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The same person (has also commented on this thread) asked, in a previous thread, what would happen if there wasn’t a pilot to fly an airline flight. Well I can tell you exactly what would happen: the flight would be CANCELLED. They wouldn’t go find a hillbilly in the sticks, whose entire flying career consisted of flying single engine Cessna crop dusters, to fly the Boeing 737 to Atlanta and say very silly things like, “I need a pilot in every airplane”. OMG can you imagine if every industry had this same “I need a teacher in every classroom even if they are just minimum qualifications for the job.” Thank heavens they are not!
Well the airline does not have compulsory attendance and there are safety implications of an unqualified pilot. If you are the principal of a public school you are confronted with about 30 kids in each class room, and you are better off putting some sort of adult in the room than just letting the kids do whatever thy would do unsupervised.
The schools have to, IIRC, accept the students and if all you can get is a "teacher" who is effectively just day care for the kids, that's better than just leaving the teacher position vacant. I guess. Sucks to be in that position but you have to work with the resources you actually have, not what you theoretically need. Depending on the subject, and given a little prep time, I think a normal adult could teach most elementary and high school subjects. Maybe not calculus or a foreign language they don't speak, but the "3 R's" stuff any competent adult IMHO could do a decent if not ideal job.
Ideally you have an excellent teacher in every classroom, but the pay and working conditions don't support that. It's up to the principal to allocate the teacher resources available to get maximum effect.
Unfortunately a lot of parents look to the schools mostly to provide day care while they are working. That's not ideal but it's frequently how it is.
In regard to this, this is probably not what you're meaning, but I have often thought the goal of public education should be like the motto of the Army (at least at one point): "Be all that you can be". The question is -- at least to me -- how and when do we begin to decide what that "all that you can be" is for a particular child. And associated with that, if we go too far with that, do we then take away a child's ability to turn himself/herself around as a late bloomer.
I do think that every kid who is of "normal ability" ought to be prepared to at least go to community college. Are there any 'good' jobs left where at least a community college 2 year degree is not worthwhile; my guess is, few and far between.
I think middle and high school ought to have tracks for 'the trades', but some of our posters seem to think that 'the trades' of today are the 'trades of yesteryear'. The last time I had my car inspected in Virginia (which was 15 years ago), a garage mechanic without a reasonable level of computer savvy wouldn't have been able to do the job.
I agree that the goal of public education should be to maximize each student's ability and that every kid who is of "normal ability" ought to be prepared to at least go to community college. The problem that I see is that too many students are graduating with very low reading ability and very low ability to do basic arithmetic. My opinion of public education is that any improvement must start with getting all students up to proficiency in those areas, not proficiency in algebra and biology, the subject that PA tests with their Keystone exams.
The other thing I have noticed is students in classes with students of higher ability tend to give up. They don't participate in discussions and tend to think they are just not smart enough. Nobody likes to appear stupid so they act disinterested and don't pay attention.
Depending on the subject, and given a little prep time, I think a normal adult could teach most elementary and high school subjects. Maybe not calculus or a foreign language they don't speak, but the "3 R's" stuff any competent adult IMHO could do a decent if not ideal job.
Ideally you have an excellent teacher in every classroom, but the pay and working conditions don't support that. It's up to the principal to allocate the teacher resources available to get maximum effect.
Unfortunately a lot of parents look to the schools mostly to provide day care while they are working. That's not ideal but it's frequently how it is.
I remember my brother teaching his niece, who was struggling with math. He was super patient with her, encouraged her, spent the hours, and she got through it. But I hesitate to extrapolate that to him teaching in a class of 30 kids who aren't related to him, some of whom may not have good English, don't care if they pass or fail, and so on. Nobody can spend that kind of time with a full schedule of 100+ students. Plus, he wasn't interrupted:
Student discipline issues are the most common classroom interruption. When asked to think back to their most recent day of teaching and identify what interruptions happened in their classroom, 58% of teachers said that they had been interrupted by a student discipline issue. Forty-six percent of teachers said that they had been interrupted by student questions or concerns outside of class, 39% had been interrupted by the intercom, and 27% had been interrupted by administrators. Fifty-nine percent of teachers said that they had to spend time out of the classroom addressing student discipline issues in the previous week. More than half of those teachers said that they spent more than one hour doing so.
(1 of 4 Forbes free articles...not paywalled, exactly).
