 
Detroitteacher
Member
Username: Detroitteacher
Post Number: 1139
Registered: 06-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 4:02 pm: |    |
LY: While you continue to berate teachers and their so called intelligence, here's one that will surely turn you nine shades of purple (considering your thoughts about me).
I graduated, with honors, from HS. 3.89 GPA.
I graduated, with honors, from my undergrad. 3.99 GPA.
I graduated, with honors, from my grad program 4.0 (and currently have a 4.0 in the other two programs)
I also earned a 35 on the ACT.
While we're at it, I earned only 2 points below a perfect score on the MTTC (collectively for the basic skills and both major subject areas).
I'm not trying to toot my own horn but since you repeatedly say that teachers graduate from the bottom of the collective barrel, thought I'd throw a kink in your theory.
(Message edited by detroitteacher on August 16, 2007) |
Thejesus
Member
Username: Thejesus
Post Number: 1853
Registered: 06-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 4:13 pm: | |
^How does that throw a kink in his theory? He made a blanket statement about teachers in general and you merely offered one specific individual example to contradict it...
Sounds to me like you ARE trying to toot your own horn... |
Iheartthed
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Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 1384
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 4:13 pm: | |
>English
Great post. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 3752
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 4:25 pm: | |
Thejesus: Some use inductive logic a bit differently... Or, to put it another way: One capable teacher makes up for the deficiencies of a half dozen others???
But, like peas in a pod, they're all (good or bad) paid the same anyway--differing mostly only by their time-in-grade. How many successful businesses are (or could sustainably be) run that way? |
Ffdfd
Member
Username: Ffdfd
Post Number: 146
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 4:33 pm: | |
LY, I've seen you make the point about the subpar academic achievement of those who go into education a few times on these boards. I don't completely disagree with your concern, but there are other factors to consider.
The skills most crucial to being an effective teacher do not necessarily line up with the skill set of being a great student. I rate communication and people skills high in the criteria for good teachers. There are no standardized test for those qualities. Scotty Bowman wasn't a great hockey player and Sparky Anderson wasn't a great baseball player, but they possessed attributes that made them legendary instructors.
We don't want illiterates teaching, but not being an academic scholar doesn't preclude one from being able to stimulate curiosity and instill a love for learning. Do we really want all our top students becoming teachers, or do we want them to advance the fields that interest them? |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 3753
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 4:58 pm: | |
The US spends a lot of time teaching why a particular subject is important instead of actually teaching it adequately. That's more a US custom. For instance, teaching about why math may come in handy w/o really teaching it.
Another thread dealt with the US dropping out of international math/science competition because the US kids--fourth grade through high school--have been near the bottom of those kids from around two dozen countries. [The US traditionally would be about second worst.]
The international average for teachers of math and science having substantial math/science training is around 75%. However, the same percentage of US math/science teachers possessing those skills is usually around 42% or so. The above 75% figure even includes the effects of lower-qualified US teachers. If the US teachers were not counted in the first figure, it would be even higher...
BTW, the other 60% of US math/science teachers are essentially drafted by their school districts to fill in and to do the best they can w/o the needed training. The current ed-mills mainly deal with teaching methods over demanding competency in those areas. Ever wonder why the teachers' unions strongly resist the competency testing of their member teachers? The past track record for such testing has shown that deficiencies do indeed exist. And so, the unions resist competency testing probably more than anything else. That and demanding more money for their teachers... |
Trying_2_stay
Member
Username: Trying_2_stay
Post Number: 44
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 5:31 pm: | |
Livernois while what you are saying may be true imagine what is going on in these charter schools who are being filled with people with no teaching qualifications, just a degree. Yet you don't hear anything in the media about how bad their test scores are or how many go back to DPS when they find that their children aren't learning anything. I had my child in a classroom for 2 weeks in a charter school and the so called teachers had students in their class with learning disabilities and mental behavioral problems which they didn't know how to teach or deal with that kept them from teaching the other students. The teachers didn't even believe in what they were teaching. There were these people with degrees playing teacher using cursing as a way to talk to these kids. Give me a break. I promptly took my child out and put her back in DPS. |
Detroitteacher
Member
Username: Detroitteacher
Post Number: 1140
Registered: 06-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 5:34 pm: | |
Quote: Ever wonder why the teachers' unions strongly resist the competency testing of their member teachers?
Every teacher who is to become a teacher, under the NCLB Hughly Qualified rule must pass the MTCC (or other state equivalent) for their content area. This does NOT apply for veteran teachers who must merely posses a Master's Degree in their subject area. I am not saying that this is right. I am all for competency testing for all teachers (that would make my job teaching 11th and 12th graders much easier since the kids would have competent teachers prior to myself).
For the record, LY keeps saying teachers (as a blanket statement) don't have the educational wherewithall to teach. I was merely pointing out that there are teachers out here who were excellent students and are not from the bottom of the class. |
Ffdfd
Member
Username: Ffdfd
Post Number: 147
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 6:26 pm: | |
LY, I'm curious, since math and science are obviously passions of yours, if you were to think on a macro level about what is good for society as a whole, would you rather have the top 25 percent of students in those subjects go in to teaching or go into business, engineering, applied sciences and medicine?
Thomas Friedman wrote an interesting article about education last year. We think we're falling behind the rest of the world (and maybe we are), but we're not alone in that thought. Some highlights:
quote:The more I cover foreign affairs, the more I wish I had studied education in college, because the more I travel, the more I find that the most heated debates in many countries are around education. And here's what's really funny — every country thinks it's behind.
quote:Both India and China, which have mastered rote learning and have everyone else terrified about their growing armies of engineers, are wondering if too much math and science — unleavened by art, literature, music and humanities — aren't making Indira and Zhou dull kids and not good innovators. Very few global products have been spawned by India or China.
quote:But to make that leap, Indian entrepreneurs say, will require a big change in the rigid, never-challenge-the-teacher Indian education system. "If we do not allow our students to ask why, but just keep on telling them how, then we are only going to get the transactional type of outsourcing, not the high-end things that require complex interactions and judgment to understand another person's needs," said Nirmala Sankaran, C.E.O. of HeyMath, an Indian-based education company. "We have a creative problem in this country."
http://www.unc.edu/world/Fried man%20Worried.pdf |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 3754
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 6:30 pm: | |
DT: It matters very little to me if you need to interject yourself into the discussion. However, you, being a single teacher, do not represent the whole nor does your work have any significant effect upon the overall demographics. Statistically, your performance might be an outlier.
There are many undeniable facts about the lack of academics in US private and public-school "education."
(1) The US typically fares poorly on TIMSS and similar international competitions. However, there are times when individual US kids perform well and top some competitions. But, as a whole, the US does not perform well in math/science internationally. If and when US kids do well, it's all over the news. However, nothing usually is reported about their more-frequent dismal failures when compared to the other countries.
(2) The ACT and SAT tests are norm-based, and the results from one year to another do not mean much due to having their scores being normed (adjusted). Their raw scores, however, clearly show that test takers have not been performing well and are much, much worse in relation to the 1950s or earlier. The normed tests usually point out ranking of those taking a particular test each year. That's its stated intended purpose since the 1920s--to be used in college admission criteria.
(3) The MEAP-type tests are especially hated by the education field because they were set up as achievement tests. A minimum grade is expected for competency. However, politics rears its ugly head, and, for example, there were claims some three years ago that the fourth-grade math MEAP was dumbed-down. [I think that Chris Christoff--the Freep's Lansing bureau chief--held that view when interviewing the state education honcho back then on the Channel 56 program.]
(4) There's an obvious political interplay among the teachers' union, the ed mills, and the states' education departments to the exclusion of any serious education-reform organizations--probably in every state, especially in strongly unionized states like Michigan.
(5) US teachers have SAT and ACT scores clustered near the bottom of the entire college population. That's easily provable, and ETS occasionally makes available the average SAT scores for various fields of teachers--elementary, special ed, phy ed, high school, administrators, etc. And except for high-school teachers, their average SAT scores for the teaching specialties are significantly much lower than the SAT average for graduating seniors. About 200 points lower for the averages of special ed and phy ed teachers. |
English
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Username: English
Post Number: 557
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 9:44 pm: | |
Iheartthed -- thanks.
