Teaching for a Better America

Parent Cafe
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<p>Mr. B. I disagree with “publicity piece” because that implies a lack of facts. Unlike the Times article, which guesses, this article provides facts.</p>

<p>The system in our area which pays the hightest, Newark, is also the main site for TFA teachers in NJ. Higher pay is not drawing the teachers. (Newark is paying 45,000 starting pay. I don;t know any college grads making that elsewhere. At 47, with two degrees and a wealth of experience, I am making less at the college I work at–a lot less.) I don’t think you can make the argument that it’s all about the money.</p>

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<p>Mr. B:</p>

<p>How do you suggest recent graduates get experience? And what about the 60% of TFA alumni who stay in the teaching profession? After a couple of years (what it takes, apparently, to get tenure in CA) surely, they have “experience?”
My S were subjected to some graduates of schools of education. These credentialed teachers did not last long. They did not know their subject matter or how to manage a classroom of 20 kids. They were also taught by some teachers with vast experience–who did not know their subject matter either, or made it sound so boring as to turn kids off from day one. One math teacher, on parents’ night: “Geometry is boring. Deal with it. You’ll have to practice, practice, practice until you get it.” Thanks, but no thanks. The teacher in question just retired after many many years. </p>

<p>Are your referring to KIPP when writing about the DC school? It has a track record of success and a lot of emulators.</p>

23

<p>Mr. B: these are your words from another discussion (Dear Al Gore, please be our president post #137): </p>

<p>“The impact of the Bush administration has been quite negative on eduction. I wish you republicans would learn that throwing money at a problem is not the same as solving it.”</p>

<p>Here in post #18 you say, </p>

<p>“In economics, I learned that if not enough qualified people are coming into an industry then pay and benefits should be raised to attract them, and unneccesary barriers to entry should be reduced to encourage access for qualified workers. Accordingly, I would suggest if we want qualified teachers in these districts we should surrender to the market demands.”</p>

<p>It seems to me you are proposing “throwing money at the problem” </p>

<p>I agree with your earlier post. Throwing money at the problem is not the answer.</p>

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<p>Socal…first the throw money at a problem is a correct statement…intelligently placing it where it will do the most good makes a lot of sense. People, like the President, Ted Kennedy, and others who don’t understand the problem are more easily convinced to spend money on silly testing programs instead of on the problem. What portion of the education dollar makes it into the classroom in your district?</p>

<p>Why do you think a school would use 80% free teaching staff… If the only reason they are in these schools is because certified teachers would not go there, why not pay these TFA a salary closer to those who get temporary certification? I would help a sick or disabled person, but I wouldn’t scab a nurse out of a job.</p>

<p>Marite, I suggest recent graduates get experience the way I got it, student teaching and then teaching with ample time substitute teaching. I suggest we pay teachers enough so it will attract these students in the first place not as an after thought because the couldn’t think of anything else to do. Incidentally, If you took all the teachers from this program, who stayed in public school teaching (not education, which might imply textbook sales, college administration) which cities teaching staff could you match. </p>

<p>Would 60% or all these teachers over the years equal the teaching staff in Dallas, or Denver, or Philadelphia…</p>

<p>Garland, I stand by my comments that it was a puff peice, with no opinions expressed outside of the organization. As for why people aren’t moving into Newark…Why aren’t teachers going there…it isn’t just salary…What portion of Newarks teachers are TFA? 20%, 10% less…</p>

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<p>I am wondering since TFA positions have to get their stipends from somewhere- where that comes from
My daughter volunteered through Americorps/CityYear- didn’t get paid but did recieve a living stipend. ( about $3,000- $4,000) a school year.
I thought at the time that it came from federal money ( taxes) but this year my D school hired 3 Americorps volunteers to tutoring reading, and the school pays the equivalent stipend of $12,000( not to the workers but to the program)
I wonder if this is new, or it that is the way it has always been?</p>

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<p>I believe Bush cut this programs funding…his administration’s policy is that volunteers not stipend programs should be helped. I think they also get a lot of big time donations…the goal seems so noble. Get smart people to teach…who could disagree.</p>

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<p>BUSH CUTS FUNDS
<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,476274,00.html[/url]”>http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,476274,00.html&lt;/a&gt;
CLINTON DOLE et.al fight for funds
<a href=“http://dole.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=233&Month=4&Year=2003[/url]”>http://dole.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=233&Month=4&Year=2003&lt;/a&gt;
Organization has over 4,000 funding sources
<a href=“http://www.teachforamerica.org/support_us.html[/url]”>http://www.teachforamerica.org/support_us.html&lt;/a&gt;
This should shed some light on the funding…
It is a very popular feel good program, but it is like an umbrella in a hurricane…useful, perhaps but limited.</p>