Could the average person teach the three R's? Some are natural teachers, but I don't think the average person is. There are some nice neighborhoods, and then there are tough inner city schools. There's teaching a class as a day as a guest teacher, and then there's carrying the ball for a whole year. Even for those who train to do it, it's a stressful job.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More than four in 10 K-12 workers in the U.S. (44%) say they "always" or "very often" feel burned out at work, outpacing all other industries nationally. College and university workers have the next-highest burnout level, at 35%, making educators among the most burned out groups in the U.S. workforce.
It would be interesting to see what average adults would submit as lesson plans etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by villageidiot1
I agree that the goal of public education should be to maximize each student's ability and that every kid who is of "normal ability" ought to be prepared to at least go to community college. The problem that I see is that too many students are graduating with very low reading ability and very low ability to do basic arithmetic. My opinion of public education is that any improvement must start with getting all students up to proficiency in those areas, not proficiency in algebra and biology, the subject that PA tests with their Keystone exams.
The other thing I have noticed is students in classes with students of higher ability tend to give up. They don't participate in discussions and tend to think they are just not smart enough. Nobody likes to appear stupid so they act disinterested and don't pay attention.
Here's an issue to think about. I've been in schools where they say, "We have some very bright kids. They don't look that way, however, because their dominant language is Spanish. There's nothing wrong with Spanish, of course, but if the test is in English, that's an extra hurdle." (The term I heard in my psychology test classes was "irrelevant difficulty." If the student missed the question because it isn't his language of comfort, what are you measuring?). So they say, "You're not seeing how sharp they really are."
Some have said we should teach demanding courses, like high level science, in Spanish when you can get enough Spanish speakers to make a class. Others say no, that might be a good idea if all these Spanish speakers were to go to college in Spanish-speaking universities. If they plan to go to a US school they need to learn the jargon in English, not Spanish. AIUI you could be a medical doctor in Spain and you can become a doctor here, but you'll have to take our test. In English.
What do you think? The same holds true for the kissing cousin of science, which is math.
I think the issue with “merit pay” is how you determine merit when Ms. Smith constantly gets transferred schools to teach the worst students because she doesn’t have seniority and the district administration thinks she can handle it, while Mr. Smith gets to teach a cushy elective at a gifted and talented magnet? Ms. Smith was originally teaching middle school, but they felt she could handle the older kids so they moved her up to the high school. Of course when you get to the high school level, you don’t have 6 years of learning loss but can have 9-11. How on earth can you possibly teach a kid who might not even be doing math at the 3rd grade level, much less HS level? How can you get people to take those positions? I can tell you that Ms. Smith took a significant pay cut to go teach in a small rural district where she could actually pick the school where she worked.
A system that offers merit pay BUT assigns teachers to schools where they’re likely to fail over and over again isn’t going to be able to get good teachers at all, much less keep them. The situation described above was before merit pay was even offered, but it doesn’t seem like pay of any sort was enough to keep her in the position. I think her pay cut was significant- like 30-40%- in addition to requiring about a 90-120-minute commute for the new job because her husband was not going to leave his position at the cushy school. I imagine this problem will exist within many of the huge, mega districts that are extremely segregated.
... My opinion of public education is that any improvement must start with getting all students up to proficiency in those areas, not proficiency in algebra and biology, the subject that PA tests with their Keystone exams.
....
The school where I was principal had one of the largest gifted centers in the state. And there had developed, over many years, a tendency for teachers to see only gifted classes as their personal goal. One day, one of those teachers said to me, "Victor, you don't spend enough time with the gifted kids. You're always working with the ESOL, and special ed, and regular kids". And I replied, "Yes. While many of you are fawning all over the gifted kids, I'm trying to give some attention to those who need some attention the most". I think this is one of the reasons -- at least in some schools -- that test scores are so bad.
I think the issue with “merit pay” is how you determine merit when Ms. Smith constantly gets transferred schools to teach the worst students because she doesn’t have seniority and the district administration thinks she can handle it, while Mr. Smith gets to teach a cushy elective at a gifted and talented magnet? Ms. Smith was originally teaching middle school, but they felt she could handle the older kids so they moved her up to the high school. Of course when you get to the high school level, you don’t have 6 years of learning loss but can have 9-11. How on earth can you possibly teach a kid who might not even be doing math at the 3rd grade level, much less HS level? How can you get people to take those positions? I can tell you that Ms. Smith took a significant pay cut to go teach in a small rural district where she could actually pick the school where she worked.
