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No offense, but that’s just silly. If a kid is absent 50 times a year, comes to school hungry, inappropriately dressed, or lacking the basic skills to sit in a chair and listen, there is nothing a teacher can do.</p>
<p>I won’t argue that there isn’t a problem w how some of the schools of ed are run. Not enough time in the classroom, inadequate course offerings & lack of clarity in the programs.
However, I do think that objectives to improve professional behavior & standards are moving in the right direction.
[National</a> Board for Professional Teaching Standards: National Board Certification Day](<a href=“NBPTS Main Site Home - NBPTS Main Site”>NBPTS Main Site Home - NBPTS Main Site)</p>
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<p>For those who think the primary problem is the teachers (I am NOT one of them!), any solution will take years to implement, so start now by advocating an increase in teachers’ pay, so that the higher pay will be there to attract the better teaching candidates as the natural openings occur. If the higher pay isn’t there, no amount of complaining or blaming will improve the situation.</p>
<p>DocT, I resent the implication of your statement. I am a teacher in my mid fifties, but I did not come from the lowest 25% or have only secretarial or nursing jobs to consider as alternate careers. In fact, I got my MBA and went to work at a large advertising agency in NYC. After having my kids, I eventually switched careers to teaching and after getting my MAT, ended up in elementary education. </p>
<p>I think you have to go back much farther than 40 years to see that women had plenty of opportunities. Maybe the lower 25% were secretaries, but they were not teachers. (Remember too, education has changed a lot over the years too.) My mother (now 94) was a medical technician and eventually a hospital director became a teacher in her later years.</p>
<p>I think the security and relatively good pay in a lot of places is now attracting many of the best and brightest because the rest of the job picture is so bleak.</p>
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Just so you know, in many fields (perhaps most nowadays) secretaries must have a bachelor’s degree.</p>
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<p>Out of 7.2 million ([Newsroom:</a> Facts for Features & Special Editions: Facts for Features — Back to School: 2011-2012](<a href=“http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb11-ff15.html]Newsroom:”>Facts for Features — Back to School: 2011-2012 - Facts for Features & Special Editions - Newsroom - U.S. Census Bureau)) teachers! Wow! already up to 1.25%!</p>
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<p>How about a two-tiered system? Free-ride loans for kids who enter college in the 90th percentile of SAT/ACT scores, get a teaching certificate, and with loan forgiveness for working in the public schools for at least 10 years, and a pay premium 50% higher than the norm?</p>
<p>Try getting THAT past the teachers’ unions!</p>
<p>“Try getting THAT past the teachers’ unions!”</p>
<p>Then try!</p>
<p>“DocT, I resent the implication of your statement. I am a teacher in my mid fifties, but I did not come from the lowest 25% or have only secretarial or nursing jobs to consider as alternate careers. In fact, I got my MBA and went to work at a large advertising agency in NYC. After having my kids, I eventually switched careers to teaching and after getting my MAT, ended up in elementary education.”</p>
<p>You’re misreading what I wrote. Forty years ago, lots of women didn’t go to college and if they did, they were not expected to get mba’s, go into finance, go into engineering or science as they are today. These were not jobs for women. This is not saying they couldn’t or they were in the bottom 25%. They didn’t have the same opportunities. The expectations for men were higher and a generation before that it was even worse. I doubt 40 years ago that many men got MBA’s either. If you did, you were unusual.</p>
<p>Okay! Who won the bet on how quickly this thread would degenerate into another union- and/or teacher-bashing thread?</p>
<p>Actually, the teacher’s unions are a mixed blessing. There is research that shows that in states with strong teacher’s unions, the average qualifications of people entering teaching is higher than in union-unfriendly states. That makes sense; unions = higher pay = more qualified people. OTOH, the clout of teacher’s unions in state legislatures (because of political contributions) makes it very, very difficult to enact meaningful school reform - although amazingly, here in Illinois, a union stronghold with the state government completely in the hands of Democrats, this year we have a new law making it easier to get rid of bad teachers.</p>
<p>My sister reports what may be seen by some as a turn-around where the majority of her union members are now in favor of eliminating poor teachers. Early baby boomers are retiring, but here in California with our budget problems class size has been simultaneously increasing, so there are still more applicants than openings, so they are hiring only the best of the applicants; the poor student teachers are not being hired, and those who are are enthusiastic about improvement. Anecdotal, no data.</p>
<p>Pugmadkate, I cannot disagree with you that union states have higher teacher salaries. However, that higher number is mostly due to a disparity in benefits which are not fiscally sound or sustainable. How many teacher’s are unaffected by an economy in chaos, if not directly than through family members? Ultimately, if it will crash the economy, it isn’t good for teachers either. Higher teacher salaries can be achieved through more sound, lasting means that are non-union.</p>
<p>More important than teacher salaries is the quality of education that students receive. In the heart of every good teacher, this is what matters most. Good teachers put students FIRST. Working in an environment where, due to union protection, poor or mediocre teachers have job security, is not pro-teacher. Being forced to pay into a union that has the political clout to quash charter school formation (which would give students in poor performing schools a better option) is not pro-teacher. </p>
<p>Great teachers really do want what is best for kids. That is why they went into the profession in the first place. Watch Waiting For Superman.</p>
<p>"Home has nothing to do with it </p>
<p>No offense, but that’s just silly. "</p>
<p>-Well if you want to control something that you have no control whatsoever, go ahead. Don’t we learn at some point of our lives that we can only get frustrated and even depressed at attempt to control whatever is completely out of our hands? If not, we should. Teaching techinique and being good teacher vs irrelevant teacher has very little to do with situation at home, I can repeat it many times. Good teacher will not rely on instructions at home, not everybody is up to openning kids’ textbooks and figure out material and explain it to them. I am not saying that it is not possible, very much possible, but good teacher will not rely on it.</p>
<p>Spideygirl, you’re not seriously suggesting that higher teacher salaries are going to “crash the economy” ???</p>
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<p>Same thing here in rural Illinois. The local school district recently had to replace its only business ed teacher on short notice, and only offered a 3/4-time position. The principal told me he was blown away by the quality of the applicants willing to work in a low-wage, rural district, and part-time at that. Of course, they may not stay long - the reason they had to do the replacement was that the incumbent accepted a full-time, better-paying job in the Chicago 'burbs.</p>
<p>Overall, things may be looking up locally. Due to retirements, all but two of the academic subject staff at the local HS is new within the last two years, and all just out of college. The people they replaced, with one exception, were definitely no great losses.</p>
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That bears no relationship to what I said. The home circumstances have everything to do with what is possible in a classroom. The question is what, as a society, we are willing to do to level the playing field.</p>
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I can repeat many times that this is silly. Because it is. As someone pointed out, perhaps you are just not familiar with what happens at the very bottom of the scale. As my daughter could tell you, how do you teach middle school students Algebra if they barely know the alphabet? How do you teach them to conduct a science experiment when they wipe their feces on the walls of the classroom?</p>
<p>She did her teaching fellowship in a classroom in which more than a few of the students were the children of refugees from the Liberian civil war whose forearms had been cut off. You try moving those kids forward using “teaching techniques” in the classroom and see how far you get. Some kids need a lot more than just a good teacher a few hours a day in order to become truly educated.</p>
<p>Katliamom - Alone, no. A contributive factor? Yes. Check out what happened in California.</p>
<p><a href=“Research Library - main - EdChoice”>Research Library - main - EdChoice;
<p>Too funny. That just about made my day, spideygirl.</p>