To all -- Interesting points. You are describing a problem in STEM teacher recruitment & retention that we've known about for 40+ years. Current international ed policy research offers some viable solutions to the problems that stakeholders in the field, in government, and in the multinational corporations have devoted considerable time and energy studying.
For instance, this quote from LY:
"The US typically fares poorly on TIMSS and similar international competitions. However, there are times when individual US kids perform well and top some competitions. But, as a whole, the US does not perform well in math/science internationally. If and when US kids do well, it's all over the news. However, nothing usually is reported about their more-frequent dismal failures when compared to the other countries."
...is at the center of current education policy. Look @ President Bush's speech last Thursday -- new legislation has been signed to provide funding for ephemeral "competitiveness". These discussions are not just confined to DetroitYES. They are occuring at the top multinational corporations, at the top universities, and in the halls of power in D.C. The United States, unless drastic measures are taken, will NEVER AGAIN top the international tables... we are on a downward spiral with ineffective leadership. One side screams about education being underfunded. The other side screams about educational malpractice & a culture that devalues "cultural literacy". Meanwhile, even the "smart" kids in top suburban districts nationwide are starting to realize how outdated and irrelevant the whole "school" thing is. Unfortunately, very few of even our top students have the dogged, singleminded determination and sustained dedication that is required to master the STEM disciplines. (Re-read Friedman's *The World Is Flat* if you don't believe me.) I'm sure that all the other teachers here can give anecdotes, comparing the educational attitudes of our 1st & 2nd generation immigrant kids to just about any American kid. American parents are very worried about the "whole child", by and large. In my experience, immigrant parents want their kids to earn straight As and perfect test scores, and are less concerned with the kid having their way all the time. My experience in urban and suburban schools bears that out. I also, in the summer of 2001, visited 10 state schools in the UK as part of my comparative education course. We are in trouble -- b/c what I saw in those schools is not happening in any but the most tony American schools. And the UK is not at the top of the international ed stats, either.
I repeat, read the recent NCEE report if you want to know where these issues stand currently. From page 127: "It cannot be an accident that it is the policy of the government of Singapore to recruit its teachers from the top third of the ranks of high school graduates going on to college." The chapter goes on to outline a specific policy recommendation to the US Department of Education about the future of teacher education, recruitment, and professional development.
If we wish to remain competitive into the century, we must stop rearticulating the problem, and look for viable solutions. What is maddening to me is that if you look abroad, every problem we are currently facing in education are problems that the rest of the Western and developing worlds have actually dealt with. The problem is that the US stakeholders in education have been too arrogant, and the American public has been too lazy, to actually try solving the problem. We ignore this issue to our peril. |
Ffdfd
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Username: Ffdfd
Post Number: 148
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 10:33 pm: | |
Good insight English. Do you think there is concern in Asia that maybe the approach to education there produces good math/science test scores but does not encourage creative thinkers, as suggested by the Friedman article I posted above and this Washington Post article from earlier this year? Or is that thought in the minority? Is the general consensus worldwide that we are the ones doing it wrong?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03 /18/AR2007031801160.html
quote:In a 21st-century economy that rewards quick thinking and problem solving, many educators in Singapore and elsewhere in Asia worry they are creating a generation of scientists who can memorize facts but can't keep up. These educators want to go beyond teaching facts and concepts that appear on tests and start teaching skills that are harder to gauge.
quote:Hungry for new scientific and technological breakthroughs, Singapore's government has been asking this question. And it is rethinking lesson plans in a public school system for a country of about 4.3 million. In an initiative known as "Teach Less, Learn More," Singapore has trimmed its curriculum in recent years to focus on quality of instruction rather than quantity and to give students more time to think. And its educators are circling the globe to hunt for new methods.
quote:Japan is retooling schools to engage students and ease pressure. Officials cut the national curriculum by 30 percent in 2002, eliminated mandatory Saturday classes and created a period for general studies meant to build on the interests of individual teachers or students. But the Japanese shift to yutori kyoiku, or relaxed education, has fueled a back-to-basics backlash from parents who worry that their children are not learning enough and that test scores are slipping.
quote:The middling performance of U.S. students on international exams has led to controversy about math and science instruction. Some argue for a more traditional approach oriented toward drills and memorization; others say children learn best when they discover concepts for themselves. Arguments also have escalated over whether U.S. officials are reading too much into the test results and whether the political mandate for high-stakes testing under the No Child Left Behind law is stamping out the very creativity other countries covet. |
Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 3756
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 10:55 pm: | |
The ACT/SAT data clearly show that those studying the math and science-related majors at college have standardized test scores well over 1300--many approaching the upper limit of 1600. It would appear that those scholars were that way from early youth.
One conclusion often resulting from the TIMSS comparisons is that the median Asian high school graduates were up to six years ahead of their US counterparts at age 18 (in many areas--languages, math, science, history, etc). When they take courses in US colleges as undergrads, they are clearly much better prepared than the US natives. Many Asians at 18 are already better trained than many US grad students some five+ years older. They studied their HS curricula in far greater breadth and depth. In fact, out of the estimated annual 75,000 engineering graduates at US colleges, only 32,000 of them are Americans.
I had continually taken courses at UW (a major college for Chem Eng), after graduation. The percentage of Asians there was probably over 50% in chemical engineering when I studied that many years after getting an electrical engr. degree there. Even the entire engineering faculty there is increasingly becoming largely foreign-born. |
Bob
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Username: Bob
Post Number: 1539
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 11:00 pm: | |
We do need to recruit those top tier of people to be teachers, but why would they want to be come teachers when they can go in the private sector and make much more money than they would teaching? The same people that are the first to suggest that we need to recruit better teachers believe we pay them too much money and give them benefits they should not get. As a teacher myself, I agree we need to recruit better teachers, but if you want scientists to teach science classes, you are going to have to pay them what they would make working for a major company, if not they will continue to thumb their noses at education and go into the private sector.
Another minor point that may or may not come into play is that in the US, every child is part of the education system, therefore is tested and therefore plays into the statistics. How many other countries have all their children in the education system like we do, or do they only count just their very best who happen to be part of the education system. This is not an excuse for the problems with the US education system, but I would be interested to see if this is a small factor.
Also LY, the Gross book is very telling. My only complaint is that it is dated and needs to be updated to include NCLB. This would not change his main points, but it would be interesting to see his take on NCLB and 10+ years of having charter schools. |
Ccbatson
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Username: Ccbatson
Post Number: 2205
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 12:13 am: | |
All of the nation's schools have a problem...it's called PUBLIC education. Privatize the system if you want quality. Fortunately, students (some of them), their talents, and work ethic (some of which comes from the home) can overcome the handicap of the public system. |
Scs100
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Username: Scs100
Post Number: 1407
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 12:16 am: | |
No they don't CC. There are plenty of public school districts that are better than private schools. Three in the immediate area: Grosse Pointe, West Bloomfield, and Birmingham. |
English
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Username: English
Post Number: 561
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 1:16 am: | |
Ffdfd - The NCEE report says that creativity and innovation is the one area that the US still has cornered - today. But we will not have that area cornered for long if we don't change the entire structure of American schooling.
My fear is that it will take us longer to train comparable numbers of STEM proficient students than it will take China, India, et. al to add the arts and humanities into their curricula and stress "creativity".
The challenge? In order to think of creative solutions in future fields, one has to have acquired native proficiency in the scientific and/or mathematical registers. It is my firm belief that ALL students who are going into all 21st century fields benefit from STEM proficiency. It doesn't take anything away from me as someone who's getting a Ph.D in the social sciences/humanities to say it. Indeed, having originally been a STEM kid all the way up through sophomore year of college has helped me to think of literacy in ways that most "English" types just don't, and can't. |
Tkelly1986
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Username: Tkelly1986
Post Number: 398
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 6:01 am: | |
"Since I teach the ACT review every year at the beginning of the year, my students did better on the MME this year than most other students in the building. The average score for ACT in our building prior to this year was a 15, this year the average for my classes was a 19".
That is still a pretty piss poor score. Also, every time something comes up where it shows that other systems besides Detroit are having problems, people use it as an excuse to say “see it's not just us” and then write off the ills of the DPS as not so bad because it happens elsewhere. The DPS is still a corrupt joke of a school system, caused by a combination of the idiots who run it, parents who do not care and a lack of teachers that have the ability to actually educate another human being. The cream of the crop in the teaching profession is not beating down the door to come teach in Detroit…..however, you can figure parents are not going to be able to give the support needed to raise a productive child when they are a child themselves.