A system that offers merit pay BUT assigns teachers to schools where they’re likely to fail over and over again isn’t going to be able to get good teachers at all, much less keep them. The situation described above was before merit pay was even offered, but it doesn’t seem like pay of any sort was enough to keep her in the position. I think her pay cut was significant- like 30-40%- in addition to requiring about a 90-120-minute commute for the new job because her husband was not going to leave his position at the cushy school. I imagine this problem will exist within many of the huge, mega districts that are extremely segregated.
In terms of what I bolded, generally speaking your contract says you teach (and get paid by) the district, not some specific school.
I think the issue with “merit pay” is how you determine merit when Ms. Smith constantly gets transferred schools to teach the worst students because she doesn’t have seniority and the district administration thinks she can handle it, while Mr. Smith gets to teach a cushy elective at a gifted and talented magnet? Ms. Smith was originally teaching middle school, but they felt she could handle the older kids so they moved her up to the high school. Of course when you get to the high school level, you don’t have 6 years of learning loss but can have 9-11. How on earth can you possibly teach a kid who might not even be doing math at the 3rd grade level, much less HS level? How can you get people to take those positions? I can tell you that Ms. Smith took a significant pay cut to go teach in a small rural district where she could actually pick the school where she worked.
A system that offers merit pay BUT assigns teachers to schools where they’re likely to fail over and over again isn’t going to be able to get good teachers at all, much less keep them. The situation described above was before merit pay was even offered, but it doesn’t seem like pay of any sort was enough to keep her in the position. I think her pay cut was significant- like 30-40%- in addition to requiring about a 90-120-minute commute for the new job because her husband was not going to leave his position at the cushy school. I imagine this problem will exist within many of the huge, mega districts that are extremely segregated.
OK so we should do nothing? Merit pay in the private sector does not function with perfect information or perfect fairness either.
I think some of what you said here is a little shaky.
Just look at the title of this thread: "The Failure of U.S. Public Education". Really? All of public education? Every district? Every school? That's why some of us see this thread as just another 'kick educators in the butt' thread. Go to Carson, or Longfellow, or Cooper Middle Schools in Fairfax County, or, in the same county, the Thomas Jefferson School For Science & Technology. Superb schools in an overall excellent district. Of course, cross the state border into D.C. and see crappy schools. Look at Montgomery County Schools, Maryland for more great schools, and Prince George's County Schools for failing schools. Some people here are painting far too broad a brush.
.
I don't think anyone is talking in all or nothing terms (except maybe a few). Of course, there are outstanding teachers. And outstanding schools. We're always going to have outliers. Most of us are more concerned with the typical because for most of us, that's where our kids will go. Not an outlier district at the top. And not an outlier district at the inner-city bottom. Most of us are typical with typical kids in typical schools. And that's what we're worried about, the general downward trend of the typical.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Merit pay
We're in agreement here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmgg
You wouldn't get an argument about this from 90% of the teachers . They WANT to teach, but are always having their hands tied by ridiculous pressures on their time. Culprits being the various government levels as well as administration busy work with little backing by them of the teachers. Trust me, no matter what most of the teacher's politics are, they would just as soon keep it out of the classroom and do the job they were trained to do.
Here's the problem as the general public sees it. Individual teachers may just as soon keep it out of the classroom, but groups like the NEA instead Tweet this: Parents and educators, be sure to check your kid's Halloween candy this year. We just found an out-of-touch billionaire funneling dark money to undermine public education inside our candy bar. Wow. NEA@NEAToday
Teachers can argue back and forth about the technicalities of who the NEA vs AFT vs various states does and doesn't represent. But to the typical parent, the NEA and AFT represent all teachers. And this is teachers being 100% political.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
The school where I was principal had one of the largest gifted centers in the state. And there had developed, over many years, a tendency for teachers to see only gifted classes as their personal goal. One day, one of those teachers said to me, "Victor, you don't spend enough time with the gifted kids. You're always working with the ESOL, and special ed, and regular kids". And I replied, "Yes. While many of you are fawning all over the gifted kids, I'm trying to give some attention to those who need some attention the most". I think this is one of the reasons -- at least in some schools -- that test scores are so bad.
Two questions. These are both items that have bothered me since I was a kid in school and again when my kids were in school. So these are real questions I've had that happen to match directly to your statement.
The first: Why would you consider teachers wanting to teach gifted kids "fawning?" While I don't I've ever seen much fawning toward gifted kids, I've seen this sentiment expressed a lot.
The second follows from it. What I have seen is a lot of fawning over the bottom kids. Why is there this belief they "need the attention the most?"
