The key element in teaching success isn't technical skill, or more resources, or smaller classes; the key to success is higher expectations. Teachers will get more if they expect more. The mantra to chant daily is, “Every child can learn.”
That’s the tune that a lot of people are dancing to these days. A remarkably diverse assortment of governors, national and state legislators, educational entrepreneurs, school superintendents and ordinary, right thinking Americans all assert “Every child can learn.” In fact, this overworked and under considered motto is a ubiquitous as dog doo on the public green.
Ignoring definitive research that points to non-school factors as key to school success or failure, those embracing this mindless motto dismiss the idea that “schooling failures" are largely a symptom of social failures. Do they honestly believe that positive thinking can cancel out the educational consequences of a fifth of all U.S. children living in poverty. Do they honestly believe that positive thinking can defeat the problems that cause infants born in US inner cities being less likely to survive than babies born in the “third world.” Do they honestly believe that positive thinking can save the education of hundreds of thousands of U.S. youngsters who literally don’t have a home to do homework in. (On an average night in D.C., for instance, 1,300 youngsters are in shelters for the homeless.)
Any fool can see that such beliefs are humbug. The plain fact is that “every child’s” learning is stifled if they are homeless, abused, malnourished, and way past angry. Sure they can learn to stay away from Mom when she’s high or to keep out of the way of Mom’s boyfriend when he’s looking for someone to abuse. But most kids living in misery can’t, or won’t, learn to do algebra, appreciate Shakespeare or conjugate verbs. Some won’t even learn to read. They’re too busy trying to survive.
Only a numskull really expects quality schoolwork from children in such situations. So let’s quit pretending that positive thinking will make the difference and face the ugly fact that social problems erode school effectiveness all across America.
To further examine these and similar issues, see
Power Failure: Why U.S. School Reform Persistently Misses the Target
--- GKC
Friday, March 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Why Educational Leaders Always Fall Short
Here is the skinny on educational leadership. No matter how good school leaders are, they can never be good enough. America's diversity generates immutable disagreements regarding what schools should teach and how they should teach it. The only way to generate consensus is with vague slogans — for example, "Every school a good school!"Since we don't agree on what these slogans mean, however, implementation quickly bogs down in endless disagreements.
What individuals want from schools and school administrators changes with their circumstances. In certain situations they want schools that are temples and educational leaders who are moral leaders — high priests of rectitude and knowledge. In other circumstances they want schools to be business-like and school administrators to be executives or production managers. In still other circumstances they want schools to be town meetings where policies and procedures are subject to negotiation, politics, and compromise and administrators are arbitrators mediating disputes.
Even the most gifted administrators finds such different roles very difficult to play. And if they must be played simultaneously, it becomes impossible.
A school administrator's troubles do not end there either. Irreconcilable organizational conflicts also are built into school leadership. To the extent that school leaders exercise power, they undermine morale. To the extent that they follow policy, they must ignore individual differences. To the extent that they pursue authorized goals, they must limit their subordinates discretion. In short, school administration involves a series of difficult and unclear choices. What does all this imply? That a school administrator's job performance will inevitably fall short of many people's expectations.
Many educational pundits imagine that school administrators can be miracle workers — pedagogical shamans who magically reconcile competing expectations for schools and schooling through the purity of their motivations and the force of their will.The literature on "transformational" school leadership, for example, is replete with solemn assurances that visionary change agents, expert at dealing with complexity and ambiguity, can successfully convince everyone to serve goodness, righteousness, duty, and obligation.
This is pure humbug —just more of the wishful thinking that too often substitutes for thought in education. And for a wide variety of reasons, it's dangerous to expect educational leaders to achieve the unachievable. The best any school administrator can hope for is partial success. Sometimes, however, that can make the needed difference.
To examine these and similar issues further, see http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/MoralLeadership.html
What individuals want from schools and school administrators changes with their circumstances. In certain situations they want schools that are temples and educational leaders who are moral leaders — high priests of rectitude and knowledge. In other circumstances they want schools to be business-like and school administrators to be executives or production managers. In still other circumstances they want schools to be town meetings where policies and procedures are subject to negotiation, politics, and compromise and administrators are arbitrators mediating disputes.
Even the most gifted administrators finds such different roles very difficult to play. And if they must be played simultaneously, it becomes impossible.
