Archive for April, 2009
Better Philosophy
What President Obama needs to hit on is a better overall philosophy of Education. America is falling behind in literacy rates, test scores, you name it. We spend more on Education than any other country, but we are not gaining any progress on the rest of the world. A lack of focus and an acceptance of mediocrity have led to poor performances and President Obama needs to shock the Educational system back to life. More students than ever seem to not be taking school or their education seriously and the scariest part are that some teachers seem to be ok with it. Going through the [Read more...]
Evaluation for Merit Pay
As a future educator, I believe merit pay is a good idea. However, as a future special educator, I am concerned about the methods by which a teacher will be evaluated for merit pay. If teachers are to be evaluated through the same process by which we evaluate schools and teachers for the No Child Left Behind Act, through standardized testing, I am concerned for the special educators. Prior to attending school at WIU, I worked with special education students as a program assistant in a junior high school. I assisted with the administration of the standardized tests. It was quite painful to see these [Read more...]
Merit Pay
As a student who his currently getting my elementary education degree from Western Illinois University, I feel strongly on the issue of merit pay. There are many different opinions and feelings on merit pay and how it will truly benefit teachers and their students. As of right now, the concept of merit pay is flawed. Teachers are given a monetary bonus based on his or her students’ test scores. However, if teacher #1 has seven students with learning disabilities and teacher #2 only has one, whose students will receive better standardized test scores? Does this necessarily mean that teacher #2 is a better educator? [Read more...]
Teachers’ Exclusion from Policy-Making
Whether it’s making a critical decision in everyday life or to employ a new policy, one needs to have truthful information provided by reliable sources. Why is that not the case when it comes to policy making in education? Teachers’ exclusion from policy making only works against the education system. Teachers are the professionals of education, the ones who have had the most experience dealing with the policies on a day to day basis.
I understand that because we live in a democratic society, the need for everyone to voice their opinion is valued and accepted. Educator’s should not believe that they should have the first and only [Read more...]
Zero Tolerance
I believe that the rules and policy of zero tolerance should be changed. This policy allows for some students that may be doing a good thing or something that they did not know the would get in trouble for to get suspended or expelled. For example, in my education class, we hard of a case where a five year old student found a razor blade at their bus stop and brought it to school to show the teacher. As a result, the students was expelled and had to transfer schools. I believe that there are instances where zero tolerance is appropriate but I also believe that [Read more...]
Music IS fundamental!
I am a senior music education major at Western Illinois University. Throughout my time at this institution, I have taken numerous classes on how to become a good teacher. One thing I have noticed is how frequently music will be cut from school programs. Music has been proven to help students gain academic and critical life skills, like working together and building social skills. Music is also an important part of each country’s culture. Due to the constant immigration, we as a nation are blessed to have many styles and genres of music to appreciate. Students are given an opportunity to explore these genres and [Read more...]
Teacher Salary
I am a senior at Western Illinois University and Elementary Education major. After reading over some of the other suggestions it got me thinking. Some suggestions were about funding and paying the teachers more. That is what got my attention. Personally I think that teachers should all start out at a certain pay. This would be depending on the state and or district. I know not every school in the country can be the same. Now teachers would start on this scale but they could always move up on the pay scale. They are able to move up by taking professional development courses/seminars, [Read more...]
Merit Pay
I am currently a student at Western Illinois University enrolled in the education program. I am studying to be a special education teacher with teaching certificates in both special education and elementary education. I have taken many classes that have prepared me to be a teacher and have taught over 100 hours in both the special education classroom and general education classroom. Merit pay is an issue that has come up in many discussions in the classroom and during field work that I have done with other teachers. I like the idea of merit pay, but am concerned with how it will be implemented. It is important for people who [Read more...]
How Much Tolerance for Zero Tolerance?
The current system of Zero Tolerance in America’s schools needs to be discussed and redesigned. This policy has been held firmly in place for years without any substantial amount of empirical evidence to support its implementation. In the research and discussion in my current educational law and policy class, we have determined that the negative effectives of zero tolerance currently outweigh the positives. It is of utmost importance to keep students safe at school and the zero tolerance policy was clearly designed in order to do this, however at what cost and is it effective in achieving this goal?
Since the implementation of zero tolerance expulsions and suspensions for students have [Read more...]
It’s not money, it is time
During my sixteen years of education, I have found that it does not matter how much money you give schools. The most important part of education is the amount of instructional time students have. Throwing money at schools will only cause them to find ways to spend the money, but I have never seen a school spend the money in any way that has much of a positive impact on the amount of knowledge students are learning. Along with the amount of time that students are instructed in school it is extremely important for students to have support from home. This positive influence at home is proven to be [Read more...]
