The Weirdness in Wisconsin (doesn't quite have the rhythm of the Thrila in Manila, does it?) brings a number of significant public policy questions to the forefront? (There are a number of difficult to resist punchlines here- I'll resist for the most part, but here is an example- Why did the Senators flee to Illinois when they could have chosen Minnesota, Iowa or even Canada?)
One story in the news caught my eye though. Although all kinds of public employees would be affected by the changes proposed in Wisconsin, the story noted that teachers were particularly angry.
I hate to say I told you so (OK well that's not true), but I have been saying since the early days of no child's behind left that teachers are going to get angry. One of the central principles of NCLB and of education reform in general is that teachers, more specifically public school teachers, stink.
Don't get me wrong. I readily admit that there are some bad teachers. I'm a product of the Chicago public schools, and I could testify under oath that I had some awful teachers. I could also testify that I had some great teachers. To conclude that all of the woes of our education system should be blamed on teachers is so simplistic, it has got to be wrong.
For example, to conclude that a teacher in a high poverty area is bad because her kids scores on standardized tests are way lower that those of the teacher in a high income suburb does not show that the first teacher defies logic. Yet that seems to be one of the core principles of education reform.
So teachers are angry. Are we really surprised? In this climate, those who decide to become teachers must really love kids. Good teachers are heroes and I suggest that we give them a little more respect.
I know that a number of the readers of this blog are professors who teach future teachers. I know a bunch of them, and they are really good at what they do. They are enthusiastic and dedicated to their students and those children whom their students will be teaching. But the way we train teachers is suddenly in the news- big time. I suspect that the following comments don't pertain so much to the institutions where my friends work, but a national debate has begun and we need to discuss it here.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently unleashed a firestorm when he suggested that the overall quality of teacher preparation programs in America is 'mediocre." Citing studies that over 60% of new teachers feel unprepared and his own discussions with teachers who feel that they did not receive enough practical classroom training and that they were not ready for behavior issues and dealing with poor children, Duncan stated his case. He called for revolutionary change in our methods of teacher preparation and stated that one million new teachers will be neede
d in the next five years. Here is the New York Timesstory on Duncan's speech.
In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Susan Engel, director of the teaching program at Williams College, took this point a step further. Here is the article. She suggests that teachers should be trained much like surgeons; working side by side with a very skilled mentor, getting plenty of feedback and taking on more and more responsibility as they improve as a teacher. She also suggests that student teachers and their mentors review videotapes of themselves in action to help them improve. She argues that student teachers should continue to study the subject that they will be teaching as well as education techniques; she strongly emphasizes the need for more training on the developmental needs of children. Finally she argues that school districts should be given the resources to hire new teachers in groups of seven to help develop more camaraderie.
These are some intriguing thoughts. I really like the surgeon-method idea. Teachers are important. Special education teachers are included within this group of important people. I think that one could easily make an argument that teachers, of general or special ed, are at least as important to our society and its future as surgeons. But if we train them like surgeons, shouldn't we also pay them like surgeons?
Also making recommendations for changes in teacher preparation and recruitment, as well as radical changes in teacher pay and evaluation methods, is the report issued Tuesday by the think tank called the Strategic Management of Human Capital. Scrolling down this link will lead you to the full report. I understand that the teacher unions fell that the committee that prepared their report ignored their input.
One of the problems that I have with the whole No Child Left Behind analysis is that it seems to blame the entire education problem on bad teachers. There are bad teachers; as a public school system product, I can say without equivocation that there are bad teachers. But really, there have always also been plenty of great teachers. I have a hard time believing that some bad teachers are the only thing wrong with the education system. Also the merit pay concept sounds like a good idea, but only if the evaluation system can be designed fairly- so that it truly identifies good teachers and not just the principal's pet or the popular kid!
What are your ideas on this topic? Do we need to make changes in the teacher preparation system? Are there other reasons that the education system is having problems?
Image via Wikipedia
