Ed schools vs. education - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 5 views
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"The achievement gap between the U.S. and the world's top-performing countries can be said to be causing the equivalent of a permanent recession," Mr. Hanushek wrote for Education Next.
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anonymous on 12 Aug 12What are your thoughts on this?
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Today we lead the world only in how much we spend per pupil.
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There are many reasons for this, of course. But, why do you suppose we're not getting the achievement?
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Is it because we are forcing all kids to fit the same standards rather than develop different standards for different needs of the students? -
Not in % of GDP we spend... Of course, those other countries spend on pupil support: extended parental leave, full health care...
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Far and away the most important factor in student learning is the quality of teachers. If we got rid of just the bottom 5 percent to 7 percent of teachers, that alone would lift our kids to Canadian levels, Mr. Hanushek calculates.
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This is a delicate subject. But, we all know folks who don't put forth the effort that they should. What IF we did this?
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How do you compare this? In my school, I will have 183 students in my classes this year, and none will be considered advanced math students. Our calc teacher will have a majority of the advanced students and his enrollment numbers are at 93. How does this compare?
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I only teach the lower level students (no complaints about that, I'm good at what I do) but they will not hit "advanced"!!
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Our teachers "do not know anything," according to Terrence Moore, who teaches history at Hillsdale College. That's largely because most have degrees in education rather than in the subjects they teach.
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Teachers are constrained by many different influences. Creativity is stifled, we teacher to the lowest common "core" denominator. Schools are not bold but old. We are rewarded by passing many useless measures, which unfortunately this article is based off of. Standardized test scores have blinded the public to what is important. Being able to problem solve and to be creative has always been the mark of an American, but that is being stripped of this generation b/c of the drive to wards testing.
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And what are elementary teachers supposed to have degrees in? Do you really want a second grade teacher with a major in history? Or chemistry? In college, I took engineering and business calculus classes, business statistics and accounting, in addition to my education math classes. Does it matter that I didn't get a degree in math? Isn't it better that I also have courses in ancient near eastern history? And Arthurian legends? And American and English literature and American government?
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"Future teachers are better served by getting good grounding in academic subject matter."
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Is that true? Or, is it better to learn how to teach and to use technology for what its capable of doing, etc etc?
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Ed schools seem to think knowing stuff isn't important.
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"If you confront [teachers] with the fact that they, just as their students, can tell you nothing about the first 10 presidents or the use of the gerund, they will blithely respond that it is not so important for them to know things as to know 'how to know things,' " said Mr. Moore.
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The reform needed is to remove state "certification" requirements. The reason for them, we're told, is to guarantee that only the qualified teach. Their real purpose is to keep the knowledgeable out of the classroom.
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"Yet these education schools," Mr. Moore points out, "not only do not impart real knowledge of academic subjects; they are actively hostile to it."
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The first three out of four years in college were spent taking more non-education courses than education related. We all had to take the full math/English/history/science core courses, then added psychology and sociology in addition to the education courses and several internships as well.
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If instead of being forced to hire the certified, schools were free to hire the qualified, colleges of education would wither away -- and learning would blossom.
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Many qualified folks lost their positions when they weren't deemed 'highly qualified.'
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Isn't that what certification is? An official statement that the person is indeed qualified?
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But, wasn't he just complaining several paragraphs ago that 60% of teachers are certified in their subjects? And he wants to add more uncertified teachers?
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Students learn a lot from the teacher who knows a lot," Mr. Moore said. "They learn nothing from the teacher who knows nothing."
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they aren't allowed to teach.
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Why would they? The work is difficult, the pay is terrible and everyone outside of education thinks you're lazy.
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A medical doctor teaching in HS? What, around their appointments with patients?
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And politicians take cushy jobs as lobbyists. I can't think of many teachers who only need to teach civics. It's only a small part of the full curriculum.
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Not so many years ago, our schools were the best in the world
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