A school administrator's troubles do not end there either. Irreconcilable organizational conflicts also are built into school leadership. To the extent that school leaders exercise power, they undermine morale. To the extent that they follow policy, they must ignore individual differences. To the extent that they pursue authorized goals, they must limit their subordinates discretion. In short, school administration involves a series of difficult and unclear choices. What does all this imply? That a school administrator's job performance will inevitably fall short of many people's expectations.
Many educational pundits imagine that school administrators can be miracle workers — pedagogical shamans who magically reconcile competing expectations for schools and schooling through the purity of their motivations and the force of their will.The literature on "transformational" school leadership, for example, is replete with solemn assurances that visionary change agents, expert at dealing with complexity and ambiguity, can successfully convince everyone to serve goodness, righteousness, duty, and obligation.
This is pure humbug —just more of the wishful thinking that too often substitutes for thought in education. And for a wide variety of reasons, it's dangerous to expect educational leaders to achieve the unachievable. The best any school administrator can hope for is partial success. Sometimes, however, that can make the needed difference.
To examine these and similar issues further, see http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/MoralLeadership.html
Sunday, March 1, 2009
WHAT'S "SPECIAL" ABOUT SPECIAL EDUCATION?
America’s public schools (and parochial schools for that matter) are factories. Mass schooling’s enormous scale requires processing the most students at the least cost. Cutting costs requires an emphasis on efficiency, rather than community, individuality, or even moral principle. Thus the desolate truth is that the broad mass of public school kids are, and always have been, processed like so many cans of soup.
Consider the “school plant” as it’s revealingly called. Signs of its factory-like nature are everywhere. It has numbered rooms in repetitive order, mail boxes uniformly arranged, sign-in sheets or time clocks, a daily inventory (roll) of the “raw material,” buzzers that set things in motion or bring motion to a halt, chairs in ordered ranks, children segregated by age and teachers by function, and an “office” that commands in metallic tone via the P.A. system. The whole thing reeks of the repetitive, impersonal but efficient monotony of a factory.
Yes, competent teachers group kids by skill level, teach lessons that exploit various kinds of intelligence, capitalize on interests, that sort of thing. Such “accommodations” are what makes some factory schools better than others. But in the end mass schooling is still factory-like because limited resources demand efficiency.
What about kids who are so "different" they can't be mass processed. In the "good old days" such children, the ones who held up production, were “exempted” from compulsory school attendance. Later, youngsters who were too out of the ordinary for efficient processing were removed from the assembly line and placed in “special” classes. Now federal law requires that "special" children be placed in the least restrictive environment possible. In other words, put back on the assembly line whenever possible. The trouble is, how to do this and still maintain efficiency. Teachers are stuck with this problem, and there is no solution.
Making matters worse, the very same politicians who order inclusion fail to fully fund it. Yet they assure the public that no child will be left behind and press relentlessly for more and more high stakes testing. This places educators in an impossible situation. They must leave no child behind. They must turn no child away. They must place every child in the least restrictive environment possible. Test scores must get better. But don’t ask for more resources or smaller classes because there’s no more money. Thus, factory type schools are the only option. This is a no-win situation no matter how you look at it. Is it any wonder that teacher attrition is scandalously high? Is it a surprise that enthusiasm for school administration is drying up?
Ultimately, the difficulties “special” children pose for factory processing are unresolvable. Such kids inevitably slow production. That’s why they are labeled “special” to begin with. The school as factory can’t process them efficiently and they need special handling.
This is what is special about special education? It’s the one aspect of public schooling that cannot be totally factory-like. It’s the only place in school where individual differences really matter. But inclusion places more and more of these "special" kids back on the assembly line. And that means the factory loses efficiency and kids with "special needs" get a lot less attention. Is that what inclusion advocates want? Well, it’s what they’re getting.
To further examine these and similar issues, see articles at www.newfoundations.net
Consider the “school plant” as it’s revealingly called. Signs of its factory-like nature are everywhere. It has numbered rooms in repetitive order, mail boxes uniformly arranged, sign-in sheets or time clocks, a daily inventory (roll) of the “raw material,” buzzers that set things in motion or bring motion to a halt, chairs in ordered ranks, children segregated by age and teachers by function, and an “office” that commands in metallic tone via the P.A. system. The whole thing reeks of the repetitive, impersonal but efficient monotony of a factory.
