BTW, we wouldn't want to help bad teachers be good teachers or understand why they are bad/ineffective teachers now would w? That much less correct the problems, right? Tough love is the best way, just fire them and let them figure it out for themselves. Originally Posted by austxjr
Your opinion on tenure, but I'll grant tenure has gotten out of hand when granted too early in some cases and not on very high standards. There are some definitely advantages to tenure if handled correctly. Teachers can be fired for all sorts of things. Performance is often not one of them because it is notoriously hard to measure accurately since there are so many things that go into it and affect it. Teachers Unions are against being able to fire teachers for performance (and performance bonuses) because it usually leads to management favoritism and a popularity contest. Some Teacher's unions in some cities and states have gone too far in blocking some reforms, but we no reform will work if it is done on the backs of teachers and they leave the profession. Most studies show that the critical factor in good education is excellent teachers. The question is how to make many more teachers excellent. I don't think it is by firing them. Is that how the private sector creates excellent employees, by threatening to fire them and firing them ("the beatings will continue until morale improves"? Great teachers don't grow on trees and most of the people that would be great teachers have gone into banking, law, medicine or business. You are citing the old right wing saw of a couple of anecdotes as a case for getting rid of all unions and tenure.The whole concept of tenure is ridiculous. No one should have tenure. If we gave tenure to every worker in the country, the entire economy would grind to a halt over night.
Best Teacher awards are usually a popularity contest as well. The four best teachers I ever had never got Best Teacher awards (except nominated for national ones based on Merit Scholars recommendations) which instead went to really nice teachers everyone loved (especially the dumb kids because the teachers didn't push them hard). I had a family member who taught and was chairperson of the department and only ever got grief, but for years students who went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, etc.. would come up in restaurants and say, "M. Teacher, I hated you in school, but thanks, I never would have gotten where I am if you weren't so hard on me."
Teaching is also not a thing you are either good at or not. It is not even that you can be trained well or not. It is collaborative between teacher, teaching staff, admin, parents, student, even community. Degrees in Education don't teach you to teach. Degrees in a subject don't teach you to teach. Other teachers, experience, team teaching, etc.. teach one to teach. Often teachers don't collaborate and this is set up by leadership which doesn't demand best practices. New teachers have so much to deal with with new lesson plans, parents, administrators, their subject (usually now what they were most familiar with in college) not to mention the students and learning how to teach that they often drown and many just give up and leave before they get to 5 years and anyone finds out if they are actually any good or not.
What you are advocating is tearing down a system that is actually working pretty well for 80% of the students (the real problems are mostly in city schools with predominantly poor populations - surprise, surprise) based on anecdotes and your beliefs which are unsupported by research or real world examples. I'm just not willing to risk a key foundation of our society on your unfounded beliefs.
Now if you want to talk about real solutions, then we can do that. Three of the most promising things I've seen lately are:
BTW, we wouldn't want to help bad teachers be good teachers or understand why they are bad/ineffective teachers now would we? That much less correct the problems, right? Tough love is the best way, just fire them and let them figure it out for themselves. Originally Posted by austxjr
- Increase availability of early pre-schooling. Evidence indicates it decreases unemployment in 20's by 30 to 50% and also decreases LE involvement and convictions by similar rates - that is best bang for buck.
- Use student evaluations to rate teacher performance - recently saw surprising data that done correctly student evaluations of teachers correlated well with actual student academic improvement.
- Teach analytic writing and thinking (need good reading to do it too) much earlier and across the board (writing essays and grading them in history, math, science as well as english - which is what my family member used to do a lot of) as it teaches and reinforces good thinking necessary for science, math, tests, college, life, etc..... Students can't really do science and math without good reading and writing skills.. after all they are taught from a book or written materials usually. Recent studies of this approach have shown a great deal of promise.
This shit is SO over! Americans will choose between a commander on chief and a robber baron who has managed to piss off everybody at home and abroad.That is right on the money! Go Romney!
! Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
Not necessarily. Government education simply doesn't work. Here are a couple videos. I know it's hard for you to read.Government education? Im talking about PUBLIC EDUCATION. Are you calling them one in the same?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okPnDZ1Txlo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jZHN...eature=related Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy
