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Teachers aren't exactly getting it done these days. I fully embrace alternative ideas to develop effective teachers.
I agree with your sentiment.
If the Department of Ed held the traditional colleges/universities to the same outcomes expected from the private sector, I imagine they would be more concerned with training their students for gainful employment in the field of teaching and administration.
This proposed bill doesn't do what you think it does...
It is limited to "high needs schools" and "difficult to staff subjects"
It is also specifically limited to public, non profit programs...."for profits" are specifically excluded....
Even if this bill were to pass, no school system would be obligated to hire these teachers and local and state standards related to minimum educational requirements which are headed towards Master's prepared candidates would not be nullified....
We have had this program in MN for 10+ years. You see it most often in rural areas but not always. Our high school has a couple "converted" teachers and we are in a suburban area with a well respected system that doesn't have problems attracting teachers. One teacher is a former CIA analyst and the kids LOVE her history class!! We have some friends that are now teachers under this program too--Chemistry and Physics teachers now. They had to have at least a BA in their subject area (same with all high school teachers) and had a couple years to get their certification in secondary education. They are in a ok sized rural school district. It's a great program but just because someone is an expert in their field doesn't mean they will be a good teacher. You still have to have the personality. One family friend is a brilliant physicist-would NEVER be a good teacher-zero common sense and just holding a conversation with him is painful because he can't hold up his end of the conversation
Teachers aren't exactly getting it done these days. I fully embrace alternative ideas to develop effective teachers.
First, this is a simplistic statement that fails to take into account all of the evidence on teacher quality and effectiveness.
In suburban and affluent schools, teachers are very much "getting it done". White and Asian American students rank considerably higher in achievement than the OECD average. Teachers in these schools almost always have Masters Degrees or are required to get Masters Degrees. In private schools, although a Masters in Education is not required, they will want to see advanced degrees in the content area and/or similar levels of professional and academic achievement.
It is in the inner city schools where many of the problems are. This is partially related to low teacher quality - but the low teacher quality is the result of several factors which form a vicious circle of underachievement. The first is that the difficulty of the job, poor pay, and poor working conditions tend to attract and retain only teachers which can't "make it" in better schools. Second, schools are seriously underfunded, often have dysfunctional administrative cultures, and don't have enough social services and resources to aid teachers in educating students with significantly more special needs than those of more affluent districts. Even quality, dedicated teachers who start teaching in inner city schools begin to feel their jobs are futile with such little support, and they bolt for better performing and better funded schools when they have the chance.
Those inner city schools which are succeeding, such as Charter Schools, tend to hire only teachers with excellent academic credentials, because they want to imbue a culture of academic excellence in their students. It's much easier to develop that kind of culture when their teachers went to Columbia than an "alternative program."
And in other countries with a highly successful teaching force and high student achievement, they have gotten that way through demanding more education and degrees of their teachers, not less. In Finland, teachers are required to have a Masters degree and come from the top 10% of the student population.
The way to fix education in America (where is needs to be fixed) does not lay in dumbing down the teaching profession and providing un-academic routes into teaching, but rather in making the degree requirements more stringent, in line with other professions which require an advanced degree for entry, and making the job more creative, rather than focusing on only rote learning and testing.
And the idea that there is a shortage of teachers is outdated. We have a SURPLUS of teachers in many states. Even in inner cities. For example, only about 10% of teachers who apply to NYC Public Schools are accepted into positions. School districts can now be extraordinarily picky, which raises the bar for the quality of new teachers. Most new teachers being hired today have very high (3.7 +) undergraduate GPAs from selective schools, Masters degrees, and loads of clinical and fieldwork. Only the best and brightest are getting hired. Unfortunately, they are also the first to get laid off when budgets get cut (but that is another topic altogether).
For areas with a shortage of qualified teachers, the best way to attract excellent professionals is to pay very well and recruit heavily in those areas where there is a surplus of highly qualified teachers. The Louisiana Dept. of Ed recently did a recruiting tour of the grad schools of Ed NYC, advertising good pay comparable to cost of living and good professional support.
So not only is their not a need for alternate teacher training programs turning out superfluous teachers since there is an oversupply, it could be a dead end for those students, especially if they have lower academic standards than traditional schools of Education (which from the language of the bill, it sounds like they do). This is unless the alternate programs are pathways for professionals who already hold advanced degrees and experience in the field they want to teach, in which case they would be serving a useful purpose and turning out teachers who are truly competitive in the marketplace.