(Message edited by tkelly1986 on August 17, 2007) |
Detroitteacher
Member
Username: Detroitteacher
Post Number: 1141
Registered: 06-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 9:39 am: | |
At least I am in the trenches with the kids and am trying. 19 is great compared to the 15 of the general populous of DPS. |
English
Member
Username: English
Post Number: 562
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 10:52 am: | |
Detroitteacher, you're doing an excellent job. The median score for Cass Tech when I taught there was only 21-22, and those kids have considerable advantages over yours. Surprisingly enough, the median score for nonblack students @ Cass Tech was a whopping 26. Same education, same classroom. Don't tell me it's the teachers.
And don't worry about the naysayers. I got the shock of my life when I taught in Ann Arbor and saw the real deal. With all the advantages kids in A2, Grosse Pointe, Birmingham, etc. have, they ought to be topping the test scores internationally and 90% or more of their student bodies should be earning perfect or nearly perfect scores on any test they take. OTOH, I know the reality of the conditions that many Detroit kids live in, and I'm surprised that they do as well as they do.
The teaching profession has it all wrong. The teachers with the most experience very often teach in better districts, at magnet schools, or teach AP. The most inexperienced teachers end up with the biggest challenges. Perhaps it should be the way around. Imagine if the only doctors who worked on terminally ill patients or those who needed urgent care were interns or residents, w/o any supervision or expertise.
In my field, there are ways to teach just about any adolescent to read. I enjoyed my Ann Arbor special ed job and teaching 5 summer school session precisely because it proved that I was a teacher, not just someone who helped already smart and advantaged kids learn and grow. I loved being the first teacher to unlock the power of literacy for my special ed kids, juvenile offenders, and good kids who didn't "get it" during the regular school year. It is my belief that every child can excel academically save for the very few with severe developmental disabilities, given optimal environments.
The difference is that Detroiteacher and I seem to be specialists. DT, I'm sure you're like me: earning advanced degrees, going for SB-CEUs, membership in our national/international professional association, budgeting time every month to read the research journals you get. But at the 4 schools I've taught at, urban AND suburban, I was always either one of a few or the ONLY teacher in my department who did this. Imagine a doctor who didn't read her/his journals! New problems of practice crop up all the time -- and researchers and master practitioners are actually solving these problems. If you keep with the literature, your test scores will improve, and so will your kids' learning. I've seen the difference in my kids' trajectories -- during my 5th year of teaching I made a GIANT conceptual leap in what I knew about teaching academic literacy. My kids benefitted, but it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't attended professional conferences, read the research journals, and done considerable work on my own.
That is why, as teacher educator Harry Wong promised, I could have any job in the profession 5 years in. I walked into my suburban job after 6 years of DPS hard work, and turned down a job @ Roeper to take it. I say that not just to brag (although I've worked HARD, just like DT!), but to say that because the bar in education is set so low, that results are always rewarded. And it's not treacherous to admit that educators need to work smarter, not harder.
(Message edited by English on August 17, 2007) |
Spartacus
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Username: Spartacus
Post Number: 219
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 10:56 am: | |
SCS, could you clarify this statement:
"There are plenty of public school districts that are better than private schools. Three in the immediate area: Grosse Pointe, West Bloomfield, and Birmingham."
I would agree that the schools in those districts are comparable to some private schools. But to say that they are better than all private schools (I'm not sure this is what you meant to say) would be, in my opinion, grossly inaccurate. |
English
Member
Username: English
Post Number: 563
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 11:04 am: | |
Spartacus, correct. I work with many Bloomfield & B'ham teachers here @ U-M. Perhaps it is true that kids in the top tracks are competitive (almost ALL suburban districts in this area are notorious for tracking), but I wish people would look @ their disaggregated test scores. Categorically better than Detroit? Yes! Good as the best schools out East? You wish. |
Fastone
Member
Username: Fastone
Post Number: 2
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 11:08 am: | |
I don't think standardized tests show a persons education. Some people are good at taking them and some people aren't! |
Scs100
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Username: Scs100
Post Number: 1410
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 11:23 am: | |
I meant some private schools, not all. Sorry. |
Track75
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Username: Track75
Post Number: 2580
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 12:32 pm: | |
Highly accomplished teachers like DT and English who approach teaching as a profession, hone their teaching skills on an ongoing basis and can (most importantly) show superior results in their students each year ought to earn $100K - $150K/year. They'd be worth it based on the tangible difference they make in our children.