Yes, competent teachers group kids by skill level, teach lessons that exploit various kinds of intelligence, capitalize on interests, that sort of thing. Such “accommodations” are what makes some factory schools better than others. But in the end mass schooling is still factory-like because limited resources demand efficiency.
What about kids who are so "different" they can't be mass processed. In the "good old days" such children, the ones who held up production, were “exempted” from compulsory school attendance. Later, youngsters who were too out of the ordinary for efficient processing were removed from the assembly line and placed in “special” classes. Now federal law requires that "special" children be placed in the least restrictive environment possible. In other words, put back on the assembly line whenever possible. The trouble is, how to do this and still maintain efficiency. Teachers are stuck with this problem, and there is no solution.
Making matters worse, the very same politicians who order inclusion fail to fully fund it. Yet they assure the public that no child will be left behind and press relentlessly for more and more high stakes testing. This places educators in an impossible situation. They must leave no child behind. They must turn no child away. They must place every child in the least restrictive environment possible. Test scores must get better. But don’t ask for more resources or smaller classes because there’s no more money. Thus, factory type schools are the only option. This is a no-win situation no matter how you look at it. Is it any wonder that teacher attrition is scandalously high? Is it a surprise that enthusiasm for school administration is drying up?
Ultimately, the difficulties “special” children pose for factory processing are unresolvable. Such kids inevitably slow production. That’s why they are labeled “special” to begin with. The school as factory can’t process them efficiently and they need special handling.
This is what is special about special education? It’s the one aspect of public schooling that cannot be totally factory-like. It’s the only place in school where individual differences really matter. But inclusion places more and more of these "special" kids back on the assembly line. And that means the factory loses efficiency and kids with "special needs" get a lot less attention. Is that what inclusion advocates want? Well, it’s what they’re getting.
To further examine these and similar issues, see articles at www.newfoundations.net
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The Ultimate Silliness: Holding Teachers Accountable For Kids Who Aren't There
In the School District of Philadelphia's public high schools absenteeism averages nearly 20%; and the 14 worst high schools average nearly 30%.1 That means almost 1/5 of high school youngsters are absent on any given day. And we aren't even counting the large number of kids who come in an hour or more late. Yet their teachers are held accountable when absent kids score poorly on high stakes tests. Indeed, the entire school is held to account by No Child Left Behind.
NCLB requires that states and districts include at least 95% of all students, (including the disability subgroup) in assessment results in order to meet the accountability requirements. The 5% is supposed to allow for absenteeism and other events not under the school’s control."2
Plainly, the law presupposes that no more than 5% of the youngsters in any school will be chronically absent. Yet the earlier noted 30% absentee rate alone gives the lie to this. The fact is that there are many schools where this 5% allowance for intervening variables is so low as to be laughable.
1/ http://www.thenotebook.org/editions/2005/fall/Page_15_F05.pdf
2. Accountability for Assessment Results in the No Child Left Behind Act, National Center on Educational Outcomes, http://cehd.umn.edu/nceo/OnlinePubs/NCLBdisabilities.html
NCLB requires that states and districts include at least 95% of all students, (including the disability subgroup) in assessment results in order to meet the accountability requirements. The 5% is supposed to allow for absenteeism and other events not under the school’s control."2
Plainly, the law presupposes that no more than 5% of the youngsters in any school will be chronically absent. Yet the earlier noted 30% absentee rate alone gives the lie to this. The fact is that there are many schools where this 5% allowance for intervening variables is so low as to be laughable.
1/ http://www.thenotebook.org/editions/2005/fall/Page_15_F05.pdf
2. Accountability for Assessment Results in the No Child Left Behind Act, National Center on Educational Outcomes, http://cehd.umn.edu/nceo/OnlinePubs/NCLBdisabilities.html
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
When Should Teachers Lie?
Imagine a high school science teacher being asked about evolution by a youngster from a religiously conservative family. The student might say something like this: “My church teaches, and my family believes, that the earth is just 6,000 years old. But the text claims that the earth is nearly 800,000 times older. What am I to think?”
Clearly the claim that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old lacks scientific credibility, and our teacher knows it. How, then, should he or she respond?
Here are some possibilities. You decide how our teacher might best respond and still honor her profession.
1. “A 6,000 year old earth is not supported by scientific evidence.”