The only use for "alternate" schools that I can see is in states like Texas, that refuse to offer good enough pay or professional conditions to recruit the best and brightest of their own or good teachers from out of state, and so set up alternate programs to make the teaching profession accessible to lower performing college students who will accept the low pay and working conditions.
But as a country, do we really want to imitate Texas when it comes to education?
First, this is a simplistic statement that fails to take into account all of the evidence on teacher quality and effectiveness.
In suburban and affluent schools, teachers are very much "getting it done". White and Asian American students rank considerably higher in achievement than the OECD average. Teachers in these schools almost always have Masters Degrees or are required to get Masters Degrees. In private schools, although a Masters in Education is not required, they will want to see advanced degrees in the content area and/or similar levels of professional and academic achievement.
It is in the inner city schools where many of the problems are. This is partially related to low teacher quality - but the low teacher quality is the result of several factors which form a vicious circle of underachievement. The first is that the difficulty of the job, poor pay, and poor working conditions tend to attract and retain only teachers which can't "make it" in better schools. Second, schools are seriously underfunded, often have dysfunctional administrative cultures, and don't have enough social services and resources to aid teachers in educating students with significantly more special needs than those of more affluent districts. Even quality, dedicated teachers who start teaching in inner city schools begin to feel their jobs are futile with such little support, and they bolt for better performing and better funded schools when they have the chance.
Those inner city schools which are succeeding, such as Charter Schools, tend to hire only teachers with excellent academic credentials, because they want to imbue a culture of academic excellence in their students. It's much easier to develop that kind of culture when their teachers went to Columbia than an "alternative program."
And in other countries with a highly successful teaching force and high student achievement, they have gotten that way through demanding more education and degrees of their teachers, not less. In Finland, teachers are required to have a Masters degree and come from the top 10% of the student population.
The way to fix education in America (where is needs to be fixed) does not lay in dumbing down the teaching profession and providing un-academic routes into teaching, but rather in making the degree requirements more stringent, in line with other professions which require an advanced degree for entry, and making the job more creative, rather than focusing on only rote learning and testing.
And the idea that there is a shortage of teachers is outdated. We have a SURPLUS of teachers in many states. Even in inner cities. For example, only about 10% of teachers who apply to NYC Public Schools are accepted into positions. School districts can now be extraordinarily picky, which raises the bar for the quality of new teachers. Most new teachers being hired today have very high (3.7 +) undergraduate GPAs from selective schools, Masters degrees, and loads of clinical and fieldwork. Only the best and brightest are getting hired. Unfortunately, they are also the first to get laid off when budgets get cut (but that is another topic altogether).
For areas with a shortage of qualified teachers, the best way to attract excellent professionals is to pay very well and recruit heavily in those areas where there is a surplus of highly qualified teachers. The Louisiana Dept. of Ed recently did a recruiting tour of the grad schools of Ed NYC, advertising good pay comparable to cost of living and good professional support.
So not only is their not a need for alternate teacher training programs turning out superfluous teachers since there is an oversupply, it could be a dead end for those students, especially if they have lower academic standards than traditional schools of Education (which from the language of the bill, it sounds like they do). This is unless the alternate programs are pathways for professionals who already hold advanced degrees and experience in the field they want to teach, in which case they would be serving a useful purpose and turning out teachers who are truly competitive in the marketplace.
The only use for "alternate" schools that I can see is in states like Texas, that refuse to offer good enough pay or professional conditions to recruit the best and brightest of their own or good teachers from out of state, and so set up alternate programs to make the teaching profession accessible to lower performing college students who will accept the low pay and working conditions.
But as a country, do we really want to imitate Texas when it comes to education?
Please go back and read. I did not say teachers are to blame for their ineffectiveness. Teachers are simply doing what they've been taught, and their teachers were doing what they were taught. But we've been debating the reasons for the problem for far too long. The truth us, regardless of reasons or blame, teachers are for the most part ineffective. We need to try something different.
Debating the reasons and blame on this forum isn't going to accomplish anything more than the public debate has accomplished in the last thirty years. And that is nothing. The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. And that goes for both teaching methods and debating the subject.
