Today's public education system is a failed, bureaucratic mess controlled by powerful teachers’ unions. The mission of the M.E.A. and the N.E.A. is to protect the liberal benefits and jobs of the teachers regardless of their effectiveness. They give lip service to improving education but that is way down the list of importance. Tenure has proved to be a barrier to getting rid of ineffective teachers. The cost of eliminating a tenured teacher with a poor performance record is more than $100,000. And there is no incentive to expedite the process which is drawn out to the point that few schools ever try to implement it. We need education reform to change the ways we evaluate and reward teachers. Rich benefits, June, July, August, and tenure without effectiveness should not be the only incentives to take up the job of teaching.
The unions have done a great job for their members (but not for the public education system). They would have you believe that teaching is the most important profession and a difficult one that deserves special compensation. In reality, no profession is more important than all others. Society needs a variety of “important” professions to run smoothly. And many of them are just as demanding, or more so, than teaching. Public education is only one of the things that have made us a great nation. Yes, teachers who are capable of competence and performance are extremely valuable for our future development. Let’s do more to attract and keep them in the profession. Also, let’s do a better job of urging the ineffective teachers to try another occupation. Here is a final thought to be considered: If you reflect on many professions, the best and the more qualified individuals are the ones who can teach and practice in their field. Maybe we need more educators like that!
Dear Confused:
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be so all in a lather here that you have entered a state of cognitive dissonance. You want to attract and keep [good] teachers, but you don’t want to pay them or give them vacations. You want administrators to be able to fire them without process. I suspect this is job you wouldn’t want very much.
I’d submit that all professions ARE NOT THE SAME, that the value of a teacher is different than that of a hedge fund manager. We entrust our children to the teacher to acculturate them for us, teach them to exist in an ever more complicated (and endangered) world, and yes babysit them, too. Many schools provide physical sustenance as well as the intellectual. The professionals on Wall Street take our money, keep most of it for themselves, and lose the rest.
And don’t get me started on professional politicians. For one thing, they refuse to recognize that we have some of the shortest school years in the world. Many studies have shown that this is a serious learning problem, as is the ridiculously long summer vacation, which is a product of a rural America long since disappeared. Teachers may enjoy having summers off, but they don’t create that schedule, and know better than most that it hinders information retention and wastes valuable time.
Teaching is one of the most demanding jobs around . . . both mentally and physically. It requires long hours of preparation for class followed by hours of evaluation of the results. It’s tough on legs and backs. Standing in front of large groups of children or raging hormones requires great discipline just to create an atmosphere where learning has a chance. Providing material in seductive ways is a constant struggle. The teacher has to defeat, at least for a few minutes, the ever-increasing, omnipresent competition for the child’s attention.
Teacher unions do what all unions and professional associations do: They protect their members and seek to enhance the rewards for their labors. In this case anyway, unions are part of the solution, not the problem. Their job is not to deal in educational theory and practice-that’s the job of school boards and departments of education. Their function is to provide room for teachers to do their jobs within whatever structure has been created for them.
Who is the problem? Well, parents certainly are. Many either don’t prepare their children adequately for learning-no family unit, no breakfast-or think they know better than the teacher and create a confusing state of dissension and/or entitlement. School boards certainly are, especially the ones that try to turn their public institution into a religious school, a Christian Madras, teaching utter nonsense.
Bad teachers? Largely the fault of poor administrators. First, they fail to weed out and/or remediate the failing teachers early, before they get tenure. Many foster an unnecessarily combative relationship with teachers. They and their school boards often create negative atmospheres that affect teachers and students alike. We all like to be appreciated. How would you like it if your boss didn’t recognize your accomplishments but zeroed in on every one of your negatives, perceived or otherwise? Finally, these administrators failed to note the teachers that have given up or retired in place. Too many administrators are lazy or incompetent. They don’t first try to change the teacher’s attitude, then create and justify a commonsense plan to deal with the situation permanently.
If we want good teachers, then we have to do what we do with every other profession: value them and remunerate them accordingly. We should treat them at least half as well as we do football players and rock stars.
Peace,
TsarPat
Dear Tsar,
ReplyDeleteI seem to have hit a nerve which has caused you to ramble on, trying to find a defense. The only sensible thing you have said is,"If we want good teachers, then we have to do what we do with every other profession: value them and remunerate them accordingly". In essence, that is exactly what I said, " Let’s do more to attract and keep them in the profession. Also, let’s do a better job of urging the ineffective teachers to try another occupation". I am convinced that effectiveness in teaching should trump seniority in layoff and placement. We do need to do a better job of measuring effectiveness and then rewarding it. That is why we need reform!
Dear Thinker: The problem with measuring teacher effectiveness is that the job is a two-way street. While the teaching should be good, so should the learning. Even the best teachers aren't going to be successful with children who are not receptive either because they aren't prepared to learn or don't want to. The teacher has no control of the society in which s/he teaches and should not be held accountable for the failures of parents and the culture. That's why the so-called merit systems don't and can't work. We have fix the social ills in this country and then learning will improve.
ReplyDeleteTsarPat
Dear Tsar,
ReplyDeleteSo you are saying it is a hopeless situation until hell freezes over. We should not try to improve the quality of teachers until our social ills are fixed? You must be drinking again to make such a ridiculous statement! There are great teachers (we need more). There are mediocre teachers (most of them are). And there are ineffective teachers (doing harm to our society). Let's work together to improve the mix! We can not afford to wait until all the social ills are fixed before we work on this problem. That would exasperate our social ills.
I don't think it's possible to quantify the numbers of good and bad teachers. My own experience is that most are good to great. Very few are doing harm. We are not going to get more great teachers, and more male teachers to be role models for the boys, unless we bite the bullet and provide better pay and benefits. That means raising taxes. Oh boy, I can hear the screams now.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not hopeless, but it does require a reorienting of our values and goals.
TsarPat
OK, my friend,
ReplyDeleteYou are coming around to a more reasonable position. However, I think we can be more efficient instead of raising taxes.
Agreed. Of course much of the waste comes from state and federal mandates that should be ended. Goferit!
ReplyDeleteThe Tsar