2. “The Biblical account might best be understood as an allegory.”
3. “Which account do you think is more credible?”
4. “That’s a question for your parents and pastor.”
5. “If you believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, it is - for you.”
6. “Your parents and pastor are correct.”
Answer 1 is the unvarnished truth, 2 offers an alternative, and 3 begs the question. Regarding 4, the student knows what his parents think; he wants an answer from the teacher. Answer 5 is evasive, though it’s possibly wise. Response 6 is a lie, pure and simple. Which of these responses can our high school instructor choose and still properly call themselves a teacher?
Given teachers’ compensation and often shoddy treatment, it might be naïve to expect them to take risks for honesty’s sake. But you’re not asked to decide what is prudent here. You’re only deciding what this teacher must do to remain true to the essential nature of teaching.
Does anything change if we reduce the grade level? Let’s take this inquiry to first grade. Six-year-olds frequently ask their teacher if Santa Claus is real. Here are some possible responses.
1. “No, Santa Claus is not real.”
2. “Santa Claus represents the spirit of giving.”
3. “Do you think Santa is real?”
4. “That’s a question for your parents.”
5. “If you believe in him, he’s real for you.”
6. “Certainly he’s real — I’ve seen him myself.”
Which of these answers can our teacher give without betraying his calling? Can you think of a better one?
A wide range of vital topics are shunned or rendered harmless by educators wishing to avoid becoming the target of no-nothing parents, civic “activists,” opportunistic politicians, or self-appointed guardians of public morality. What inevitably suffers are truth and relevance. This is why public schooling is often devitalized, immaterial, and boring. This also is how teachers become irrelevant, neutered apologists.
Admittedly, one person’s truth is another’s foolishness. Nevertheless, education without candor is no education at all. Moreover, a teacher’s character, including his or her honesty, is what students remember after they’ve forgotten everything else.
Notes
1. “College Suspends Ellis for War Lies.” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 18, 2001, p. 4.
2. “California Children See How a Steer Is Slaughtered.” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 5, 2001, p. 6.
To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com
Clearly the claim that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old lacks scientific credibility, and our teacher knows it. How, then, should he or she respond?
Here are some possibilities. You decide how our teacher might best respond and still honor her profession.
1. “A 6,000 year old earth is not supported by scientific evidence.”
2. “The Biblical account might best be understood as an allegory.”
3. “Which account do you think is more credible?”
4. “That’s a question for your parents and pastor.”
5. “If you believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, it is - for you.”
6. “Your parents and pastor are correct.”
Answer 1 is the unvarnished truth, 2 offers an alternative, and 3 begs the question. Regarding 4, the student knows what his parents think; he wants an answer from the teacher. Answer 5 is evasive, though it’s possibly wise. Response 6 is a lie, pure and simple. Which of these responses can our high school instructor choose and still properly call themselves a teacher?
Given teachers’ compensation and often shoddy treatment, it might be naïve to expect them to take risks for honesty’s sake. But you’re not asked to decide what is prudent here. You’re only deciding what this teacher must do to remain true to the essential nature of teaching.
Does anything change if we reduce the grade level? Let’s take this inquiry to first grade. Six-year-olds frequently ask their teacher if Santa Claus is real. Here are some possible responses.
1. “No, Santa Claus is not real.”
2. “Santa Claus represents the spirit of giving.”
3. “Do you think Santa is real?”
4. “That’s a question for your parents.”
5. “If you believe in him, he’s real for you.”
6. “Certainly he’s real — I’ve seen him myself.”
Which of these answers can our teacher give without betraying his calling? Can you think of a better one?
A wide range of vital topics are shunned or rendered harmless by educators wishing to avoid becoming the target of no-nothing parents, civic “activists,” opportunistic politicians, or self-appointed guardians of public morality. What inevitably suffers are truth and relevance. This is why public schooling is often devitalized, immaterial, and boring. This also is how teachers become irrelevant, neutered apologists.
Admittedly, one person’s truth is another’s foolishness. Nevertheless, education without candor is no education at all. Moreover, a teacher’s character, including his or her honesty, is what students remember after they’ve forgotten everything else.
Notes
1. “College Suspends Ellis for War Lies.” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 18, 2001, p. 4.
2. “California Children See How a Steer Is Slaughtered.” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 5, 2001, p. 6.
