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Post by airman on Mar 8, 2010 19:13:49 GMT -6
By the way we already do an intern as a student teacher (unpaid)..and have to pass a test...(PRAXIS I &II) Also in Indiana we have to take 6 hours towards our masters every 5 years and complete an mentor program our first 3 years of teaching. most student teaching is 15 weeks. I propose a whole school year with a mentor teacher.
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Post by Defcord on Mar 8, 2010 19:18:02 GMT -6
By the way we already do an intern as a student teacher (unpaid)..and have to pass a test...(PRAXIS I &II) Also in Indiana we have to take 6 hours towards our masters every 5 years and complete an mentor program our first 3 years of teaching. most student teaching is 15 weeks. I propose a whole school year with a mentor teacher. Who is going to pay for it???
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Post by airman on Mar 8, 2010 19:21:06 GMT -6
I personally would like to improve the teaching profession by making it like doctors or lawyers. you would go to college and get your BS or DA. Then you would get your masters degree in teaching and then after serving as an intern for 1 year or passing a test similar to the bar exam you would then be awarded your teaching credentials.
This level of screening would separate the pretenders from the contenders. I would also increase teaching pay because of the increased level of expectation. ...I am a teacher and I am all for this, but there would be a massive teacher shortage due to lack of funding. There is an inherent issue with taking a free market approach to education. It is impossible to educate every student in every situation. We should strive for it, yes. However, to think it is possible is unrealistic. Comparing the free market with education is apples to oranges. Let's say you are a car salesman and your quota is 20 cars a month. Great...get to work start selling! But wait let's say that you have to sell anywhere from 5 to 10 of those cars to low-income families. Okay you are really good...you pull this off...But wait now obviously these families probably had to get loans, and your manager tells you that you are responsible if they do not make their loan payments. We can't pretend that education is a hot commodity to all. We can't pretend that all students value the diploma the same way they value the latest in technology break throughs. Studies show that America's top students are still the best in the world. The reason why test scores world wide show a decline in achievement for United States students is because we as Americans pretend that every student is capable of an education and that every student will "get" in education. Do not get me wrong. I believe we should strive to educate all students by providing "opportunity." There are massive problems in the current situation and everyone needs to step up. My school district is losing 15 million dollars and that is a darn shame because we will lose some great teachers. Our system needs to find a way to put in place an evaluation process that does not allow bad teachers to stay in the classroom when they are hired if they can't not improve their educational abilities. Our school system needs to hold both parents and students more accountable. And I think administrators need to take credit for the educational gap created under their watch. I propse we create a system where teachers are evaluated 3 times a year...once by a an administrator, once by a fellow teacher, and once by possibly a school board member. Based on a cumulation of these three scores teachers will follow a process to be removed, go through teacher enhancement program, or keep their current standing as a teacher. I propose that if a student fails a class he or she is required to attend tutoring as is the parent and that the family pays for the student to retake the course. I propose that administrators face an evaluation process proposed by the school board and state officials. The evaluation process would take into account factor of socieo economic status as well as student achievement on test scores and graduation rates. Accountability is the key. How we get it is the question. I just don't think we do it by taking a capitalistic approach holding strictly teachers to a standard that is unattainable. the created shortage of teachers would drive the wages for teacher up. the reason teachers will never made more then average wages is simple because the supply of teachers exceeds the demand for teachers. now their will be a demand for teachers in the future as the baby boomer teachers start to retire. one has to remember the baby boomers are a 2 decade generation spanning 1945 yo 1964 do you are just seeing the early boomers hit 65. now I doubt the boomers will retire early because of the strong materialistic tendencies. I would say in about 15 years you will see teacher shortages. not everyone can be a doctor or a lawyer and not everyone should be a teacher even if they think they can be. I also believe we should have saturday morning tutoring for those students who need the extra help. they do this is japan. I also think it is time to reevaluate special education. we have money going to kids who will never be productive members of society. now this does not mean we do not care for these people but do we need to spend valuable dollars on them. most European countries do not.
