education major went to. I seriously doubt that the SAT scores of teachers mean anything in comparison with the SAT scores of those who are engineers or mathematicians.
That addresses ONLY the SAT scores - it does not differentiate between elementary and secondary teachers and it says nothing about the students who *actually* teach.
Remember SAT scores only actually tell us who will do well in the first year of college and not much else. It does not take into account which educational institution the education major went to. I seriously doubt that the SAT scores of teachers mean anything in comparison with the SAT scores of those who are engineers or mathematicians.
I never alluded that it did. I said "education majors" in college as did the article I posted.
I don't think fast-track teaching certificates are the problem. The problem is that many university departments of education simply don't offer or require training in handling a difficult class. In many programs, it's absurdly easy to get a teaching certificate. I've heard that New York State has more stringent requirements, and a more rigorous qualification process, but my impression is that that is rare, nation-wide. And even when doing student-teaching, it's not that unusual for the candidate to not get much, if any, guidance from the teacher s/he's working under. Some teachers feel no obligation to fulfill their part of the bargain when they're assigned a student-teacher.
These programs need to be revamped. Maybe their need to be some kind of national requirements. The system isn't really set up in most cases to train university students adequately. In many states, you don't need a degree in Education. You only need your major/s in your subject field, plus a few courses in Education and your student-teaching. basically an enhanced language or history or whatever major, not an Education degree.
And of course there's also the issue of breakdown in the family structure. If the parents or single parent don't have good parenting skills or worse, aren't available to instill academic discipline in the child due to working two jobs or being on drugs, or whatever, the school ends up with some very raw material to try to work with. Is it fair to expect teachers to work miracles? I don't know.
Most teacher education programs don't even acknowledge the behavior problems in schools today never mind offer some type of rigorous training.
I'm thankful for the alt cert program I was in. Our head teacher signed us all up to help out in summer school in a Title 1 school. Boy oh boy did we get quick lessons in "classroom management".
And at the end of the summer he said he did it on purpose. He said he threw us into the deep end of the pool so that we wouldn't be surprised later on.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
