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Create "vocational schools" focused on teaching job related skills.
Send all kids failing twice in grade and high school to "vocational schools", also kids with persistent behavior issues.
Focus on the remaining kids. Without being forced to cater to the lowest common denominator the system should work.
The system is not bad but it simply can't operate under current conditions and objectives: they are contradictory.
You can't have one system for everybody: from kids wanting to go to college to kids that still struggle to learn to read and write.
Why should vocational schools get kids with behavior problems? That would just mean the vocational schools won't be able to teach anyone.
The last entity on Earth I listen to is the government. Unless they're announcing Seal Team Six succeeded in killing bin Laden in the middle of the night. Mercy.
Unfortunately, they are calling the shots. They have us aiming at the bottom of the class. Our measureable is the number of students who meet the minimum requirements and they set the requirements too. They are defining what it is to teach well.
This, I really don't get. With all the computer power out there, we have the means to track individual student's progress year over year. Yes, look at the number of students who don't meet the minimum but look at the average progress of my students too. Do something to put kids who are above the bar back on the radar.
Don't get me wrong. Incompetent teachers are an issue just not the biggest issue we have because most teachers aren't incompetent. They are, however, a convenient target. The fix is simple, fire them and replace them...or is it? When you replace them, you replace them with novice teachers who will be ineffective for, at least, a couple of years, and may or may not prove to be any more competent than the ones you just fired in the long run. Perhaps they will burn out for the same reasons the old teacher burned out. Simply replacing them without addressing the reasons they became incompetent in the first place would be a mistake. You'd just end up where you are now in a few years as you will have done nothing to stop teachers left in the profession from burnning out.
I think you can gain more ground by identifying the risk factors for future incompetence and fixing them. Fix the reasons teachers burn out and become disillusioned with the profession. Fix the reason half of all teachers quit by the end of their 5th year teaching (I can't think of another profession with stats this bad.). However, this isn't going to fix the biggest problems in education. This is the tread on the tires of that car that needs brakes. Yes, you do need good tread to stop but you need brakes even more.
Why should vocational schools get kids with behavior problems? That would just mean the vocational schools won't be able to teach anyone.
Honestly I couldn't care less. I just want the kids that don't want to learn out of classrooms filled kids that want... they are slowing the process for everybody else and providing a bad, however "cool" example. Vocational schools combining grade and high-school would use different methods. You can still work with these kids but not next to"normal" kids. You can't teach someone who doesn't want to be taught and for some kids learning how to be a Wallmart cashier or a janitor is the best they will ever do.
Honestly I couldn't care less. I just want the kids that don't want to learn out of classrooms filled kids that want... they are slowing the process for everybody else and providing a bad, however "cool" example. Vocational schools combining grade and high-school would use different methods. You can still work with these kids but not next to"normal" kids. You can't teach someone who doesn't want to be taught and for some kids learning how to be a car mechanic or a hair dresser is the best they will ever do.
Wow. Superior much? You'd better hope the person who works on your car was taught something by someone and learned something somewhere along the way.
Honestly I couldn't care less. I just want the kids that don't want to learn out of classrooms filled kids that want... they are slowing the process for everybody else and providing a bad, however "cool" example. Vocational schools combining grade and high-school would use different methods. You can still work with these kids but not next to"normal" kids. You can't teach someone who doesn't want to be taught and for some kids learning how to be a car mechanic or a hair dresser is the best they will ever do.
And you want competent people who are willing to work with the worst behavior problems and teach them a useful skill for nine months of the year for less than $35,000? There is going to be a huge influx of master's grads who are yearning for high stress, low pay and terrible working conditions, right?
Because if you fire all the current teachers based on the presumption that they are all incompetent, you are going to need to fill classrooms with warm bodies. That's a commodity that's in short supply now, as there are many vacant positions that will likely go unfilled all year by anyone with the appropriate credentials.
So I ask again, where are you going to get all the qualified, competent people who will replace those we have now who are so incompetent?
And you want competent people who are willing to work with the worst behavior problems and teach them a useful skill for nine months of the year for less than $35,000? There is going to be a huge influx of master's grads who are yearning for high stress, low pay and terrible working conditions, right?
I am not sure you are responding to my post. Never mentioned salaries. I am sure there will be willing to work with these kids provided compensation is appropriate. My point is to take the trouble kids out of regular schools, they provide bad examples and make teachers jobs impossible.
I am not sure you are responding to my post. Never mentioned salaries. I am sure there will be willing to work with these kids provided compensation is appropriate. My point is to take the trouble kids out of regular schools, they provide bad examples and make teachers jobs impossible.
I suppose I was responding to both you and db77. You're wanting to take the problem children out of regular schools, which I agree with. S/He's wanting to fire all the incompetents and replace them with newly minted grads. I've actually taught in an alternative school, and some would say that the school where I've been the last 20 years isn't much different. But I'm a missionary, and I think it's shortsighted to try to staff schools with missionaries. So the salaries that I mentioned are in line with what is currently paid in my district to newly minted master's grads. We have a shortage of qualified people, and most years we have vacancies that are never filled with any qualified person. That is a snapshot of what goes on around the country in troubled schools. If you concentrate the troubled children even more, the stress level goes up logarithmically.
(Aside--our four bright-eyed TFA teachers are now a bit dazed after five days in the classroom. They didn't realize that we really do have shootings on a regular basis in our neighborhoods. I think they thought we were exaggerating. They're under just a bit of stress right now. The kids get SOOOO agitated when someone they love gets murdered. Sometimes they respond inappropriately.)
I apologize for not being clear, but my point remains. Just who is going to leap to fill these kinds of positions? Right now, having someone who cares enough to show up trumps competence at delivering instruction. Or would you rather put kids with uncertified subs who won't teach them anything instead of keeping the current incompetent but certified teachers who care enough to at least keep showing up to man the classrooms? It's one of the classic dilemmas that I learned about in teacher college. It's called lose-lose. That's where the kids are now.
(Aside--our four bright-eyed TFA teachers are now a bit dazed after five days in the classroom. They didn't realize that we really do have shootings on a regular basis in our neighborhoods. I think they thought we were exaggerating. They're under just a bit of stress right now. The kids get SOOOO agitated when someone they love gets murdered. Sometimes they respond inappropriately.)
You are exactly the teacher I'd spend money on to keep. You get it. You understand your students and the circumstances they live in and how it affects them in the classroom.
Now the question: How do we duplicate your knowledge/empathy/courage and inject it into new teachers? What needs to be done to keep them from being so dazed they leave and never come back? (I'm not sure if I want to know how close you might have come to leaving.)
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