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<p>Mr. B. You are not addressing the points I and others have been making over and over.</p>

<ol>
<li>So-called experienced teachers are not necessarily good teachers.
Even after doing a stint of teacher training, many graduates of ed schools are woefully inadequate, especially in the area of subject knowledge. By the way, have you, a math teacher, read Liping Ma, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics? It’s an eye-opener about how much 3rd and 4th grade do not know about math, let alone teaching math. I have direct experience that her argument is accurate and I live in a district where teachers are paid well above the national and state norm. Prospective teachers would be better off going to college and learning something in their subject areas than going to ed schools. </li>
<li>Better pay is not going to address the problems of uneven teacher distribution (same with health care, where inner cities and rural areas are grossly underserved).</li>
<li>TFA teachers do get some training. If they are thrown into classes which are the most challenging in a school and which none of the veteran teachers wants to teach, blame the veteran teachers, the prncipals and the teachers’ union. Don’t blame the TFA teachers for being willing to handle classes no one else wants to teach.</li>
<li>Nobody is claiming that TFA is the whole solution.
Could we hear a different line of argument, please?</li>
</ol>

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<p>I have spoken before about the veteran teachers my daughter has had. Unfortunately for three years in a row, she had experienced, senior teachers- who couldn’t teach math- she attended a K-12 school where there was time and money for teachers to have collaboration time, every week, but that didn’t make a dent in continuity of curriculum, or insure that middle school students knew their multiplication tables or how to do long division.
If you had a good teacher- you did OK, but if you had a bad teacher, or a mediocre teacher, especially for three years in a row- well my daughter is still recovering and that is with paying for tutors for the past few years.
There is little incentive for principals to document bad teaching, teachers get shuffled around, from school to school, and the district apparently just hopes they dont’ cause too much damage before they leave.
The last year of middle school, we had an interim principal who was angry that the community declined to hire her as permanent, and instead did another search for principal.
She didn’t show up for prearranged meetings with PTA board ( that she chose time and date), she wasn’t reachable when we has crisises at the school, she allowed substitute teachers to remain in teh classroom after very inappropriate behavior until the district made her remove them- but when she heard she wouldnt’ be returning to the school- just replied that " the principals union would find her a job- she was still going to get her salary"
Yes- professional teachers, are certainly professional----- not</p>

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<p>So, the message is that if you major in a certain subject you can teach it? My husband is a Professional engineer, is good at, and enjoys math. He’s an accomplished trumpet player. Can he teach either? NO! </p>

<p>My daughter OTOH, is student teaching at an inner city middle school right now and it’s her second student teaching (not observing, but lesson plans made and stand-up-in-front-of-the class teaching) experience in her 3 years of college. She’s also had several methodolgy classes learning HOW to teach and specifically how to teach math. She’s a born teacher and has known that that is what she wanted to do since she was pretty young. I’ve always believed that people that are passionate about their jobs do a better one. Isn’t that what we’re looking for?</p>

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<p>No. The message is, the starting point needs to be real mastery of the subject, before you try to teach it.</p>

<p>My H recently went back to school to get an ED certificate, to teach h.s. science. He took classes through a postbac program, so he’s not doing alternate route. He is bringing a degree in bio, a medical degree, and extensive self-study in all facets of science (his passion). Now at a hs, he has seen the different effectiveness and knowledge base of the teachers there. A couple of the best were alternate route. </p>

<p>The message is not that if you major in a subject you can teach it–the message is that total mastery of the subject is a necessary starting point. And born teachers will make sure they are prepared to teach effectively.</p>

<p>I don’t understand this antipathy by traditional route teachers (not all of them, of course). If they were filling all the jobs, no one would be looking for TFAs.</p>

<p>Oh, and by the way, my friend’s daughter, the TFA teacher who was sleeping in the school outside of NO to continue teaching though homeless, has an apt now; the community opened their homes to give homes to these teachers. Guess someone thought they were worth having around.</p>

