Foxfyre -- That was not an ad hominem attack. Stating that someone could never teach social studies isn't an attack of any kind. I notice that Timberlandko is back on his same old tune about unions. He thinks every evil can be laid at the feet of the unions.
If the auto industry weren't as powerful as it is, we'd have effecient cars and the trains wouldn't have disappeared into folklore. But, enough of that.
Anyone follow my links?
Plain, I couldn't get your link to work - it went to Phoenix.com with an error message.
And I will accept that you did not mean your comment as an ad hominem attack, but had I said you should never teach history with so poor a grasp of the implications of choices made, it would be intended as one.
Sorry the link didn't work: I was suspicious of it. They somehow don't post their things in the most accessible of ways. I wanted to post a link of an article of their's on another thread and the article was never posted on the web.
A new study released yesterday by Rand Corp. found that universal preschool for California's 4 year olds would bring about $2.62 in benefits for every dollar spent, by greatly reducing special education needs, juvenile arrests and the number of children held back a grade.
Yet while the value of a high quality preschool both to children and to society are well known, the typical early childhood educator receives a lower wage than the typical parking lot attendant.
Low pay forces one-third of all early care and education workers out of their jobs every year. We can help retain quality teachers by funding student loan forgiveness programs for early childhood educators, the keystones of high-quality early care and education. Loan forgiveness funding already exists for K-12 teachers -- but not for preschool teachers.
Or we could go the private school route. Back in the 1970's I headed an organization that, among other things, organized and offered a private preschool for lower income families and that spiraled off into many others as we could not accommodate all the kids who wanted to participate. Without layers of government bureaucracy siphoning off the lion's share of the funding--nobody but me outranked the preschool teachers--and with the help of private contributions for scholarships and a few grants from private foundations, we were able to keep tuition low enough that anybody who wished to participate could. And our teachers were great and made a very satisfactory wage.
These programs became a prestige thing in the community and therefore most of the kids were enrolled at some point in their pre-kindergarten years.
We have to start thinking outside the box and try new and innovative ways to approach these problems. The old ways have failed. Let's do it differently and better. A bit of tort reform to remove some of the legal risk and put a profit motive on it, and there will be any number of entrepenours willing and able to do it.
plainoldme wrote: I notice that Timberlandko is back on his same old tune about unions. He thinks every evil can be laid at the feet of the unions.
Nonsense - typical of the source from which it springs. Unions, as they have transmogrified over the past half century or so, merely are parts of the problems.
Chick -- Sorry, never finished the reply to you on the price of houses within a community as an indicator of the quality of schools therein.
As I said before, the statement was in answer to how can we tell if schools are successful. One way is to trace three or four housing styles through several communities. The reason why this happens is basic economics: demand pushes the prices up.
Got a signal to log off.
My daughter, who teaches 7th grade French and Spanish, was told by a woman, "I wish I had a part-time job that paid $60,000." My Daughter (here after cited as MD) answered, "So do I! Tell me where I can find one." The woman said, "Your's." MD then said she worked up to 80 hours per week. When the woman realized that MD had to correct papers, as all teachers do, she suggested MD send the papers to a parent volunteer to correct. MD replied, "You know the evil mother in the PTO whose obnoxious son never has play-dates? What if I had her check the papers and she gave her son 100% and yours 35%?" MD continued, "Besides, where am I going to find a parent whose knowledge of both French and Spanish is equal to mine and who could really check my papers?"
Some of you armchair critics scream about keeping older teachers on but it is the older teachers whose knowledge has been growing over the years, who had good educations to begin with and whose wisdom grew along with their knowledge.
Besides, would you want to be pushed out of the door because you've been on the job 10, 15 or 20 years?
Consider, too, that in many fields, companies pay for continuing education while teachers have to pay for their own continuing education.
Applying for a job in industry or business is easily done with just a resume. Sometimes, a letter of inquiry will suffice. Teachers must be tested; submit transcripts; three letters of recommendation; pass through multiple interviews; perhaps teach a demonstration class; submit sample lesson plans.