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Post by John Knight on Mar 8, 2010 19:21:11 GMT -6
First year I taught (1984) I made $9000 for teaching and coached 3 sports and did Saturday school and got a total of $15K. Every day 7:30am until 6pm or later if it was game day and I loved every minute of it.
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Post by airman on Mar 8, 2010 19:22:07 GMT -6
most student teaching is 15 weeks. I propose a whole school year with a mentor teacher. Who is going to pay for it??? the student who wants to be a teacher.
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Post by Defcord on Mar 8, 2010 19:44:07 GMT -6
Who is going to pay for it??? the student who wants to be a teacher. Yeah pay 10,000+ dollars to work a year for free makes perfect sense to me...?
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Post by Defcord on Mar 8, 2010 20:07:46 GMT -6
[/tr][/quote]
You are right not everyone can be a teacher, or a doctor, or a lawyer.
I understand simple supply and demand, but amongst massive budget cuts you can't raise teacher salaries because there is no money to raise the pot. That is why southern states have had teacher shortages for ages. That is why schools every where are cutting huge numers of needed teachers and raising student to teacher ratios, which is one actual proven determinant on student achievement. Where do we magically get all of this money to pay teachers more without continuing to send our economy in a tailspend of never ending debt (which is another issue entirely)?
I do not believe that Saturday morning tutoring would make much of a difference unless there were fundamental changes in our approach to education and accountability within the system.
I agree that the lens in which we view special education could use revision. A lot of the issues in the educational arena today permeate from special education law. However, to say that special education students will never be productive members of our society is an unfair statement, a statement that implies that all students with special needs are helpless and hopeless. This blanket statement falsely labels a pluralistically diverse population as both simple and uneducatable.
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Post by phantom on Mar 8, 2010 20:28:22 GMT -6
[quote author=airman board=general thread=37021 post=359465 time=1268097666 now I doubt the boomers will retire early because of the strong materialistic tendencies. [/quote]
Oh, I don't know about that.
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Post by coachd5085 on Mar 8, 2010 20:53:48 GMT -6
the created shortage of teachers would drive the wages for teacher up. the reason teachers will never made more then average wages is simple because the supply of teachers exceeds the demand for teachers. I do not believe this is entirely accurate. One of the reasons for the comparatively low salaries for teachers is that unfortunately the profession is relatively not respected. The outside public viewpoints often include such things as: 1) teachers only work from 8-3 2) teachers get paid for holidays 3) teachers get paid for summer vacation 4) Anyone can teach with a teacher's edition. Lower income families, especially those caught in the generational poverty cycle don't respect teachers because they did not perform well in school. Middle to upper class families might not REALLY respect teachers because they can sit at home and "teach" their kids the content themselves. And lets face it, teaching generally doesn't attract America's best and brightest. I remember foolishly letting myself be talked out of going into education when i first started college because "students in the top 2 percentile in the country on college boards don't go into teaching...much less PE". Pure microeconomic principles such as supply and demand don't function as you would think outside of the purely free market. In our "everyone is 'entitled' a free and appropriate education system...the supply/demand curves are not as useful for setting wages. Agree, however teaching is the profession that is MOST familiar to EVERYONE in the country at the ages of 17,18,19... and this familiarity brings with it some issues of its own. As far as your thoughts on special education...I agree that it would be worth looking at, HOWEVER I say that knowing full well that my opinions would probably be different if I had some skin in that game (meaning, a special ed student as a child). I would be careful throwing around the "meaningful or productive in society" tag around, because quite frankly, I can think of MUCH greater "meaningful or productive" activities than interscholastic sports to spend money on....and if every football coach that is here today was gone tomorrow... the world wouldn't really miss a beat. Lastly, I think the#1 issue with public education today is that the people who are making the "rules" aren't affected by the rules. Their children don't go to the "failing" public schools... I would bet most lawmakers' kids don't go to public schools at all. Policies and procedures are being put into place by people evaluating them in an ivy tower world, not a blackboard jungle.