So much of the attitude I've seen is gifted kids don't need attention; they'll be fine. Don't the gifted kids deserve attention too?
The school where I was principal had one of the largest gifted centers in the state. And there had developed, over many years, a tendency for teachers to see only gifted classes as their personal goal. One day, one of those teachers said to me, "Victor, you don't spend enough time with the gifted kids. You're always working with the ESOL, and special ed, and regular kids". And I replied, "Yes. While many of you are fawning all over the gifted kids, I'm trying to give some attention to those who need some attention the most". I think this is one of the reasons -- at least in some schools -- that test scores are so bad.
Gifted programs must be very different around the country. I know that the high school where I did three long-term sub jobs has a gifted teacher split between the middle and high school. I have no idea what she does or how many students are involved with her program. My last direct involvement with a gifted teacher was when my son was in 5th grade. He was assigned to a gifted teacher who would pull him and a few other students out of class. My son hated the program. We scheduled a meeting with the gifted teacher, his regular teacher, and the principal. My wife and I came away from the meeting thinking it was a waste of time. We pulled him out of the program. He carried a GIEP designation through graduation but was never again in a pull-out gifted program. I'm not even sure one existed. He took seven AP courses, which was the maximum he could fit in his schedule.
In comparison, I see considerable resources supporting students with IEPs. Every school has at least 4-5 learning support teachers and at least a half dozen aides who work closely with these students. The one district in the area with a number of foreign students has a couple ESOL teachers.
There is no comparison between the difference between support for the IEP and GIEP students in any of the districts in my multi-county area.
I don't think anyone is talking in all or nothing terms (except maybe a few). Of course, there are outstanding teachers. And outstanding schools. We're always going to have outliers. Most of us are more concerned with the typical because for most of us, that's where our kids will go. Not an outlier district at the top. And not an outlier district at the inner-city bottom. Most of us are typical with typical kids in typical schools. And that's what we're worried about, the general downward trend of the typical.
We're in agreement here.
Here's the problem as the general public sees it. Individual teachers may just as soon keep it out of the classroom, but groups like the NEA instead Tweet this: Parents and educators, be sure to check your kid's Halloween candy this year. We just found an out-of-touch billionaire funneling dark money to undermine public education inside our candy bar. Wow. NEA@NEAToday
Teachers can argue back and forth about the technicalities of who the NEA vs AFT vs various states does and doesn't represent. But to the typical parent, the NEA and AFT represent all teachers. And this is teachers being 100% political.
Two questions. These are both items that have bothered me since I was a kid in school and again when my kids were in school. So these are real questions I've had that happen to match directly to your statement.
The first: Why would you consider teachers wanting to teach gifted kids "fawning?" While I don't I've ever seen much fawning toward gifted kids, I've seen this sentiment expressed a lot.
The second follows from it. What I have seen is a lot of fawning over the bottom kids. Why is there this belief they "need the attention the most?"
So much of the attitude I've seen is gifted kids don't need attention; they'll be fine. Don't the gifted kids deserve attention too?
The bottom kids are the ones who end up requiring the most resources from society. If they can’t get enough education so they can become productive members of the workforce, they’ll probably go on SSI, food stamps, and qualify for other resources for life. I’ve been working for social service agencies for more than a decade, so I see what happens to people when they don’t get good supports early.
The gifted kids WILL be fine. When I did my teaching internship, the teacher in the next room got assigned out of her honors/gifted-only prep schedule to a schedule that had regular classes. She was absolutely outraged. It was ridiculous. Another thing is that gifted kids really don’t NEED to be fawned over. They can usually do the work without much intervention and probably prefer it that way. I didn’t go to public school but would have qualified for Gifted if I had. I have always responded very poorly to people fawning. The teachers I liked the best were generally demanding and had high standards.
To Village Idiot- Gifted where I lived was just a separate, self-contained curriculum. Teachers did have to get certified to teach Gifted separately. I think it was a 600-hour program provided through the district. I’m not sure if it works the same everywhere. I am in Chicagoland now and AFAIK, Chicago proper has good Gifted magnets. The last place I lived (also a large district) had great Gifted magnets as well. I have never heard of the type of pull-out programs you mentioned.
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. They WANT to teach, but are always having their hands tied by ridiculous pressures on their time. Culprits being the various government levels as well as administration busy work with little backing by them of the teachers. Trust me, no matter what most of the teacher's politics are, they would just as soon keep it out of the classroom and do the job they were trained to do.
