Indiana Senator Tim Skinner and his wife, both teachers, are leaving their profession due to legislative changes. Although the Great Debate is the constitutionality of vouchers for private religious schools, the underlying debate is the professionalism of teaching and the functioning of public education.
No one should deny the fact that "bad" teachers exist; there are "bad" ____ in every field. But no one should also imply that just because some are public educators that they are hard to fire, in fact, it's very simple...rather it's very easy to move them around, encourage resignation/retirement, or hide their incompetencies, just like any other field. (Actually how many principals are fired for being "bad" at their job? Good statistic to try to find ;) Yet, it's blasphemous to compare teaching to "normal" careers, isn't it?
Being an educator has become a circus job: you need stamina to endure the grind, practice year-around to stay agile, and you have to jump a lot of hoops...and hoops...and hoops.
The Skinners point out that older, experienced teachers are in much better positions that the upcoming troops, whose concept of education will definitely take on a different perspective and set of expectations than their ancestors. I'm all for reforming education (it clearly doesn't function properly now), making more schools and teachers available everywhere, competing for students to attend a fitting school for their skills, etc. But we can not keep attacking the people in the trenches or one day we will find those trenches empty.
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Trenches Are Really All The Same
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Who'da Thunk It?
So cheating is suddenly common? I should think this was to be expected the second the ink dried on signing high-stakes into law. And to think that the Atlanta superintendent was named 2009 Supt. of the Year! Thank you, Atlanta, for proving once again that standardized testing is irrelevant to today's economy and the preparation of students to employed citizens.
I feel I've said this ad nauseum but tying test scores of students with whom teachers get about 1 hour/day to the teacher's economic livelihood is a recipe for disaster. Teachers can not overcome the years of parental failure with just 180 or so hours a year while competing with 29 other students; that roughly means a teacher can average 2 min of one-on-one instruction with each student daily. Image that parents only involved themselves directly only 10 minutes a week (and some do!). No wonder prisons are getting more funding than public education.
Which reminds me of a game my education friends and I like to play: School or Prison?
Posts