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Post by John Knight on Mar 9, 2010 7:29:13 GMT -6
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Post by fatkicker on Mar 9, 2010 9:26:03 GMT -6
until the 2 most important groups are held accountable nothing will change.....
that is students and parents......
teacher are always at the top of the accountability list.....then principals....then supt's.....parents are now being held accountable for attendance.....why not make 'em accountable for grades too.....
maybe a vocational track could be added.....if you aren't making the grades by 8th grade then you go learn how to weld or fix air conditioners.....
i have a good friend that went the vocational route...... he started in the military after high school....moved on to the fire department after a few years.....then after fighting fires for ten years, he decided to go back to school and teach...... he now has a specialists degree in education administration.......he went the vocational route and he turned out ok.....he said at the time he wasn't ready for college and didn't want to go and flunk out....
administrators are scared of the vocational track though.....they are afraid that low socio-economic groups will be pushed to this track..... when it seems quite simple....the grades will determine the placement.....
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Post by blb on Mar 9, 2010 9:38:00 GMT -6
The state-appointed administrator running Detroit Public Schools now is putting an end to "social promotions." That's a start.
On the educational food chain, teachers are lower than whale doo-doo.
I was at an In-service few years ago when the speaker told us "Teachers are being held accountable for things over which they have no control...and it's not going to change."
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Post by brophy on Mar 9, 2010 10:29:23 GMT -6
This effect would appear to be the natural order of how the educational system operates, correct? In the public arena, aren't teachers essentially the same as civil servants?
If a city/state operation is not meeting budget/KPIs, then it isn't the planners/administrators getting axed, its the ditcher-diggers and truckers getting laid off.
As long as it operates as a for-profit enterprise (testing metrics are the carrot $$ incentive), the motive will be skewed from the stated purpose.
How are educators treated elsewhere in the world? How are education systems around the world tiered? Are they centered around making a buck (driving the student into debt) or are they centered around higher learning / improved society?
It seems we keep going around and round with finger-pointing because of vested interests. While our proposed solutions may garner personal appeasement, they never truly address what is actually flawed in the system.
We want control/power, but no accountability.
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Post by John Knight on Mar 9, 2010 10:35:05 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2010 10:35:21 GMT -6
I don't think Airman's idea of the year-long internship is bad, but I think it would have to be the fourth year of college, not tuition cost already tacked onto four years (or more) of college.
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Post by mitch on Mar 9, 2010 10:54:39 GMT -6
We have saturday school and after-school tutoring for students who are struggling. They don't show.
Parents who don't value education will have children who don't value education. They will show up spradically and not accomplish much when they do show up. We've all had a multitude of these kinds of kids.
The only way to fix the present system is to legislate some sort of consequence for the parents and students. That isn't going to happen.
I am personally for expanding vocational training in high school. Identify in middle school who is capable/willing to pursue a college track education and who isn't. Let the ones who can and want to go down that path, teach the others a trade.
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Post by fatkicker on Mar 9, 2010 11:21:08 GMT -6
i'm for teacher accountability to a point........
i had at least a dozen coaches that spent all day chewing tobacco and drawing play cards.......one would pass out worksheets and read the paper and beat your backside if you talked....
those types certainly need to be removed from the professsion........
but when a teacher works hard with a group of students that can't find american on a globe or their @$$ with a flashlight and a map and the test scores are terrible then that teacher should not be punished.....
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Post by John Knight on Mar 9, 2010 11:36:15 GMT -6
First Ed Psych class I attended in college of Education, the professor, Dr. Jaun Valdez (I swear) said it pretty well. "If mother is idjot and father is idjot, most probably, child will be idjot!"
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Post by flexoption91 on Mar 9, 2010 11:44:48 GMT -6
John- It is hard to compare the typical private school kid to the typical public school kid because private schools have two natural advantages over the public schools: 1) The typical private school kid comes from a family where education is highly valued, educational expectations are high, and dinner is always avaliable and 2) If you do not perform at the private schools or act out of line they can give you the boot and it is back to the public school you go.