To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com
Monday, January 5, 2009
School House or Mad House: Reconsidering Corporal Punishment
Educators and other school officials have a non-negotiable obligation to maintain a safe school in which those who want to can learn. This is an irreducible minimum which must take precedence over well-intentioned efforts at social reclamation, racial pride building, AIDS prevention, or whatever.
This means that serious disruptions, bullying, extortion, and predation, must not be tolerated under any circumstances. If this can be accomplished without administering corporal punishment, so much the better. After all, the physical punishment of children has weighty opposition. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Social Workers all oppose or strongly discourage corporal punishment of children and the United Nations has initiated a world-wide program to eliminate it.
But what if educators with thirty plus impoverished kids per class do not command the resources necessary to maintain order without this option? For 6000 years such punishment was readily, available. Make other kid's lives miserable or learning impossible and it would cost you a red behind. These days, most school districts, even entire states have ruled this consequence out.
What has taken its place? Sermonettes, ineffectual detentions, forced transfers, or trying to teach the malefactors conflict resolution techniques. Unfortunately, the recipients of these remedies typically continue to lay waste to everyone's safety and learning.
Suspension is the worst that usually happens to school kids who specialize in making other people's lives insufferable. For many kids this sanction is a joke — time off to run the streets. With corporal punishment banned by people who escape the price of its banning, school officials command few if any sanctions that impress hooligans. As one young hoodlum assured a more novice delinquent in the presence of a Philadelphia teacher friend of mine, "Don't worry, they can't do shit to you here."
Sure, corporal punishment might well damage children thus corrected. It also might encourage them to think that might makes right or that violence is the best way to resolve conflicts. (They probably think that anyway.) But even if it always damages aggressors in one way or another, that, by itself, is not decisive until the rights and safety of others have been factored in.
Put simply, educators absolutely must nor forget about the rights of victims. Children who are being subjected to merciless bullying, for example. Don't they have rights and feelings? Remember, children are compelled to attend school by force of law, and that means that they have an absolute right to safety once they are there.
Teachers have similar rights. They must be free of the threats and assaults of disturbed or malevolent youngsters; and sociopaths, whatever the origins of their behavior, must not be permitted to destroy lessons much less the peace and happiness of others. And for this to happen, school officials must command meaningful sanctions that tough kids respect.
In the best of all possible worlds, corporal punishment would never have to be inflicted on anyone for any reason. And much can and should still be done to make schooling more palatable and more effective for a broader range of kids. This would reduce misbehavior. But the world is far from perfect, school resources are strictly limited, order is absolutely necessary for reforms to take hold and the right of the innocent to safety and security must take precedence. Meaningful penalties, then, still are required.
Is corporal punishment the answer? Is it the only practical way to make inner-city schools safe places where kids can learn. If so, it must be scrupulously fair and carefully controlled or abuse is guaranteed. But let's reiterate the main point. Without meaningful sanctions of some sort incivility and social predation simply take over.
It is sadly certain that present day sanctions are so weak that they insure that good kids, kids who want to learn, are being compelled to attend mad houses rather than school houses.
To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com
This means that serious disruptions, bullying, extortion, and predation, must not be tolerated under any circumstances. If this can be accomplished without administering corporal punishment, so much the better. After all, the physical punishment of children has weighty opposition. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Social Workers all oppose or strongly discourage corporal punishment of children and the United Nations has initiated a world-wide program to eliminate it.
But what if educators with thirty plus impoverished kids per class do not command the resources necessary to maintain order without this option? For 6000 years such punishment was readily, available. Make other kid's lives miserable or learning impossible and it would cost you a red behind. These days, most school districts, even entire states have ruled this consequence out.
What has taken its place? Sermonettes, ineffectual detentions, forced transfers, or trying to teach the malefactors conflict resolution techniques. Unfortunately, the recipients of these remedies typically continue to lay waste to everyone's safety and learning.
Suspension is the worst that usually happens to school kids who specialize in making other people's lives insufferable. For many kids this sanction is a joke — time off to run the streets. With corporal punishment banned by people who escape the price of its banning, school officials command few if any sanctions that impress hooligans. As one young hoodlum assured a more novice delinquent in the presence of a Philadelphia teacher friend of mine, "Don't worry, they can't do shit to you here."