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<p>Garland made my point very well.
Kathiep: I do not denigrate the importance of pedagogy, but you cannot teach well what you do not know. I suggest your D read Liping Ma’s book, too.
My S had more than one teacher who knew so little math that they could not deviate one iota from the teaching materials they had. They “knew” the algorithms, but they did not really know why they applied or why they worked. They were actually dismayed at S who is a natural, intuitive math lover and could think of different ways of arriving at the solution to a problem, or extensions to the solutions. And they had no knowledge of what to do to keep him challenged. The level? Third grade through sixth grade. We’re not talking knot theory here. But they all had teaching certificates and many years’ classroom experience.
In high school, I complained about a veteran teacher who’d assigned A Tale of Two Cities in September but somehow had not managed to get the 10th grade Honors English class to finish reading it by January. The reason: the students were college-bound so she wanted to prepare them for the SAT! She was moved to another class, teaching remedial English. By contrast, some of the absolutely best teachers my S2 has had were fresh out of college (Princeton, Georgetown) and were working towards an MA in Education. I was very glad that they were gaining their experience “at the expense” of my S and his classmates.</p>

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<p>We went to “Back to School” night recently and were impressed with a couple of the teachers. They were confident, professional, and passionate about their subjects. Interestingly, both have advanced degrees and were active in their subjects outside of school. Sadly, these two teachers are the exception. We have seen far too many teachers who are not proficient in their subject. All of my children have experienced math teachers who are literally unable to answer questions. A common way they deal with their lack of knowledge is to refer students to other kids in the classroom for help. Having been a classroom volunteer for many years, I have seen this for myself as early as the 4th grade level and it goes on even more in junior high and high school. It is not uncommon. I agree that mastery of a subject is imperative for quality education. Innovative programs such as TFA can greatly benefit our students. Professionals who work in the real world and want to teach should be given the opportunity as well. Someone with corporate experience can teach students to apply their knowledge in real ways. An artist who has published work has much to offer beyond the traditional classroom curriculum. We should be open to new programs and ideas for creating the best pool of teachers possible for our children.</p>

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<p>Other posters on this thread, I don’t know how many of you have an Ivy degree, and left a better paying career in mid-life to teach kids from low income multi-cultural neighborhoods. I did. I have met some teachers from Berkeley, and one or two from Stanford, but don’t know of many others who are actually teaching in low performing schools. There are reasons why the top of the education pile isn’t competing for education college admission and racing down to the public schools. We need to address these reasons if we want to solve the problem. </p>

<p>One: respect for teachers is a very funny thing…Most people when polled will say they trust teachers over other sources of information, including editorial boards and politicians, but there are numerous people out (just look at this thread) there who feel that a 22 year old with a Ivy degree will be as good or better than an experienced teacher. That, of course is absurd, and this is not just my opinion but the summation of many studies. Experience is the number one indicator of a successful teacher. Content knowledge is essential, but it is the ability to understand how to teach the content that is critical in most classrooms. The younger the students the more relevant understanding effective teaching methods, and student development levels become. Understanding the need for a professional is a first step.</p>

<p>Two: the pay scale for teachers while better than some factory workers is significantly below that of other professional jobs, especially after a masters degree and five years of experience are included in the comparison. I know many teachers who have left the profession to make more money in real estate and life insurance/investment sales. </p>

<p>Three: teachers are blamed for the majority of problems that occur with a school even though, most of us have no influence over class size, make up or even the standards we are told to teach. Example: Last year fellow math teachers and I were required to leave the classroom for over a week, while we learned to “teach math” from a nice guy who five years ago was in sales, but now is a “math specialist” who was hired by the district. This year, they hired a new “math specialist company” that sent me a binder this week with description of a test my students would have to take next week. Some of the material for next week’s test has been covered in the first few chapters of our book, the rest of the questions come from chapters that would not be covered before January if we kept to the lesson plan schedule that the district required us to create at last years workshops. </p>

<p>Related to this is the fact that in the past four years, my school has had three different principals, and eight vice-principals. One principal, while bumping up her retirement with a bonus for being at our school, lost over $90,000 in funding because she didn’t fill in the number of free and reduced price lunches on a form, and who turned down funding for “home visits” because she was on her way out and didn’t want to go to a meeting. Teachers were not given an opportunity to participate in the hiring of two of these principals, but we all live with their decisions.</p>

<p>I believe education is important, I want highly skilled professionals with a strong content and education background teaching . Relying on well intentioned volunteers is not a long term solution to our teacher shortage.</p>

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<p>Mr. B:
None of what you say addresses the points that have been made specifically about TFA.<br>
No one is arguing that TFA is THE solution, long-term or not, to the teacher shortage, especially in rural areas or inner cities, nor the issue of teacher burnout.