Some of you have mentioned the European system as being something to look at. I had the opportunity my senior year of college to spend a month abroad in the European school system. My assignment was to discover the differences between the two systems. Between binges at the local pubs, I really came to understand a great deal about what makes the system those countries use so successful.
The success of the European schools has nothing to do with funding, technology, or making every student feel warm and cuddly. The success came down to expectations. Now I am not talking about expectations that some politician or school administrator spouted off during some rhetoric driven speech. I am talking about real and meaningful expectations from the teachers and schools.
In Europe, they are driven by tracking. Students are tracked from the get-go and stay on that track unless they prove they need to be taken off. You want to go to college? Prove it. You want to be placed on the track that lends itself to greatest amount of social respect and money? Prove you can handle that track and if you cannot, get out. There was no such thing as giving a million chances or the feeling that every kid must be on the college path or else they are being cheated.
In every society, you need carpenters, plumbers, and electricians. In fact, I would argue, those are some of the most important people around. We have got to the point where every student is lead to believe they can be the President, and when reality hits, which for most is around their sophomore or junior year of high school, all hell break loose. In Europe, they promote those labor jobs as being important, not as being mindless and only available to the "losers". I talked to students from both the vocational schools and the college-prep schools and they both showed great respect for the other. They also both understood that they were doing was important.
Increasing salary is not going to keep the better teachers and not every new gadget of technology is going to magically improve the system. Until we get across to society, and that includes teachers, that need to crank up the expectations than we are going to continue to fall behind as a whole. On average, 25-30% of all students fail my class on a yearly basis. The next highest is less than 10%. However, when the state tests were given last year, one of my students failed it and he was a special education student that had some strings pulled. My subject area was by far the highest achieving on those tests and I had multiple kids come back and say the test was nothing compared to daily assignments we did in my class. It is about expectations. I do not expect them perform good enough to pass the state test. I expect them, and provide them tools to them, to perform well enough that when they go to college, the military, or into the work force, they understand the value of where hard, but meaningful, work is going to take them.
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Post by blb on Mar 9, 2010 11:48:24 GMT -6
First Ed Psych class I attended in college of Education, the proffessor, Dr. Jaun Valdez (I swear) said it pretty well. "If mother is idjot and father is idjot, most probably, child will be idjot!" When I was a beginning English teacher I was concerned that not as many kids were getting A's as I thought should be. Guess I felt a little guilty. Went to our department chair, an experienced, talented, and enthusiastic teacher with my problem. He looked at me patiently, smiled and said, "Well, what you will find out is, the good students will do well, and the not-so-good students will not. And there's not a lot you can do about it."
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Post by John Knight on Mar 9, 2010 11:59:31 GMT -6
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Post by blb on Mar 9, 2010 12:35:02 GMT -6
i'm for teacher accountability to a point........ i had at least a dozen coaches that spent all day chewing tobacco and drawing play cards.......one would pass out worksheets and read the paper and beat your backside if you talked.... those types certainly need to be removed from the professsion........ but when a teacher works hard with a group of students that can't find american on a globe or their @$$ with a flashlight and a map and the test scores are terrible then that teacher should not be punished..... ...or couldn't find the "Shift" button on a keyboard, use a single period at end of a sentence, or correctly use "(United States of) America" as a proper noun. Wow, you sure proved your point about the teachers you had with THAT post. Or maybe you were just in the group of students you described in your last paragraph?
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Post by flexoption91 on Mar 9, 2010 12:48:41 GMT -6
Got ya John.....I misunderstood what you were saying.....
I thought you were trying to compare the public school environmental make up to the private school and use that as your basis for achievement.
My belief as to why low performing inner city school teachers make the most money is that for school boards and lawmakers the first belief they have to fix something is to throw as much money as possible at it and hope that is the cure-all. They believe if we pay these teachers, 10-20% more than elsewhere all the sudden teachers are going to teach better and kids are going to care. The reality is more money does not change the expectations of those systems and communities. The only thing more money does is make going to work in those systems more bearable until the teacher can find a way out.
