<p>Garland, I have no doubt that students should be lucky to have a teacher such as your husband. The unfortunate part of “daring” to criticize the “system” and what I would call poorly prepared and undedicated teachers is that it seems to be painting EVERY teacher with the same brush. </p>
<p>In fact, I find it remarkable that people such as your husband --or Simba from this community-- are deciding to share their professional experience and knowledge with younger minds. It is the alternative that gives me pause … an alternative that allows recent graduates from the overwhelming number of Education Schools to teach such classes, simply based on a degree that has little or nothing to do with the subject they teach. Fwiw, I believe that private schools do BENEFIT from being able to attract very competent and dedicated candidate teachers who have a wealth of knowledge and experience, but do not have the required certificates. </p>
<p>As far as commitment to public education, there is a huge chasm between advocating for a more open and competitive system and clamoring for the eradication of our public system of education. In fact, pushing for reform should help save the “system” as opposed to decapitate it. This said, we have long passed the time to recognize that the abdication of our control and direction to nefarious organizations has been a downhill experience since the 1960s. I think it would be much easier to find people who were happy with their education in the past than … today.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, we might have very different opinions about people such as Arne Duncan. I might prefer someone who does not fear challenging the unions, and you might prefer someone who knows it is best to collaborate and “join them” since it is hard to beat them! But what remains is that I think we both want to have better teachers, better prepared teachers, and better … compensated teachers in our classes, and especially in our at-risk schools. While schools cannot be expected to reverse the education gaps and the slew of social and economical imbalances on their own, they surely can catalyze changes.</p>
<p>Testing will not change the fact that k-12 program is inadequate and falls behind even some in underdeveloped countries. Testing is standardized to reflect existing program so it makes no sense either. We have to measure our kids against international standards, then we can see how poorly they are prepared for challenges of current job market. This is the fact that nobody wants to face.</p>
<p>mantori, believe it or not, people do respect the Constitution. Which is why all of these programs have a quid pro quo structure. States are perfectly free to forgo federal education dollars and to escape federal standards. So you are free to have your crappy school if you are willing to pay for them all by yourself. Whether that would be a smart decision or not, I don’t know.</p>
<p>Xiggi, agreed we both want the best for education. There always will be alternatives, but I would rather our public money support a truly open, public system only. Not private schools, and not charters unless they truly serve the same population with the same funds (neither of which is true at this time.)</p>
<p>I am not at all a fan of the teacher union (I don’t think professionals should unionize, to be honest.) That might surprise you.</p>
<p>Re credentials–as was discussed elsewhere, teachers are not just certified in teacher courses, but in the subject they teach. My H had to prove he was qualified to teach bio. And despite the prodigious amount he has studied chem and physics, the powers that be have decried him not “highly qualified” for physical sciences. Rest assured, competency in subject matter is mandated.</p>
<p>Anyway, it’s nice to see some serious, intelligent debate on this topic. Education in this country is great in some ways, inadequate in others, and surely we all want to see it get better. This kind of debate is a step in the right direction.</p>
<p>garland, good points. In my opinion, one problem is that in most instances, especially in less affluent communities, the bottom 25% is teaching our students. I’ve read letters of recommendation written by teachers at our top rated high school and am horrified by the poor writing. You can “certify” all you want, but all that means is that the teacher passed a test, not that he or she has the skills necessary to teach. And many of those skills are not easily quantifiable.</p>
<p>The notion of certification is simply a barrier to entry and a protection of an entrenched bureaucracy. Your example about your H is a good one. </p>
<p>Ponder this question: If you live in an upper-middle class town, fired half of your teachers today, and replaced them with stay at home spouses and retirees, would the quality of teaching increase at your school? In my town, that answer is emphatically yes. And if we did the same with the administrators, not only would we run like butter, we’d cut the staff in half in about a month.</p>
<p>Certification IS a barrier to entry, and it CAN protect an entrenched bureaucracy. But it is not SIMPLY either of those things.</p>
<p>I am a really smart guy. I have all sorts of objective data to prove it, and a reputation for it, too. I was primarily a literature student before I went to law school, and I continue to read serious literature widely, and to keep up somewhat with critical trends. In one particular area, after almost 40 years of following it, I know that I know as much as anyone about it. Moreover, my mother was a high school teacher for about half of my life, and an education professor for most of the other half. I have spent hours, days discussing her classes and pedagogy with her over the years.</p>
<p>I taught a high school literature course once as an adjunct. It was smack in the middle of my expertise. It was full of good students – not an obvious problem among them. I was . . . just short of incompetent at it, despite hours and hours of planning and thought, and a lot of assistance. </p>
<p>Being smart, knowing a lot about your subject matter, do not guarantee being an effective primary or secondary school teacher. You also have to know a lot about pedagogical techniques, child development, discipline, and how to integrate those things. </p>
<p>It is not crazy to have a system that tries to ensure that teachers know something about teaching AND a subject matter, and that they keep their knowledge current over the years. THAT is the primary purpose of certification regimes. Of course, they are imperfect, and have some deleterious effects, too. But in a perfect world, there would be better teacher certification, not no teacher certification.</p>
<p>JHS, I’m going to agree to disagree. We’ve put an awful lot of emphasis on techniques and methods in the past few decades and the results haven’t indicated that that approach was the right one. We’ve been teaching math for millennia. Do we really need new methods?</p>
<p>speihel–I kinda agree with JHS. In my above discussion about my H, my point is that he had enough bio classes (between an undergrad major and a medical degree) to be certified in bio. The state, however, doesn’t think his chem and physics classes add up to enough to be certified in those. So, certification in subject matter is considered very important by the state. That’s a good thing (though we think they’re interpreting his classes dumbly, and he is in fact qualified–doesn’t matter as bio is working out just fine for him.)</p>
<p>As far as ed classes, H went to a post-bac program and did take those classes, and he felt he was far more prepared to enter a classroom than those who went the alternate route and began teaching without them.</p>
<p>I wonder if the apprentice/journeyman/master system (not sure what it’s called formally) would work with teaching. Anyone with certain minimum qualifications could become an apprentice, basically a teaching assistant. After a few years, a board of, say, parents and teachers would determine who was good enough to become a journeyman teacher. Eventually a journeyman might become a master teacher, which might offer tenure and require training apprentices. Master teachers would basically run the schools and set academic standards.</p>
<p>This works well for certain highly-skilled professions such as machinists. I would think some variation would be great for teaching. In fact, for all I know, there are some schools already doing this, but I’m not aware of them.</p>
<p>^ That’s not reallly all that far off from the system we have, if you take into account (a) schools can’t/won’t pay for teachers assistants for five years, (b) a good deal of the apprenticeship is generally done through classroom instruction by supposedly master teachers, and simulated teaching under their supervision, (c) the journeyman period is generally shorter, (d) teachers (and other human beings) want the freedom to change jobs, (e) “parents” and “teachers” do not represent all of the interest groups that are (and should be) involved in making key school personnel decisions, and (f) teachers want protection against arbitrary or political decision making that affects them. Also, the set “master teachers” and the set “educators with the administrative and leadership skills to run schools” have a substantial overlap, but are not the same. or subsumed one within the other. Great principals may be mediocre teachers, and vice versa.</p>