POM wrote: ... teachers have to pay for their own continuing education.
Interestin'. Hereabouts, we have a reimbursement program in place, and in fact encourage, even sorta insist upon, on-goin',
job-related, successfully completed continuin' education.
It's called certification. Teachers need to take certain numbers of graduate level hours in order to continue to the next level of certification and they pay for their classes from their own pockets. Most have one or two masters in a short amount of time. That's the anti- to the argument that older teachers should be weeded out.
BTW, on another thread, someone made the stereotypical comment about Asian students and achievement. While subbing for a math teacher, I looked at the grades for his six Asian students. We stereotype Asians as being good at math. Third quarter grades for his six Asian students (trig; pre-calc; two lower level sections of Algebra II) are C-; F; D-;A+; A;B.
No one wants to see any teachers weeded out, older or younger. What has to be culled are the placeholders who draw salaries for teachin' while failin' to accomplish the task.
Then since this is a school district in which the kids score above the Massachusetts' average on the SAT which is above the national average, can we acknowledge the teachers here do a good job?
Furthermore, there has been plenty of wordage here about getting rid of older teachers, and it is the older teachers who have patience, extensive knowledge of their subject and the skill that the raw new teachers often lack.
No complaint at all with teachers - or administrators - of any vintage who get the job done - thats the whole point. The placeholders need to be replaced with performers. The biggest obstacles to that critical reform are tenure and the entrenched bureauocracy of the current system. The only effective guarantee of performance is objective accountabilty with concrete consequences and rewards.
This past year the Albuquerque public schools enjoyed the greatest improvement of any state school districts by raising the proficiency in math and science from 23% to 26%. The school system with the best record is above the state average at 33%. Maybe I'm missing something, but I have a problem considering this success.
This past year the Albuquerque public schools enjoyed the greatest improvement of any state school districts by raising the proficiency in math and science from 23% to 26%. The school system with the best record is above the state average at 33%. Maybe I'm missing something, but I have a problem considering this success.
Foxfyre -- Maybe you could provide some context for your statement and make it a success.
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Timberlandko -- So, we're back to a flawed test is fine because it's objective?
plainoldme wrote: So, we're back to a flawed test is fine because it's objective?
That would be your projection - I've not promoted that particular notion. My position is we need a better system, and that improved system must incorporate among its features a variety of protocols, includin', but by no means limited to, effective, objective testin'. And that testin' is not to be comfined just to students. The goal is performance - measured, accountable performance - at all levels.
I agree with the concept of reforming the system, Timber; but when you say 'measured, accountable performance' you run into the same problems we have today, in that all kids just aren't the same and won't learn at the same rate. It's a bad idea to try and force them to do that.
Perhaps we need standards of improvement?, eg, we know kid X is slower than most kids his age, he just needs to show significant improvement over his previous scores in order to qualify? He'll never reach the line that we call average, no matter how much money or effort ya pump into it, yet still has to be tested by law... how do we solve this dilema?
Cycloptichorn
Cyclop -- You are much closer to reality. What do we do about the kids, who in 10th grade, behave well, but read on the fifth grade level no matter how hard they work?
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Timberlandko -- I think it's time to let you know that this whole notion of continuing ed for teachers was a left wing student initiative during the 1960s that progressive states like Michigan adopted then.
Besides, as I have said before, here in Massachusetts, there really is no tenure.
There is a young woman in the history dept of this high school that not only would I have never hired, I wouldn't have accepted had I been an admissions officer at third-tier state college. The interesting thing is that many of the veteran teachers shake their heads over her: she has no classroom management skills, which are largely common sense.
There's another permanent sub who had been a student teacher here. She did her master's in teaching English at one of those third tier schools. Have not had a conversation with her on any level, but, listening to her in the teachers' lounge, I find her tone appallingly stupid. Those are the sort of people that I would never hire: if you sound stupid, you probably are.
A national curriculum with associated texts and materials is the only real answer if you are going to have a national standardization test.