TFA teachers are the ones who are sent to such schools where more seasoned teachers are unwilling to teach. In the absence of teachers where it most counts, TFA teachers perform a valuable service. Are you suggesting that it would be better for graduates of ivies and other top schools not to be involved in education at all? </p>

<p>

I fail to see what this has to do with TFA. TFA is not responsible for the high turnover in principals, is it? Or for the incompetence of principals? Can we stick to the topic, which is TFA? </p>

<p>No one is arguing either that all the problems to be found in k-12 education is attributable to teachers. No one is arguing that a recent graduate is better than someone who has real experience teaching content. But time-serving and experience are distinct things. Some of the worst teachers my Ss have had were recent ed school graduates; other bad teachers had many years’ “experience.” It did not make up for the fact that my S knew more math and science than they did in early grades. In our district, incompetent teachers used to be re-assigned to work in the central administration. They were certified teachers, they’d taught for a number of year, they had tenure and they could not be gotten rid of. Luckily, after much prodding, the teachers’ union finally agreed to stop the practice. </p>

<p>All that is being said is that it’s a good thing that graduates of top schools–such as you–are drawn into education. Some of them will not stay beyond 2 years (but 1/3 of non TFA teachers do not stay in the profession beyong 5 years anyway). But those who do will have some experience AND knowledge. And they will have chosen to stay in this profession instead of going into careers with starting salaries in the high five figures. Just like you.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Of course this is not true. I hope you don’t believe that if the school advertised for a teacher that they wouldn’t be able to get a qualified teacher if they offered a decent salary and work situation.
This is the same argument used by industry to ship american jobs overseas, we can’t find any skilled workers willing to work (for these wages and conditions) </p>

<p>Maybe you could get TFA to offer volunteers into dentistry…we certainly need dentists in our low income communities. Would you use a dentist who didn’t have a dental degree? Of course not, because you respect that profession. Respect teachers, hire a professional.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Isn’t it the problem? You advertise and they don’t want to come? So qualified teachers do not want to go to certain schools (and salary is not the main issue, and you know it). And you don’t like TFA teachers going to those schools. Are you willing to condemn the students who do care to learn to having no education? </p>

<p>And please dentistry is not the same as math or English. Thinking about it, why is it that my 4th grader knew more math than his well-credentialed, 20-year veteran teacher? Because her strength was in English, not math. Isn’t it the same as an electrician doing dentistry? Both involve drilling, right? And if I hire a certified electrician, he should be able to do the job: he’s certified.</p>

<p>I have profound respect for teachers. I have been on hiring committees that hired teachers k-8, as well as principals, deans and one superintendent. I’ve worked well with most of my S’s teachers, but I’ve also refused to tolerate bad teaching.</p>

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<p>I sent my daughters to private schools- Private schools don’t have the same requirement that public schools do
No teaching degree required- they had college degrees but not education degrees
I went to a naturopath for many years for all of my medical care- so did my two girls. The only reason why I no longer see her, is because that while our ins still covers her, she no longer takes ins
Many people wouldn’t consider a naturopath a “real” dr, just as some don’t consider a teacher who hasn’t jumped through the hoops of a school of education to be a “real” teacher.
Myself, I am glad that we have a choice- a choice to go to a “alternative” medical practioner, and to have teachers whose classroom comes first, and who aren’t hired just because they can parrot the jargon the district is espousing this month</p>

<p>What matters is that these kids have someone who cares about them and who will be there for them
We have seen that even teachers who have classroom experience, are often not prepared for the reality of the classroom, particulary when they see that they don’t have control over the subjects or grades that they are assigned to teach.
The priority should be to get children educated, if they are volunteers, well paid, poorly paid, home schooled, private schooled, even vouchers and religous school it doesn’t matter.
The priority is these kids are growing up and no one is teaching them.
there are principal unions, there are teacher unions- but where are the unions for families and children?
Where are the unions to get these voices heard?</p>

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<p>I know that in my district and in my opinion in this country the teachers unions speak more for the students than the taxpayer associations. Parents come in a sad second, primarily because of the limited number of parents who get involved, particularly in low income neighborhoods. Emeraldkity, you are right, we need teachers who care about kids, who understand their needs and life situations. That is one more reason to look for people in these schools that won’t come and go like the seasons. Teachers who can refer to the older siblings and cousins of their students, who have taken the time to visit homes. We need professionals who understand the education law and the developmental paths of our students. </p>

<p>We all know that private schools don’t require certified teachers, but they also don’t have to tolerate poor behavior, they do have involved parents, and of course they screen their applicants. Public schools are required to teach everybody, hence the increased need for understanding how to teach.</p>