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JMC
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Post by JMC on Mar 9, 2010 13:08:22 GMT -6
I believe there should be a law for parents on the draw and their child's attendance/grades. That would improve a lot of what happens in our area. A lot of kids are a government check to their parents and they could care less if they go to school, let alone how they perform. Welfare system is biggest problem in america and the kids who are had to increase the income from Uncle Sam are in most cases are neglected at home and don't really perform well in school. When attendance/peformance is attached to that check Uncle Sam gives, then you can evaluate me!
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Post by fatkicker on Mar 9, 2010 13:23:10 GMT -6
thanks for the grammar lessn blb........................................
forgive me if i don't have time to proof my postings........i didn't know it was so important....
if the grading on this is going to be as tough as oral comps, then i'll do mo betta.....
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Post by wingtol on Mar 9, 2010 13:40:33 GMT -6
I work in an urban district with many schools that range from top tier to in danger of being taken over by the state. The one school I teach at is on life support, very low income very low scores etc. The principals idea is that we need to make all these kids want to goto college, because that is education. That is the biggest problem in our country/educational system if you ask me. When people think of education they think traditional schools are the only place to get educated. I am not a big fan of the European way of life but in many countries there you are labeled, and I know how our country people hate labels on their kids, and put on a tract as pointed out before. If they don't think you will do well in the world of academia they push you towards a trade or vocation so you can learn something and have skills to survive. Here in the US we are all about higher education and need to realize not everyone is cut out to be a product of higher education and I think as we continue to push this cure all of higher education more and more students become disinterested in school because they know they don't want to go on to more school after high school.
We can go round and round on this for pages and pages but let's face it we have many many many people out there who do not value education of any kind and the wrong people are held accountable for that. The longer we try and jam round pegs in square holes the more the system will suffer.
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Post by brophy on Mar 9, 2010 13:44:41 GMT -6
what IS working in the classroom right now?
I doubt I'd ever hear a teacher ever say, "yeah, we need to do a better job of educating....", so I have to ask, WHAT is it that is working? What part of reading out of a lesson book, assigning homework, and grading tests is actually providing an edumacation (and not just drilling in answers)?
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Post by huskyskins on Mar 9, 2010 13:48:42 GMT -6
The model is broken, and it starts with the collectively bargained agreements. Teachers need to step away from the old-union model of seniority based salary structure. I have no beef with unions per-se, but seniority doesn't mean a lick about being a "good" teacher. Seniority is fine for unskilled labor, but I can't believe a professional would agree to those terms.
Look to the NFL model, for example. Free-market salary structure, with the administrators acting as GM's. Need to shore up your 6th grade math scores - better lure in that free-agent math teacher from the next county or state. Sure, it will cost you, but she's worth it.
Pretty soon the you begin to separate the good teachers from the bad. Sorry, you're just not a good teacher. Go get some more training, take a lesser role as an assistant, or find another profession.
Now, of course, all the really good teachers would be scooped up by the affluent schools where the local population cares/values education the most, and provides the school with donations, grants and such used to pay for the better teachers. So, you'd have to give incentives for good teachers to go to the poverty-stricken neigborhoods. Continuing the student loan waiver program. Basing state funds received on the inverse of the average salary of the school's draw area (e.g. lower socio-economic area schools get more money than affluent area schools to pay teacher salaries).
Under this system, you stop throwing money at bad student performance, and you stop witholding money for bad student performance. If the school doesn't improve, then you change the GM. And for God's sake, it's okay for some kids to fail. Those that have the aptitude and value the education will have the opportunity. Those that don't - well, "the world needs ditch diggers too."
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Post by airman on Mar 9, 2010 14:01:34 GMT -6
I suppose we could adopt the Soviet and Chinese model of education. those who pass tests get to go on those who do not pass tests get to join the military as cannon fodder.
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Post by fatkicker on Mar 9, 2010 14:18:55 GMT -6
while i wouldn't recommend the "cannon fodder" technique....i bet it works......
you find out pretty quick who can and who can't.....
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