On the other hand, the teachers who are just going through the motions while waiting for retirement are overpaid babysitters undeserving of the pay scale for 20+ year teachers.
Being able to pay great teachers six-figure salaries and broom the laggards would be a great start but the whole US K-12 educational needs to be reworked. It's ridiculous that 14 years of schooling (PK-12) at a rough cost of $10,000 per student per year gets us the typical HS grad. I don't see sufficient value there.
I used to interview a lot of job applicants for jobs that required a HS diploma. It was sad to see how many had graduated from high school but couldn't write a coherent paragraph, couldn't find a length like 7 5/8" on a ruler and couldn't do the simplest business or manufacturing math.
I don't see signs that the educational approach in the US will be changing significantly any time soon. I'll take responsibility for ensuring that my children are educated well, but it would be nice if the school system was better set up to help. |
Bob
Member
Username: Bob
Post Number: 1541
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 1:17 pm: | |
Something you are going to hear much more about is merit pay for teachers. The unions will argue about it, but it is starting to be experimented with in other parts of the country. I think Grand Rapids Public Schools had variant of it, but it had to do with enrollment, but I can't remember the details about it exactly. Also from being a teacher at a private school, I can say comparing private schools to public schools is like comparing apples and oranges. Private School for one due to having to pay tuition already attract a certain type of student. If that students is wasting their education, their parents are not going to waster the money on the private school when they can send their child to a public school for free. Yes, there are private schools that have tuition assistance, but a student who is getting that usually will live up to certain standards or they are out of there. Again, as the Gross book points out, our public school system is designed in the factory model, to train the masses to work in the industrial world as an educated factory worker. The world has changed to post-industrial, yet our school system has not. |
Yelloweyes
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Username: Yelloweyes
Post Number: 175
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 7:00 pm: | |
It's to bad that the MEAP, ACT, MME, SAT...measure what really matters, people skills, self confidence, leadership, and work ethic. These are the things that determine a "successful" future for a person |
Detroitteacher
Member
Username: Detroitteacher
Post Number: 1142
Registered: 06-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 11:23 pm: | |
I'm all for teacher merit pay! I believe that teachers who aren't doing their jobs should be fired (and the kids will be the first ones to tell who is and isn't teaching). I'm all for charters/private/public as long as it's a good fit for the student.
Like English, I am continuing my education, reading the research (and conducting my own), working on two additional Master's as well as trying to find time to earn my Ed Specialist degree. I attend and pay for professional development on my own (the PD the district offers is useless). I network with other teachers in other districts, do lesson plan swaps, etc. Above all else, I LISTEN to my students. They are the only people who can tell me what their strengths and weaknesses are and what they want to learn (but haven't been able to). The number one request I get each year is to teach them how to write a paper that flows and uses the 6+1 traits of good writing (the kids don't know what it's called, but they know what it is). They also want to know how to better comprehend what they are reading.
Anyone who says that DPS kids are lazy and don't want to learn and that teachers don't want to teach needs to come talk to my students. Not ALL are motivated like this but I'd say the better part of them really want to learn. I'm in this for the KIDS. I could be doing other things with my life to earn more money, but I have a passion for what I do. I could be teaching in a posh district (I've had offers) but I have kids who need me right where I'm at. The kids in more affluent districts get teachers who don't want a challenge. My kids challenge me each and every day and I wouldn't trade that for anything! |
Ray
Member
Username: Ray
Post Number: 982
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 12:35 am: | |
I'm just not sure teachers make all that much difference. How hard can it be to teach grade school. It seems like they ought to open the profession up to retirees and volunteers -- smart people who didn't major in "education".
I had an A plus average in HS, went to an Ivy League School, majored in electrical engineering blah blah blah, and I don't think my grade school teachers knew what the hell they were doing (this was in the 1970's) or had any effect on me one way or the other.