First, this is a simplistic statement that fails to take into account all of the evidence on teacher quality and effectiveness.
In suburban and affluent schools, teachers are very much "getting it done". White and Asian American students rank considerably higher in achievement than the OECD average. Teachers in these schools almost always have Masters Degrees or are required to get Masters Degrees. In private schools, although a Masters in Education is not required, they will want to see advanced degrees in the content area and/or similar levels of professional and academic achievement.
It is in the inner city schools where many of the problems are. This is partially related to low teacher quality - but the low teacher quality is the result of several factors which form a vicious circle of underachievement. The first is that the difficulty of the job, poor pay, and poor working conditions tend to attract and retain only teachers which can't "make it" in better schools. Second, schools are seriously underfunded, often have dysfunctional administrative cultures, and don't have enough social services and resources to aid teachers in educating students with significantly more special needs than those of more affluent districts. Even quality, dedicated teachers who start teaching in inner city schools begin to feel their jobs are futile with such little support, and they bolt for better performing and better funded schools when they have the chance.
Those inner city schools which are succeeding, such as Charter Schools, tend to hire only teachers with excellent academic credentials, because they want to imbue a culture of academic excellence in their students. It's much easier to develop that kind of culture when their teachers went to Columbia than an "alternative program."
And in other countries with a highly successful teaching force and high student achievement, they have gotten that way through demanding more education and degrees of their teachers, not less. In Finland, teachers are required to have a Masters degree and come from the top 10% of the student population.
The way to fix education in America (where is needs to be fixed) does not lay in dumbing down the teaching profession and providing un-academic routes into teaching, but rather in making the degree requirements more stringent, in line with other professions which require an advanced degree for entry, and making the job more creative, rather than focusing on only rote learning and testing.
And the idea that there is a shortage of teachers is outdated. We have a SURPLUS of teachers in many states. Even in inner cities. For example, only about 10% of teachers who apply to NYC Public Schools are accepted into positions. School districts can now be extraordinarily picky, which raises the bar for the quality of new teachers. Most new teachers being hired today have very high (3.7 +) undergraduate GPAs from selective schools, Masters degrees, and loads of clinical and fieldwork. Only the best and brightest are getting hired. Unfortunately, they are also the first to get laid off when budgets get cut (but that is another topic altogether).
For areas with a shortage of qualified teachers, the best way to attract excellent professionals is to pay very well and recruit heavily in those areas where there is a surplus of highly qualified teachers. The Louisiana Dept. of Ed recently did a recruiting tour of the grad schools of Ed NYC, advertising good pay comparable to cost of living and good professional support.
So not only is their not a need for alternate teacher training programs turning out superfluous teachers since there is an oversupply, it could be a dead end for those students, especially if they have lower academic standards than traditional schools of Education (which from the language of the bill, it sounds like they do). This is unless the alternate programs are pathways for professionals who already hold advanced degrees and experience in the field they want to teach, in which case they would be serving a useful purpose and turning out teachers who are truly competitive in the marketplace.
The only use for "alternate" schools that I can see is in states like Texas, that refuse to offer good enough pay or professional conditions to recruit the best and brightest of their own or good teachers from out of state, and so set up alternate programs to make the teaching profession accessible to lower performing college students who will accept the low pay and working conditions.
But as a country, do we really want to imitate Texas when it comes to education?
I would LOVE to see an experiment done where they take the students from the "best" high school in the state and send them to the "worst" high school in the state-vice versa--leaving all of the teachers in place. I am willing to bet a LOT of money that within ONE YEAR, the best high school will become the worst and the worst high school will become the best.
I would LOVE to see an experiment done where they take the students from the "best" high school in the state and send them to the "worst" high school in the state-vice versa--leaving all of the teachers in place. I am willing to bet a LOT of money that within ONE YEAR, the best high school will become the worst and the worst high school will become the best.
I have to agree here. That, or those kids would simply be pulled from the worst HS or given extra tutoring. The role of parenting and home life is so important.
I have to agree here. That, or those kids would simply be pulled from the worst HS or given extra tutoring. The role of parenting and home life is so important.
I'd argue that its the MOST important thing. The fact of the matter is that the child gets his/her work ethic from the parents. If the parents don't give a s***, guess what attitude junior is going to have?
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