Sure, corporal punishment might well damage children thus corrected. It also might encourage them to think that might makes right or that violence is the best way to resolve conflicts. (They probably think that anyway.) But even if it always damages aggressors in one way or another, that, by itself, is not decisive until the rights and safety of others have been factored in.
Put simply, educators absolutely must nor forget about the rights of victims. Children who are being subjected to merciless bullying, for example. Don't they have rights and feelings? Remember, children are compelled to attend school by force of law, and that means that they have an absolute right to safety once they are there.
Teachers have similar rights. They must be free of the threats and assaults of disturbed or malevolent youngsters; and sociopaths, whatever the origins of their behavior, must not be permitted to destroy lessons much less the peace and happiness of others. And for this to happen, school officials must command meaningful sanctions that tough kids respect.
In the best of all possible worlds, corporal punishment would never have to be inflicted on anyone for any reason. And much can and should still be done to make schooling more palatable and more effective for a broader range of kids. This would reduce misbehavior. But the world is far from perfect, school resources are strictly limited, order is absolutely necessary for reforms to take hold and the right of the innocent to safety and security must take precedence. Meaningful penalties, then, still are required.
Is corporal punishment the answer? Is it the only practical way to make inner-city schools safe places where kids can learn. If so, it must be scrupulously fair and carefully controlled or abuse is guaranteed. But let's reiterate the main point. Without meaningful sanctions of some sort incivility and social predation simply take over.
It is sadly certain that present day sanctions are so weak that they insure that good kids, kids who want to learn, are being compelled to attend mad houses rather than school houses.
To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tougher Teacher Preparation: The Most Essential Step Toward Better Schools
“When one considers in its length and breadth the importance of a nation’s young, the broken lives, the defeated hopes, the national failures, which result from the frivolous inertia with which (education) is treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage”
Alfred North Whitehead
The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1929) p.22.
Really want to improve American schooling? Here is the first and most essential step. Recognize that better teachers are the key ingredient for improving our schools; and wake up to the fact that nothing, or at least nothing good, will happen until we strengthen their preparation.
How can this be done? Most undergraduates are too immature, ignorant and unmotivated for serious teacher preparation. What is required is thorough professional preparation in a post-graduate professional school similar to that required of lawyers, medical doctors, veterinarians, opticians, and podiatrists. In other words, make teacher preparation similar to that of trades we really care about.
This is no pipe dream. Advances in the teaching knowledge base make it possible to transform teacher preparation into a meaningfully rigorous and truly empowering process. But instead of exploiting this opportunity, state and federal officials have been fostering lax, disempowering short cuts into teaching.
Not content with the already slap dash preparation offered in undergraduate schools of education, thirty-eight states also offer so-called alternative certification programs as well. Most of these programs are so undemanding they do little or nothing to eliminate incompetence. Despite public rhetoric to the contrary, these short cuts are set up to license “teachers” on the cheap.
If our politicos were really serious about improving the nation’s schools, they would forget about quickie teacher preparation alternatives; close marginal teacher preparation programs at profiteering colleges who specialize in cut-rate certification; and simultaneously set up graduate level professional schools of pedagogy that feature demanding entrance and graduation requirements.
Remember, it took guilds, with their rigorous training, to build enduring masterpieces such as Europe’s great cathedrals. Master glass workers or stone masons certainly didn’t invite “creative, idealistic and enthusiastic” people in off the street, as politicians do with teaching, to try their hand at stained glass or stone carving. They were unrelenting in their apprenticeship requirements and the results speak for themselves. We need a similar approach in teacher preparation.
Sadly, too many public officials have a hidden agenda that is inimical to quality teacher preparation. They want to increase the supply of teachers by cheapening certification requirements. That drives down salaries and cuts the cost of government.
Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that higher salaries would have to be paid for highly trained, deeply committed teachers who really command the skills of their trade. And the average American simply isn’t willing to dig deep enough into their pocket to pay this tab. So there is little political benefit in supporting more rigorous requirements.
What is more, if the people entering teaching are less knowledgeable and less committed to the profession, it weakens teacher unions — a prime goal of Republican politicians whose election bids are routinely opposed by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
What needs to be done is obvious. What is equally obvious is that this is not going to happen any time soon. So, in the meantime, our politicians will keep messing about with high stakes tests, charter schools and any other 'remedy' that can be accomplished on the cheap.
To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com
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