As far as I could tell, grade school was a baby sitting service. The teachers thought that I was an idiot, I thought they were idiots and I basically learned by reading at home. I mean, after the teacher spent two hours on the three phases of matter in fourth grade, I just checked out. It's like solid, liquid, gas, what fucking word don't you understand?
Now, the high school teachers had a huge impact, and I am in their debt. I can see that is a much more sophisticated process. But it was a private school I am quite certain that their methods would be "frowned upon" by the educational establishment. (like, they were quick to beat the hell out of us). But the ones who made a difference they were smart as shit and I learned a ton.
(Message edited by ray on August 18, 2007)
(Message edited by ray on August 18, 2007) |
Ccbatson
Member
Username: Ccbatson
Post Number: 2263
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 12:48 am: | |
Scs100, the performance of the students at the suburban schools you mentioned is better/good. That does not mean that the school is good. In fact, some exceptional students rise out of the worst conditions in the worst schools in Detroit.
Merit pay is, at best, a band aid. The whole system needs to be privatized to begin to reform education properly. |
Ray
Member
Username: Ray
Post Number: 983
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 12:55 am: | |
Sorry to prattle on.
What I remember now, which is really scary, was the mentality when I was a kid that doing well in school was bad. That made you a "brain". If I did well in school, I kept my mouth shut about it because that was a sure fire way to get beat up on the playground.
I went to five grade schools in five years, and the only exception to his was Burton elementary in Huntington Woods (first grade), which seemed to me to be a great school.
I just kind of assumed that this was how the whole world operated until I moved out of Michigan at the age of 17 and realized that, in fact, the rest of the country and world prize doing well in school.
(Message edited by ray on August 18, 2007) |
Ccbatson
Member
Username: Ccbatson
Post Number: 2265
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 1:07 am: | |
Puhlease, you think that the rebellious subculture and peer pressure not to do well in school is unique to Michigan? Think again. |
Tkelly1986
Member
Username: Tkelly1986
Post Number: 399
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 4:36 am: | |
Ccbatson: Are you talking privately administered, but publicly funded? Because privatizing the systems completely will be a disaster for a city with as high of employment rate as Detroit (hence, people need to be subsidized or they cannot afford it). If you look at healthcare, and the fact that our privately funded/administered systems is significantly more expensive (and for that matter, much less effective if you judge it by health outcomes and the amount of people served) than its publicly financed adversaries, one may assume a private education system will disenfranchise even more students in Detroit.
I am afraid this will create a targeted system, which is not only more costly than a universal system, but has many more side effects, such as stigmatization and the loss of or creation of a second class “citizenship” (read Titmus, (1950) or Marshall, (1975) to understand what I am talking about). Privatizing is not the answer for everything.
(Message edited by tkelly1986 on August 18, 2007) |
Ffdfd
Member
Username: Ffdfd
Post Number: 154
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 4:09 pm: | |
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll /article?AID=/20070828/NEWS06/ 70828035
Michigan students do better than average on the SAT, although those stats are skewed because so few students here take that test. But Michigan seniors do better than average on the ACT too. There is some good news in there, though I think standardized test results are overemphasized. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 3813
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 5:21 pm: | |
I heard that the SATs were released today or yesterday. Last year only 8 or 9% of MI HS seniors took the test because the Upper Midwest is ACT country, where about 90% take the ACT.
So, as stated, the SATs in MI are very highly skewed, score-wise because usually only the brightest kids here take the SAT. |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 1485
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 10:11 am: | |
The SAT is also a harder test than the ACT (I took both). |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 3815
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 10:30 am: | |
quote:The SAT is also a harder test than the ACT .... Still, the SAT itself had been dumbed down after January 1994. Up to that time, Mensa had accepted very high scores from the original SAT--the Scholastic Aptitude Test--as one of their 300 or so tests for admission.
However, as of April 1994, Mensa no longer accepts any test scores from the current, dumbed-down SAT--the Scholastic Assessment Test--and likewise for the ACT since 1989. They no longer discriminate sufficiently at the high end for Mensa's purposes--to filter the upper 2% in IQ. |
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