Archive for November, 2008
Learning conditions are working conditions
Dear President-Elect Obama,
I will keep my advice short. While educator salaries are important, I believe improving working conditions are critical in retaining educators. Large class size, disrespectful, disruptive, lazy students, unsupportive parents and administrators and an overburden on paperwork related to test scores have a tremendous effect on causing educators to leave the classroom.
Our classes are too large and the demands placed on us are too great to be met. We cannot be the nurse, social worker, guidance counselor, secretary, teacher, chaperone, and teach parents to parent. And in addition do all the work that our administrators cannot or will not do.
Please make the necessary [Read more...]
Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program
This progam exists now with the forgiveness of loans for teachers teaching certain subjects. I think it should be changed to affect all teachers who work in poverty schools.
Teachers are already not paid enough and this would be a way
to relieve teachers who elect to stay in the field.
This post was submitted by Idella Parks.
Test like the rest of the world–where it works fine.
I was on the Colorado State Board of Education when we started the statewide testing (CSAP) in Colorado. I helped create it modeled after Europe and Asia where rigorous state and national exams have driven their much higher quality (and less costly) public education systems.
However, our structural corrupt governance system (teacher union controlled local boards and legislatures) caused our national implementation to be very flawed.
In Europe and elsewhere the teachers never see the tests, do not administer them, and cannot teach to test items. They must teach to the much broader standards, as I thought we would when we started outcome based education and testing. However, our political [Read more...]
Keep the Heavy Hand of the Federal government out of our k-12 educaitonal system
The best advice I could give Mr. Obama is for him to listen to Diane Ravitch, a scholar far more qualified than I to comment on national educational policy. From where I stand NCLB is just another unjustice unsound govermental mandate that we have to suffer until the Monster collapses from its own weigth and stupidity.
Diane RAVITCH says:
Never before has the heavy hand of the federal government reached so intrusively into every classroom in the nation. And there is little to show for this intrusion.
The Obama administration can get off to a good start by revising NCLB.
First, it should eliminate the goal of universal proficiency by 2014, because it is [Read more...]
Worst piece of public policy I’ve ever seen . . .
As a professor of education, I’ve done a considerable amount of research on NCLB and have concluded that the following negative consequences are among its most serious:
-Narrowing of the curriculum to emphasize only those subjects that are tested
-Impoverishment of classroom teaching practices to “teach to the test,” neglecting higher-order thinking skills
-Labeling of experienced, successful teachers as not “highly qualified”
-A “diversity penalty” that puts schools with highly-diverse populations at a greater risk of being labeled as failures
-Failure to distinguish between effective and ineffective schools, and to provide real support to schools that are truly struggling
-Greatly increased federal control at the expense of local control
Among the causes of these problems are the [Read more...]
Its All About the System
The United States operates one of the highest cost, lowest performing elementary and secondary education systems in the industrialized world. Our research and that of others shows that this is because of the dysfunctional design of the American education system. What we need is a system that is able to attract its teachers from the top third of all our college graduates, as the best-performing nations do. That requires much higher compensation and, even more important, redefining the job of the teachers along professional, not blue collar, lines. That means putting the teachers in charge of our schools, just as doctors, attorneys, architects and others are in charge of [Read more...]
Performance Skills and Behaviors
Make performing/demonstrating performance skills and behaviors as (or more important) than remebering facts and procedures. Can the student give a talk, work in teams, write a paper, develop a budget/timeline; does he/she act responsibly? These are more important than factoring polynomials.
This post was submitted by Arnold Packer.
Fear vs accountability/
Fearful workers are not productive as those who have some security. There are ways to have accountability w/o making teachers frightened. there is a long litereature on this in the employee development field, albeit not in education.
This post was submitted by Arnold Packer.
Support/implement programs that stimulate science, technology, engineering, mathematics and invention innovation for our secondary students
Students in grades 7-12 are \’opting\’ out (taking \”free\” periods) out of their normal middle/high school classes to attend 2- & 4-yr. colleges and universities where they are often \”mentored\” by faculty and graduate students because they want \”meaningful\” opportunities in STEMI courses and laboratory experiences. Bright HS students are in-part bored with the traditional experiences, unless they are engaged in AP Science and Math classes, Baccalaureate courses, or university courses that \’count\’ toward their HS graduation requirements.
We need to:
1) Provide meaningful secondary experiences by encouraging our STEMI faculty to become better prepared by obtaining higher degrees in CONTENT areas rather than in education, per se.
2) Encourage STEMI-centric students to [Read more...]
Reauthorize the Education Sciences Act and Fund IES
Reauthorize The Education Sciences Reform Act and fund the Institute for Education Science. Our teachers need usable knowledge about how children learn and how to teach them better. Should a teacher give homework to first graders and if so, what type? Do grades enhance learning, increase effort, or motivate students? When and under what conditions should a teacher praise students’ work? What are the best strategies for introducing fractions to fourth graders or teaching high school students who failed to learn fractions earlier? How can we help hyperactive children pay attention? Teachers make decisions about such issues daily and we need research [Read more...]
